Create Your Job Search Plan: The Simple Plan To Land Your Next Job

December 13, 2017December 13, 2017 gccexchange 0 Comment

Did you ever see a post about a successful person on LinkedIn talking about how he/she landed a job and how grateful he/she is?

What was your reaction when you saw this post?

I personally used to see these posts and say: “They are just lucky!”

In reality, there is a bigger game being played. If you dig deeper, you will understand what it takes to land a job.

I have to admit, there is a bit of luck to land a job. But I learnt from my personal experience that it goes deeper than that.

The secret to all of this is to build a Job Search Plan that ensures you will:

Standout from the other candidates
Attract the employers to call you
Land Job Interviews
And Land Your Dream Job!

In this article, I will show you how to develop a simple Job Search Plan.

This Job Search Plan will consist of 3 steps:

Step 1: Define Your Dream Job
Step 2: Craft Your Irresistible Marketing Materials
Step 3: Build a Healthy Network

Step 1: Define Your Dream Job

To find a job, you need to define it first! You might have a quick answer to this, but you will be surprised how many people don’t start from here first.

Ask Yourself: “What is the job title I am looking for?”

Example: “Marketing Executive” or “Sales Representative”

Note: It’s OK to have multiple answers, you can use multiple ones in the next steps.

If you are facing trouble answering this question: check out job portals like Bayt.com and go through the job postings there. Read the job descriptions and pick the ones that makes sense to you.

Step 2: Craft Your Irresistible Marketing Materials

Now that you know what your dream job is, it’s much easier (and more powerful) to craft the right Marketing Materials for these jobs.

The Marketing Materials are mainly three pillars:

Your CV
Your Cover Letter
Your LinkedIn Profile

These three pillars are the machines that are meant to market you to the hiring managers. When crafting these pillars, there are a few general rules that you need to keep in mind when creating these materials:

Rule #1– Put yourself in the position of the hiring manager. Always think of how the hiring manager will think about what you write in your profile.

Rule #2– Relevant Experience beats Overall Experience. When you craft the marketing materials, you need to know what the hiring manager is looking for and focus on the relevant experience. This always beats the overall experience. The hiring manager will be looking at the relevant experience to what the job he/she might be considering you for. It’s much more valuable!

Your CV

To make sure your CV is amazing when you submit it, I created The Ultimate CV Checklist. It’s totally free – The Ultimate CV Checklist

Your Cover Letter

The secret to the most amazing Cover Letters in one word: Storytelling. You need to tell stories that would make the hiring manager feel and connect with you and your experience. Only then will he/she like you and call you for an interview:

Here is a structure you can use for your Cover Letter:

Dear [Name],

[Intro in one line and then mention one to three reasons why you are an amazing fit for the job]

[Reason #1 and a story that supports your claim]

[Reason #2 and a story that supports your claim]

[Reason #3 and a story that supports your claim]

[Conclusion in one line]

Best Regards,

[Your Name]

In each of the stories, you need to use vivid details and explain what were your emotions going through the story. Human beings love stories and would connect better if you do them correctly.

Your LinkedIn Profile

This one is extremely important, a hiring manager WILL look you up on LinkedIn if he is interested in you, and the profile better look professional!

Here are a few important notes to keep in mind:

Professional Photo: Use a professional photo that shows your face. No casual photos.
Title: Make sure the your title is compelling so people would click through to check you out.
Summary: Make sure to craft a compelling summary of your professional history.
Experience: Add all your experiences and the major tasks you have worked on in each job.
Links: Also, make sure to add pictures of projects, links to websites, and any other supportive resources you can find.

Note: If you think you are lacking experience, then I think this guide will help you build experience that hiring managers would love even if you don’t have a full-time job or you are just getting started with zero work experience.

Check it out, It’s totally free – The Ultimate Guide to Overcome Experience Dilemma

Step 3: Build a Healthy Network

Now you have everything setup to launch the Job Search Plan. Now, you are ready to grow your network and start networking on all the platforms possible.

Here are a few notes to keep in mind:

I don’t believe in Job Portals as the most effective way to find jobs. If you don’t network yourself, you are almost guaranteed not to land any job!
Use LinkedIn as your major source of building your network. It’s extremely powerful what you can do with LinkedIn! You can get connected to ANY person in almost ANY company in the world!
Never ask someone for a job or a referral from the first day you know them. This is just unprofessional and will come out extremely inappropriate.

Here is what I suggest you do:

Research LinkedIn for hiring managers and find an interesting fact about each hiring manager to send to them as a conversation starter.
Connect with at least 50-100 people per day through LinkedIn and message each one of them.
Make sure to add value to each one of these new connections. This could be through links to share, introduction to make, service to provide, etc..
After all of this, you can mention to the hiring managers that you are interested in certain positions.

Summary

And That’s it! That’s the Simple Job Search Plan. Now, there is one element missing: Consistent Action!

I can promise you this plan is guaranteed to fail if you don’t take action. I taught this framework to many people and they started getting opportunities within days.

Now, it’s your turn! Go ahead and take action. Let me know if you have any questions through email oz@odayzaher.com.

About Oday

I am a Dream Job Expert and a Career Coach. I helped dozens of people go through the job search process and get results by networking, building relationships, building amazing marketing documents, nailing interviews, and many more 21st century techniques.

Check out my website to download my two free resources: