Finding A Job - Where Do I Start?

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The following questions are designed to help with your thinking around the ideal next role for you and in building a framework for your personal marketing plan:

A good starting point for this particular reflection is: "If someone was calling me about the perfect employment opportunity, what would they be telling me about/what would I hear them saying about it?"

Where to work?

You decide where you are willing to work!
Are you willing to move to another city, or stay where you are?
Are you willing to use public transport or drive a car?
Are you willing to work within, say 10km, 20km or 30km from home?
City? Suburbs?
Bus route? Train line?

What type of work?

You decide what work you want to do!
This may be the time to change direction.
Ever had a dream?
Part time or full time?
Permanent or contract?
Name the type of work that you would be happy to do or at least think about.
Don’t forget a hobby or something else that you love to do that could be turned into a business!

What type of job?

Organisations often title similar roles very differently. For example, in one company a role may be called Financial Controller and in another company it may be called Finance Manager. Or a Sales Director in one company may be called a General Sales Manager in another. Don't be put off by the title of the role. Look more closely at the content - what will you be doing on a day-to-day basis in this role? This will give you a good idea of the 'level' of the role. There are lots of different jobs in most organisations. You won't want to do all those jobs so think about what you will spend your time doing.
Name the jobs that you would be happy to do or at least think about. Give a bit more detail this time.

What type of business?

Decide what type fo business you want to work in.
Small, medium, large?
Public/private ownership?
Start-up or established?
One branch or multi-branches?
Company culture?
Industry (or any industries you would/wouldn't work in)?
Other?
Name the types of businesses you may like to work in or at least think about. If you need more ideas, use the internet to do some research or talk with your friends about what they like/dislike in the organisations they work for.

Your target market?

Put all this together and you’ve got your target market - a list of companies you want to talk to, places to visit and types of work you really want to do!
Very often, you can choose who you want to work for. Who are the good employers? Is there an organisation you’ve always wanted to work with? This may be the time to target them.

Who will you target?

Again, you can use the telephone directory or internet to find the companies. Target about 12 companies.

SO NOW YOU HAVE YOUR ‘WISH LIST’ IN A PERFECT WORLD…

Once you have reflected on these questions, you will have a comprehensive idea of what you are targeting for your next move. Unfortunately, it is unlikely that you can satisfy absolutely everything on your wish list, so now you need to decide what is critical and what might be negotiable in your next role.

The following is a list (not exhaustive) of what ‘candidates buy’ when searching for their next career step:

Salary
Flexible hours
Perks
Role content
Management style
Location
Lifestyle
Offshore opportunities
Mentor
Job security
Career progression
Stability
Training & development
Promotional prospects
Reputation
Company culture
Job title

Examples of how you might be negotiable:
For the perfect role in the CBD, you may be looking for a base salary of say $50,000. However if the role was only 5 minutes from home, you might consider a lower base salary of say $45,000 as it is more convenient, lower transport costs, etc.

Ideally, you may prefer to work in a large organisation however, you have found the perfect role with great challenges, training and development and opportunity for promotion (all the things that were in your ‘must have’ list). But the business only has about 50 employees. Because it satisfies all of your ‘must haves’ you may feel more negotiable on the size of the organisation.