What To Do Before Starting a Job Search

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

job, role, career, salary, searching, applying, clients, resume, pay, planning, non negotiables, salary increases, filter, responsibilities, company, day, feel, career progression, called, industries

SPEAKERS

Claudia Miller

Claudia Miller  00:06

Welcome to roadmap to the executive suite podcast, a place where we talk about accelerating your careers all tailored to the ambitious woman. We're here to have fun, feel empowered and get actionable steps to get you closer to your dream job and salary, no matter where you are in your career. I'm your host, Claudia Miller, Athena, career coach and corporate trainer who helps ambitious women get the jobs they want, almost getting them up to $100,000 in salary increases. I've been featured in Forbes MSNBC, and Business Insider put me there Top Global list of top innovative career coaches, and the creative 90 day job offer program where I teach career driven women like you my proprietary strategy on how to land a job you love in less than 90 days, all while getting 30 to $100,000 in salary increases, no matter if you're just starting in your career, or you're ready to pivot into the executive suite. My clients have been able to move to the next step in their careers successfully pivoted into new industries without having to take a pay cut and broke it into management without any prior experience. I'm coming to you with a new episode every week on Thursdays with mindset job search, interview skills and sound negotiation advice with actionable strategies you can implement today to help you get ahead in your career. Now let's get started with this week's episode. 

Hi, I'm excited for today's topic around the first thing you need to do to focus on when job searching. So today, I'll be discussing a few things. But one of the things I really wanted to talk about, and this is something that I've seen come across many times when speaking to Job seekers or getting on the calls with clients is understanding of what is the number one thing you need to focus on with job searching, because there's so many things that you could focus on, right. And that's what I wanted to talk about today. So as I mentioned, today, I'm going to talk a little bit more on what you actually need to focus on when job searching and why it's important and why if you don't do it, it can really hinder your job search overall. So it will really accelerate on how to find that fulfilling job that you've been seeking, while still helping you meet your salary goals that you have for yourself. 

So I just recently got reached out by a client telling me that they went from making 130 to get a job offer for 200,000, making it a 75k salary increase or so while switching industries. So it's totally feasible, especially right now in this employee driven market, you want to take advantage of it. So if you've been thinking about job searching, or you've been getting that itch of what our roles are, they're available, what some of the opportunities I can apply for, this is the time to do it. Definitely look out. There's a lot of opportunities out there that can help you in your career, meet you where you want to be and be able to meet those salary goals you have for yourself. 

So, as I mentioned, today, we're going to talk about the first thing you need to do when job searching. So I actually ran a poll on LinkedIn to kind of ask you, what do you think you need to do first when job searching, and the four options I included, were resume and cover letter, networking, career planning, and finding jobs in job board. I'm going to tell you what the survey came out. So of those four options. 48% said networking is the number one thing that people should do when job searching. Then second came in career planning. 23% said, career planning is the number one thing people should do or focus on when job searching. Third place was resume and cover letter. And fourth place was finding jobs in job boards. Did any of these surprise you?

So what I wanted to talk about is here is what the poll said, right. And here is what I've heard from job seekers that I've spoken to when job seekers come to me and their job searching and some of them at this point are ready have started job searching sometimes three, six, and even 12 months ago. They tell me Well, I've been browsing around job boards, but I need someone to help me revamp my resume. Therefore, finding jobs and job boards actually came first because they need to identify what roles are there outdoors and then update their resume. Or I hear why haven't started applying to jobs that are looking around. I first need someone to update my resume first and then I can get started. So it's very few times that I've had clients say, Oh yeah, so I wanted to start job searching so I reached out to my network first. That's very rare. i You usually don't hear that, or I don't hear any clients telling me say, Oh yeah, the first thing I did with job searching was career planning. So it's very different from sometimes what we think we should do, versus what we actually do with job searching. Most people, when they start job searching, they'll either revamp their resume or look for someone to revamp their resume. Or they just start browsing job boards, like LinkedIn, indeed, zip recruiter, and look for jobs that's available, save them. And if they find something really good, then base maybe set some time to revamp their resume, or they reach out to professional resume writer. But one of the things that I recommend, and this is something I am very inclusive, or I would get very particular, in my career coaching program called 90 day job offer is career planning. 

