Finding Your Next Job Faster: Proven Strategies
In the last twelve hours, I coached a twenty-eight-year-old who was laid off by a big company five months ago.
Now I hear about a massive layoff of salespeople by a PE firm that owns an underperforming public company they recently took private.
These layoffs are to experienced young professionals who are performing for their employers. It didn't matter. They were riffed. They are all pissed and baffled at their employer's decision. Good. Get over it quickly. You need to find a new job.
The young man I coached graduated with a finance degree from the University of Georgia with a 3.92 GPA. His first job was with a market-leading valuation firm. An F200 commercial manufacturer then recruited him away to join their corporate development team doing acquisitions and divestitures. He was caught in a corporate-wide riff. He's been unemployed for five months.
He has two to three months of savings. In the last three months, he's been doing contract work to help friends and friends of friends who own small service businesses. He just began doing delivery for Doordash—anything to pay the rent.
Why can't he find a job?
Two reasons:
He lacked focus. He wasn't sure what he wanted to do next. His three options included: go back to corporate development, join a private equity firm, get into a growth stage, VC backed company. Shooting at all three opportunities at once, he hit nothing.
He wasn’t a truth-seeker. He needed to be practical in this search, not idealistic. Finding employment is all about seeking truth and dealing with it. It is not about what you want. It is all about what the market needs. They are paying, not you.
Here is how to find your next job faster.
Remember this market truth. Your market value is based on your last gig. You are unemployed and your goal is to get re-employed. Forget about what you want to do if it differs from what you were doing. Focus on finding employment in what you did last, in the industry you did it in, for a company of like-size. This is where you will find employment most quickly.
What you say to everyone matters. What you say you want to do must align completely with what a prospective employer seeks. You can't be a close fit. You must be a perfect fit.
Everyone you talk to is a potential referral. When networking to find that next employer, never, ever vary from saying what you are looking for and why you are great at it. To reduce their risk in referring you to someone in their network, you must make them believe you are crystal clear in what you are looking for and convicted of doing it when you find it. If you are wishy-washy you will never get a referral.
Your resume is the written proof statement for what you say you want to do. The more focused on your desired job the education and experience on your resume the more productive your resume in landing your next job. Only include information in your resume that is in agreement with and supports what you say you want to do.
The interview should be storytelling. Stories create credibility. Short, snappy answers are clever but come across as rehearsed.. Be ready with anecdotes that highlight your job experience as it relates to what you say you want to do. These stories, your stories, are your proof statement that makes you an attractive and low-risk hire. The stories detail your on the ground experience and understanding of the work to be done. The stories also reveal your character and work ethic, which the prospective employer is looking for.
Get employed first, then put a plan together to find your dream job. It costs money to live. You must cover your basic expenses of food, rent, phone, car insurance, repairs, and clothing. If you run out of money, you will either move back in with mom and dad, or you'll take jobs that detract from your value to a prospective employer. Also keep in mind, when you are employed and looking for a change in industry or company size, you have more credibility with the people you are networking with because you are employed. If unemployed while doing this type of networking, you may sound like a dreamer and lacking in direction, thus employability. Employed people have cred in the marketplace. Unemployed people don’t.
There is a process to change occupations, industries and company size but that is an article for another time. Right now, focus on getting a job based on your last gig.
You need money to live on. You need a job to make you real in the marketplace.
Have you or someone you know experienced a recent layoff? Let's discuss strategies for getting reemployed quickly. What challenges have you faced, and how did you overcome them? Share your thoughts.