Avoid being a job seeker
The business world is changing at a fast pace and traditional business models are challenged. What impact does it have on your current position? Will your current job still be existing in 3 years time ?
One thing is for sure: your role, your mission and it’s content in any organisation will be different in the years to come.
Since the owner of your current job is the economy, actually your employer,
it is of paramount importance not to fall into the trap of mixing job and career ownership.
The objective of this post is an invitation to change your career strategy: as a result you will be offered job opportunities as you go along in your career journey.
Being a job seeker (a job is an information therefore a commodity) who passively applies to positions posted on job platforms or on company websites is not enough to secure the future success of your career.
Standard methods in job searching will give you the same insights as everybody else and provide the same outputs the vast majority of job seekers experiences: a negative answer because you are tapping into the visible segment of the employment market whose access is given to everybody and where competition is tough.
Instead be innovative, different and agile… like in business
The good news is that you and only you are the owner of your career.
So first re wire your thinking and and be open to a mindset shift.
In today’s work environment everyone is a business, a company: successful bloggers are a good example of this strategy.
So what is your value proposition on the market?
Why not build a business case-model around you and be prepared to be the right candidate at the right moment with the company-context you have chosen.
If you want to make a difference in today’s work market place you have to have access to hidden information combined with agility. In doing so you will compete effectively and make the necessary shifts in response to an ever changing environment.
Penetrate the hidden segment of job opportunities
The goal is to build and develop a network of contacts while approaching targeted companies in order to identify jobs in the making.
If you have access to ideas, to decisions, to information and to strategies which are « lurking» in the minds of leaders and decision makers, you will experience a larger territory of opportunities that is hidden (2/3 of jobs in the employment market). By essence this data is confidential or/and strategic and therefore communicated only on a very selective basis.
This approach will materialize in the shape of a targeted offer (You) that responds to unstructured, presumed/unimagined, yet unknown/unarticulated needs (leaders-company-market).
Dare the unknown, the discovery while being prepared and proactive
Mentally and while networking, you are a person who proposes an added value, a qualitative or quantitative pay off, who raises interest through the results of your skills and achievements. You even possibly create a need.
The hidden market is a state of mind and the masterminding of various verbal communication techniques.
A résumé and a mail-motivation letter are not priority tools: what is important is what You can offer and how you present your value proposition-positioning during the networking meeting.
Your initiatives aiming at creating a job opportunity and developing a network of contacts are an art: each contact is unique and different.
And there’s only one chance to make a first impression. Being prepared in your communication is the key to success.
Creating the desire to be hired…
Making this situation happen is something that can be learnt.
Thoroughly knowing “your own company”= YOU is a prerequisite. In other words, you need to define your positioning, your competencies and your targets (potential employers of interest to you). Your goal is to know what you want and where you want to get to, in order to avoid the risk of getting nowhere, or elsewhere. Basically, it translates into the question “What can I offer to the market?”
The step further is the quest for a validation of your offer with respect to the market and its leaders. You will match your competencies, your behaviors, your mindset with the decision makers key performance indicators. Keep in mind that their interests are also their objectives, their potential needs, and that they “buy” competencies-mindsets-behaviors which are directly linked to their performance criterion. In doing so you will add value and generate interest to your contact. This is a state of mind: be a value proposition that creates the need, rather than a job seeker who simply answers to job requirements. You will first talk business topics where you create value rather than begging for a job!
Build trust and confidence
Therefore, a proactive attitude based on initiative, staying tuned and appropriate communication is of utter importance. The quality of the relationship is central: once trust is achieved, opportunities will come up. By creating emotionally strong relationships and making your way into the confidential-strategic reflections of the leader’s mind you will obtain unexpected opportunities. Communicate and behave as if you were unique (because you are). You will then experience the privilege to create the need and not be someone who simply inherits a job description.
Then it’s Alibaba cavern… The doors will be open to “The Art of receiving unsolicited career opportunities“.
