If you’re a sales and marketing professional, you’ve worked in and around the planning process your entire career. It’s no secret that your ability to successfully deliver the numbers for your past employers has probably been predicated on having a sound strategy and knowing your plan of attack.
As you think about starting a career search, it’s absolutely critical that you also have a personal plan related to what it is you hope to accomplish, as you look for that next great position. Lots of people enter the job market with no specific strategy other than to prepare their résumé, post it on all of the major job sites, and start doing some networking. In order to be effective at your job search, you need to be a lot more systematic than that. I see sales and marketing executives come through my office on a regular basis who really don’t even know what they’re looking for. As a result of that, it’s very difficult for me to help them achieve their objectives.
Most people that you network with want to help you, but they want to know how they can help you. This is probably one of the biggest mistakes that I see people make when they start a new career search: not spending time to think through what it is that they want in their next career move. Before you pick up the phone, or post a résumé on any career websites, or start networking with people, start by setting aside some time for yourself to do some career planning. If you need help in this area, there are plenty of career counselors and there are also recruiting companies that help candidates to figure what it is that they want to do. There are also career guidance companies and also many great books, including What Color Is Your Parachute? which will help you go through a systematic process to figure out what it is that you want to be doing.
recruiting
employment
executive search
staffing
Labels: career, recruiting