Career Planning should be the number one thing you should be doing, and focusing on when job searching. And I'll tell you more, why of the benefits. But I'll kind of go over of some of the things that can happen in kind of hinder you if you don't start with career planning. So career planning, how I define it, and how I teach my clients in my career coaching program is really defining what is it that you want from your next role and company? And what are some of the things that are non negotiables. But beforehand, one of the things that can happen if you don't career plan it, you'll find yourself applied to every single role out there, eventually you get decision fatigue, so then you start saving or applying to jobs that you're overqualified for, because why not? It sounded good enough. And kind of, you're just now in a phase of scrolling, save, scrolling, save, and you'll find yourself all of a sudden saving 3040 5060 jobs, and then finding yourself okay, where do I even start applying to dice st and found so many jobs at this point. So career planning will help you prevent that all those jobs are probably not a good fit, especially the ones you're overqualified for you, the thing that can happen is you end up applying to jobs, that do not meet your salary goals. And what tends to happen is you invest time in applying to that job. And it can take anywhere between 30 to 45 minutes, just for the application process, not even including you revamping your resume and your cover letter. So at minimum, you're spending 30 to 45 minutes, then you go through the interview process, maybe you get interviews, and then you go through the process, you'll find yourself towards the end with a job offer, and it doesn't match your salary. It's a low offer, you're not even interested, you wouldn't even consider this role anymore. 

Now, if you're frustrated, because you apply to jobs, you've gone through the interview process and invested so much time and energy for a role that doesn't even match or it's even less than what you're currently making. Another thing that can happen when you don't career plan, it is going to a company where you'll end up regretting whether it's the role or the company itself. And you find yourself in the same situation you were previously in when you started job searching. So I've had clients tell me, by the time they get to me, I had a company that I was not happy with, they were very toxic, evolved a lot of work, I don't enjoy, there wasn't any career progression. So I started my job searching process, and got a job. And I was in the same place just called a different name, are called by a different job title and or company. So they found themselves back to square one. 

Career Planning will help you avoid that. And right now, I don't know if you heard but they're calling the the great reshuffle now or the great regret of those job seekers who jumped over four new opportunities got new jobs, and now they're regretting it because again, they found themselves in the same place or worse, at a different location and even worse than what they had it before. So career planning is really important in helping you avoid these situations. And lastly, career planning helps you with your career progression, and helps you go along with it and avoid you going backwards. Many times I've had clients come to me that before they started working with me, they took on a job and now they regret it. And they realized that they're in a role where they were in two, three years ago that they worked hard to get promoted and they found themselves in the same position. Or they took this role digging it was great. And then they identified that they have a 10 years of experience. But yet there's people with one or two years of experience with the same job title and pay. So those are the things that can happen when you don't career plan. So just to recap, you'll find yourself applied to roles, even the ones that you're overqualified for and you get the decision fatigue you'll I two roles that will end up getting you low salary or offers and you wasted a lot of time and energy. You either go into a company where you end up regretting it, or you'll find yourself in that same situation, any bad job, bad responsibilities, or toxic work environment all over again, and you feel stuck at that point. And lastly, a can hinder your career progression or even have you go backwards. So that's just a quick overview of what can happen when you don't create a career plan. 

So one of the benefits of career planning, not that we discussed all the negatives, and the cons, it is career planning really helps you in being intentional, we have limited time to work on this. And some say job searching can become a full time job. Most of you may already have a full time job, you still have a life. So maybe family responsibilities, friends, family, whatever that is, you have an additional life outside of work. And then third, your job searching. Now, one of the things that can happen is, like I mentioned, you might just want to feel like you're making momentum, or like getting things done. So you go ahead and maybe get that resume updated. And then you sit down and buckle down and apply to various jobs, but they're getting you nowhere, you're not getting any traction. Career Planning could help you be very intentional. And you know, one of the things that I always like to discuss is, make sure you identify your non negotiables. And it's very important. 

My clients find fulfilling roles at great companies, even when they're transitioning from different industries, they're able to do that in less than 90 days, while still getting salary increases. It's very common for my clients to go from making 50,000 to 90,000, or from 90,000 to 170,000, or from 130,000 to 200,000. 

