3 Tips to Empower You on Your Next Job Hunt
What’s the most frustrating thing about job hunting? Honestly, there are a lot of tedious things that can get old such as writing millions of cover letters, researching every company, submitting countless resumes, making sure you stand out, etc.
But despite all those things, I think the hardest part for me is keeping track of all your opportunities and ultimately, choosing the “right one.”
I’m not generally someone who makes decisions quickly (even deciding which flavor of ice cream to get is difficult for me), so when offers are extended at different times with different deadlines, and the company you like has yet to extend an offer quite yet, that puts a lot of pressure on me.
Maybe it’s hard for me because I’m young and haven’t had much experience in job hunting (which is a valid point), but I want to write from that perspective and give what limited advice I can offer how to make your job hunt a little bit less stressful.
1 – Know What You Want
Take a piece of paper and write down exactly what you want to be doing in your job. What skills do you have and enjoy doing? What brings you to life or gets you excited to come to work? What did you like and dislike about your previous job? What are your priorities, and what’s most important to you? Determine what you’re looking for, and apply to jobs with descriptions that seem to align with your long and short term goals.
2 – Determine the Right Questions to Ask
This is related to #1 above. Figure out what questions need to be asked in order to determine if the company fits with your career goals. Some questions I asked were, “what will my day to day life look like?”, “why do you like working here?” (and I was looking to see if they were passionate about their work or the environment). Come up with your own questions that will reveal the answers you’re looking to get and write them down so you’ll have them handy during interviews. Don’t be afraid to ask any question. You’re going to be working there, and you have every right to ask questions that are going to give you answers that are important to you!
3 – Create a Pipeline
Last time I started job hunting, I created a pipeline in Google Sheets (I know, I’m a geek). This helped me keep track of all the companies I applied for and helped me visualize where they were all sitting. There were different stages for each step of the job hunting process, and I moved each company through my pipeline accordingly. Thanks to my pipeline, I was able to wrap my head around where I was in my job hunt. Plus, during this process, you need to keep in mind that YOU are interviewing those companies just as much if not more than they are interviewing you.
In the end, when it’s time to decide and pick a company, it should be a bit easier. I don’t think it’ll ever be super easy to choose though. It will always take some trust and a small leap of faith, but if you’ve defined what you want and ask the right questions, you should be much better off.
Until next time,
Hope Frances
Joy in Rain
