The Guide to the Perfect Job Search

I’ve found that a job search is just like the search for the perfect husband. “You can’t hurry love,” or so my mother and The Supremes both cleverly stated. In truth, you can’t hurry the perfect job, either. If there’s one thing I’ve learned in my hunt for perfection, it’s that without knowing what you bring to the table, (professionally and personally,) marketing your brand is irrelevant.

Smart job seekers know that knowing their strengths and weaknesses are essential to a successful job campaign. Without the knowledge of greatest abilities and faults you won’t be able to pave the way for passion in both career and personal lives. When we speak of what we are successful at and the passion beneath our surface, we speak on a deeper level of what we offer. That level offers the advantage over the other job seekers who are still questioning their abilities while you are questioning what you can use your abilities to do best. The guide to the perfect job search: Question, Assess, Develop, Progress!

Question
Why are you still unemployed and what can you focus differently on? Ask yourself the hard questions: Who am I? What am I drawn to? What do I thrive on? Questioning leads to enlightenment and when you shine a light on yourself in your job search? You glow.

Assess
Go to www.iseek.org or visit your local WorkForce Center and take a self-assessment on your strengths and passions. Once you can pinpoint who you are, it’s much easier to go after what you want.

Develop
Take time to write a strategic cover letter or a professional resume. Network with those around you and online and take in the knowledge that others offer. Create your marketing plan by taking your strengths and proclaiming them on paper. Once we say who we are, it helps us instantly believe it.

Progress
A job search is not always forward. Sometimes, we go sideways by taking new classes or certifications. Other times we take a step backwards just to get in the door at a company we’ve always wanted to work for. We take and we receive, and in the middle? The best work is done, because we take all the above and find ourselves.

A successful job search may not mean that you are employed immediately after a lay-off just like a successful relationship usually doesn’t immediately follow the timeline within a break-up. Time and self-awareness makes both this things possible.

“Dwell in Possibility.” –Emily Dickenson