I actually had a client that three years ago, she was making $75,000, before she started working with me. Now she's negotiating and having multiple offers around the $260,000. That's what the market is paying for. And she knows that because she knows how to do her research. So your non negotiables are really going to help you with your job search in order to avoid another bad scenario. Then here are some examples of non negotiables. And what that looks like. It could be it has to be a remote role, I cannot go into the office, maybe my kids or whatever, I have ADHD and being in my home really helps me get a lot of work done. And I'm also not much of a people person, I'm more of an introvert. So I get a lot of stuff done during that time. And I avoid an hour to two hour commute a day. So it has to be remote. And what that means is you are not applying or considering any job that is not remote, you avoid those situations, let set you up to succeed from the beginning. Another non negotiable that I've heard is, I cannot travel, I do not want to travel, I just had a baby and I have two to three kids under the age of five. And I just don't have I cannot leave them and I don't want to leave them. So I cannot be traveling as much as I used to. So the next job cannot have any trouble whatsoever. That means that you are not going to look at any job that has any travel involved. It's just that easy. We are going to make sure we filter all those roles out and instead focus on the jobs that are in house are remote and won't require that travel. Now sometimes that may mean you may have to switch industries, you may have to pivot into different roles. But just know that you all have transferable skills that can be changed and moved into many multiple facets. 

Another thing is, you maybe have a non negotiable, you know, maybe you're making 100 or $99,000. And you want to break into that six figures. And you know that for the rules you're applying for you should be around the $130,000 salary. What that means that we're not considering any job that doesn't pay at least $130,000. That's it, we don't even apply, we don't consider it we do not waste any energy in any job that doesn't pay at least $130,000 as a base salary. So what does that mean? Now you can become clearer on jobs, it also becomes easier to filter these jobs through these job boards, whether it's LinkedIn and deed or whatever you want to use. Now you can filter by salary, it has to be remote, and maybe you can put travel or the keywords, no travel involved or just filtered through it. But again, now instead of having, you know endless jobs available, now we've narrowed it down to maybe 200 jobs. And of those we will still can filter by other non negotiables you may have but you see how different it is to just open up LinkedIn, maybe type a job and then just go through all Are these jobs available? And right now, there's a lot of opportunities out there. Or would you rather be more strategic spent only 1015 minutes and say, here are my non negotiables. Here's what I'm looking at. Now I have 200 jobs to look into filter by the one that's been posted the soonest. I'll go through it and scan it to see if it meets what I'm looking for. And now I have a good list of five to 10 jobs I know I want, that have met everything that I'm looking for, at least from what we can tell. Now I can focus my time and resources on that. 

Like I said, None of us want to spend 10 hours job searching and applying to jobs endlessly and repeating copy and pasting everything we already have in our resume. So let's be intentional strategic. The other thing that career planning should include is, what are your current likes and dislikes of your current job and company. I just spoke to a job seeker where she's telling me that she hates the day to day work of you know what she was doing previously. And now she's doing it in her current role that she's been in for a few months, she's realized that she absolutely hates that she's more strategic, she's more of a visionary, she can create processes, she could see the overall picture. But the day to day really trains her, she procrastinates her work because of it, then she gets stressed out around it. And it's just an endless cycle. And she absolutely hates and dread going to work every single day. So if we know what your dislikes are, well, let's make sure that those responsibilities are not part of your next role. Again, that may require sometimes a change in job title or industry. But at least we're going to avoid that scenario again. And instead, you can focus on more of a strategic role.

So for example, this person was for Director of Client Services, they have a lot of transferable skills, they're more on the visionary side, I suggested maybe looking into a chief of staff role, where they can still utilize that operations background, but they're not in the day to day. And they're more into strategic visionary side. And again, they have the transferable skills for that role. The other thing is to it helps you stay focused and intentional. It's almost like having a filter out or just only see what's in front of you. We are not looking at anything to the side, unless it meets these criterias. And even if if I were to say, hey, we're hiring for this role, Oh, do you know if they pay at least this amount? Is it remote? And do I have to travel? If any of those are yeses, or any of those are knows, you don't even consider their role. We're not wasting time on that we have time where he let me to time we're going to focus on these specific items. Because I know that's what I want. And I don't want anything else. 

Another thing that you can consider too is what is it that you really enjoy about your current role? What do you thrive in, maybe some projects you've dabbled on, and all of a sudden, you're like, Oh, this is something I really enjoyed. I wish I could do more of this. And because of my background, I was able to do XY and Z. Well, those are things that are going to excite you. And there's usually positions that will allow you those responsibilities. So let's start looking for that. It can also mean management style, or even talk like the culture, is it toxic? Is it very competitive? Or is it more of, you know, let's work together in order to, you know, succeed. And if we need resources, we're able to give the resources in order to enable you to succeed. Those are things that could be important. Maybe you want to see more people like you, you know, I'm a Latina, maybe you want to see more persons of color, you want to see more diversity, you want to see more inclusion within the company itself to feel like you belong there, as opposed to you feel like an outsider all this time, then that could be part of what you want in your next company. So before you even apply to that role, you can quickly pull up the company site, look at their leadership. If no one looks like you, you remove it and you move on to the next job application. It's easy to filter and say no, once you know what you're going after. So these are the benefits of career planning what that looks like. And if you're currently that job search, or maybe already started jobs, and you're like, well, I need to start career planning. 

