Strategy #10: Prepare For Job Search Success

Planning for any kind of job hunt is an essential and unavoidable part of the process. This will involve the basics such as knowing what sort of job you want to go for, having an idea of where you want to be geographically located, what the salary range needs to be and so on. So far. so good.

Then you should have some idea of your job-search strategy. The fact that you’re looking at this suggests that you buy into my recommended method but, even if you don’t, you ought to be clear about where you’re going and how you intend to get there.

But even more important than these things is what’s going on inside your head. Psychological preparation is the key to success in most spheres of life and work, and never more so than when you consider the significance of any job change. In this strategy I’ll be giving you some suggestions about how to make this a foundation of your planning and preparation.

There are two distinct types of people when it comes to planning. At one end of the spectrum are those who are assiduous and dedicated in preparing for the adventure that’s about to come, and in as much detail as possible. Then there are the people who do things by the seat of their pants, the improvisors who like nothing more than to react to events as and when they come along. Of course, there are lots of people who sit somewhere in the middle but, as I’m limiting my analysis to just two groups, I’m happy to generalise about planners and pantsers.

Incidentally, the term pantser was coined in the publishing world for writers who choose to put pen to paper, or fingers to keyboard more likely, without doing any planning whatsoever. They come up with a vague idea for a novel, article or blog post and crack on with their project immediately, hoping that it will work out well at the end. Planners are the opposite. They produce a series of increasingly-detailed plans which describe their big idea, what each component looks like and what they need to do to make each stage of the plan come to fruition, reviewing and revising before they start writing.

Is it better to be a pantser or a planner? Well, that depends on what’s involved. There are arguments for and against each, on a practical level and on a psychological basis. A lot comes down to your personality, character and personal preferences, as you might imagine. If you ask me, job hunting is best conducted after a fair bit of planning, and my system benefits from a certain amount of preparation, research and rehearsal. Does that mean that pantsers won’t succeed? Not necessarily, although they’ll face a lot of challenges if they dig their heels in.

So, what are the benefits of preparation, why should pantsers reconsider their position and how should you focus your planning efforts?

First of all, being prepared to do some serious thinking about your job search in advance of anything else displays a respect of its importance to you. If something’s worth doing, it’s worth doing properly, don’t you agree? If finding a fantastic job with a great employer is high on your list of career objectives, I’d argue that you should devote sufficient time and effort to planning for success rather than flunking out in any way. Otherwise, you’re putting yourself down, knocking your chances of achieving what’s possible and explicitly stating to the people around you that you’re happy to settle for mediocre.

There. I’ve put my cards on the table regarding the planner versus pantser argument. I’m an honest guy who never sugar-coats the bad news and I have to tell any non-planning job hunters that they’ll struggle a lot by persisting with minimal preparation, and certainly so if they want to use my system.

Let me hammer the point home by outlining the benefits of planning. I’ll give you five major reasons to plan and prepare as well as you can.

First, it gives you rock-solid confidence in everything you do, from initial research meetings all the way through to decisive job interviews when hiring decisions will be taken. Self-confidence is an incredibly powerful thing and you want to make sure that you’re armed with as much of it as possible before you begin your job-hunting journey. I’ll be talking about this in more detail further down the line.  

Second, it tells you if you’re on the right track when you’re choosing which job to pitch for and which employer to approach. I’ll be getting on to these components of the transformative job search later in this series of articles but I can tell you now that high-quality preparation is the key to everything that happens when the action starts to kick in. 

Third, good planning truly reveals itself when you’re in front of hiring decision makers. Experienced recruiters can sniff out a pantser from a mile away and it’s one of the major reasons that candidates who are perceived as chancers or fly-by-nights are immediately dumped from consideration for the job. People who are well-prepared, on the other hand, and who can deliver a convincing pitch into the bargain, are breaths of fresh air to all but the most jaded interviewers.

Fourth, and connected with what I’ve just been saying, effective pitches are built upon the foundations of research and planning. Your interview pitch must be the centre-piece of your job search, and focused on answering two key questions: what is the biggest business challenge your target employer faces, and how do you propose to solve it for them in some way? You can’t even get close to knowing the substance of the questions, let alone the content of the answers, unless you do some proper preparation. 

Fifth, excellent delivery in hiring meetings is centred on preparing well and rehearsing assiduously. The latter is especially vital, something I address in an upcoming episode when I talk about sandbox practice. This is when you make dummy runs with organisations you don’t actually want to work for, and practice your interview techniques without any fear of rejection. Again, I’ll explain more about this soon.

Are you persuaded about the benefits of planning and preparation yet? I do hope so, and I wish you every success in getting this skill hammered down.

If you prefer to watch training materials rather than read or listen to them, all of these strategy articles are available in video format. Just go to YouTube and search for Vocation Master or follow this link;

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9-LHCWDj0nE&t=18s

And finally, if you have any questions about the issues I raise here, or if you'd like to contact me personally, please get in touch via LinkedIn;

https://www.linkedin.com/in/vocationmaster/