How do I even start? One of the questions that I recommend for you to sit down and really ask yourself is, what is it that you want and don't want? What are your non negotiables? What are nice to haves, all of this, it would be nice to go into a health and wellness. You know, I'm really big on spincycle or I love Whole Foods. I would love to work in that space. Or I'm a huge video gamer and I would love to work at a company like PlayStation. Those are nice to have and why don't we start there. There's positions available that now we're going after what we want instead of what we don't want. Also ask yourself, what do I want as far as salary and responsibilities? If you're an introvert, you're really good drained to being around people and you're Her role has to do with a lot of clients or speaking to a lot of groups of people. Well, maybe the next role shouldn't include as much, is there other roles that may be aligned with your skill set that doesn't require that much of you, as an introvert. So those are things you want to start asking, and also salary, what salary do you want, and don't base your next salary based on how much you're currently making, please do not think, well, I'm making 90. So I should be asking for 100 and 100, or 110. Instead, Farah, what the market is paying. The quick way to do that is Colorado now has it mandated that they have to release their salary in every single role. If you don't know what your role pays, or what you're interested in, just look up jobs within Colorado, they do tend to pay a lot more than maybe the Midwest areas or not as populated areas. But at least now you have a range probably reduce it by like 10 15,000 or so. And now you have a specific salary. But be intentional on that salary that you want, you want to finally hit those six figures, you finally want to get to that 150. Or maybe you want to pass that 200k, three or 400k salary, then so be it. 

But be intentional and do not focus your energy and time on anything less than that. And what value is Israel bringing to you that will help you get to the next level to not apply to a ladder move unless there's a benefit that will help you get to your end goal. So there's nothing for you to learn, then I would recommend to looking for other jobs, there should be always something for you to learn. Even if you're like, hey, I want to take it easy. Claudia, I just have a family. Trust me, you're going to feel bored out of your mind, you're going to think even if it's like it might be easy, but it may still take time. So you're going to regret it or you're going to feel drained out of it instead even like a little bit of work that make you feel challenged. Because once you move out of that state of spending time with family, then you've already lost your competitive edge. Because you have not sharpened those skill sets. And now your peers are promoting you. They're getting ahead and now you're feeling like you're behind from everyone else. Because you did not challenge yourself even just a little bit to help you stay competitive in this landscape. So those are the things that you really want to focus on when you're career planning.

 And this is something that I go into in my proprietary group coaching program called 90 day job offer where I walk you through every step of the process. And those questions you need to be asking to help you be successful in your career search. And not only that help you be successful in that company and within that role in itself. So if you're currently job searching, and you're looking to move to next step in your career, or you're looking to break into that first, you know, manager, director, Senior Director role or executive role, or you're currently just, you know, feeling like you've outgrown your company and your role itself and you're looking for the next fulfilling job, feel free to reach out, I'm offering a complimentary career strategy call where we get to talk and learn more about what you want, maybe what you don't want, and then figure out a strategy to help you get there. So again, it is my 90 day job offer program. If you go into my website, you can find a link to my questionnaire or just feel free to reach out to me private message me, and I'll send you the link to get that complimentary career strategy call booked. And that way we can start working on you know what your next step should be. And what I usually do is based on what you want, and where you're at, and your background and your expertise, I can quickly know like what is a true salary range that you should be going after most of you are being underpaid, especially if you're a woman, we already know we get paid 82 cents on the dollar. And if you're a Latina woman, around 56 cents on the dollar, and if you're an African American woman, around 62 cents on the dollar. So we need to bake in those salary creases into your next role to make sure you're no longer being underpaid. And we're not leaving money on the table anymore. So if you want to know what salary you should be in, or what you should be asking and maybe it's too much or not, just get on a quick career strategy call with me and I'll quickly be able to know I've done this long enough that I can tell you within two to three minutes where your salary should be at. So I hope you found this helpful. And if you like this, please feel free to share it like or comment. Have a great day.

Did you know I have started 100% free Facebook group dedicated to making job searching easy for career driven women and help them master their interviewing, networking and start negotiation skills. And we're doing free weekly trainings covering everything from how to sell yourself to increasing your salary by 30% minimum. Plus you'll be in there with a network of other ambitious women. So make sure to join us by texting us the word join 28449951523 And we'll see you there