Did you know that the monthly US jobs report where they tell you that so many jobs were created last month is the difference between the jobs lost and jobs created? When you hear that the US economy created 200,000 jobs last month, it really means somewhere between 5,500,000 and 6,000,000 jobs (give or take a few hundred thousand) were created while almost as many were either lost, or people quit. That’s right, all across the US economy, each and every month, millions of people are using job search tools to get hired, while millions more lose or quit their jobs.
That means no matter how well the economy is performing, a job seeker needs to be highly organized when it comes to finding that next job. It is also why managing human resources, which includes recruitment and many other tasks, is an enormous undertaking.
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Organizing Your Job Search
Most popular job boards, such as Indeed, CareerBuilder, Ziprecruiter and LinkedIN, have millions of resumes on them. For many people, they sometimes work well. Yet, they were built around a job search paradigm from the distant past. They are essentially automated versions of the old Help Wanted section of newspapers.
Like a help wanted section of a newspaper, when you are searching for a job online, you first have to search for a job, ‘circle it’ or pin it somehow, then begin the application process. One by one, you then have to apply for a job. The first issue the typical job seeker runs across is that the job boards are an intermediary between the job seeker and the business needing a job. When you, the job seeker, find an interesting opportunity, you then are usually taken to the individual company website where you will have to fill out an application online.
If you are unemployed, you will be told to treat pursuing the job as your job, working at it 8 hours a day, in an organized fashion. Theoretically, you should keep track of each job you applied for, making note of the company name, position name, job name, when you applied and other relevant information you have about the job. That implies you have a spreadsheet and know how to use it and are staying organized enough to use it. It could happen. Here’s is where one of the key requirements of the job search tool mapertunity comes into play – providing visibility into your job search process.
Sometimes, You Have Inbound Calls For Jobs
For some lucky people, who happen to be in ‘hot fields’, recruiters will be calling and emailing them. For example, those in the SAP field, who often seek SAP Career Advice from me, will often get calls from recruiters all day long. In addition, you will receive dozens of emails. These inbound opportunities often amount to well over 100 job opportunities a day. It is a challenge to actually keep track of such job opportunity volume To further complicate making use of what is, in reality, a valuable situation, many of these ‘inbound jobs’ will actually be coming from recruiters, typically based out of India. It is basically impossible to keep track of these, and it is also usually the case that these calls don’t actually represent real opportunities or at least they haven’t done any work to see if you’re really a good match with the job requirements. You will also quickly realize that these positions never pay good rates. That is the same thing as saying you need to have a direct line to the job and eliminate the middle man.
So Which Job Search Tool Do You Need
As a Theory of Constraints (TOC) practitioner, I am always looking for the constraint in the system. When it comes to the job search process, having the right tool is critical to exploiting the constraint once identified. When it comes to choosing the optimal Job Search Tools, Strategies and Techniques, it is critical to know what the Goal Units are of my job search system. It isn’t just to get a job. It is the get a job that pays me the most amount of money. Some may find this position controversial. However, for at least 49% of people, it isn’t.
The most important factors in accepting a new job is compensation (49%), professional development (33%) and better work/life balance (29%). LinkedIN, The Ultimate List of Hiring Statistics, 2019.
After all, if I view myself as a business, who produces value, in the form of time, then I only have a certain amount of time available everyday. Therefore, in order to maximize my goal unit, I need to make sure I am doing not just what I love to do, but at the highest rate possible, now and in the future. Ideally, I am getting paid for the value I bring to the business, not for the time I spend doing it. That’s another discussion. The constraint I have identified and to which I focus all effort on, is to generate the maximum number of opportunities. In effect, I have to fill my sales pipeline up and then sell to the highest bidder.
The tool I need, in order to focus my effort on the constraint, is one that allows me to see where the jobs are for me, on a map, and lets me apply for them. Even better, it helps me find the ones I want, where I want and it gets them to find me. In other words, a jobs map. The more job opportunities the tool helps me identify, the more likely I am to find the one that helps me get the best deal, in other words, maximizes my return.
Which is The Right Job Search Strategy and Technique?
While according to LinkedIn, 87% of active and passive candidates are open to new opportunities, the answer to this question varies by individual. There are some common job search strategies I believe you should employ. The first, of course, is to have an up-to-date resume. Though you will be advised to customize each resume for each job, (and perhaps you should), for the most part, I find that approach to be mostly impractical. Just make sure you have a complete profile here on mapertunity.com and a paper copy to send along (actually, a soft copy). I do, however, recommend you make specialized versions of resumes for distinct types of jobs you may pursue.
For instance, while I am a Senior SAP Project Manager and have a highly tuned resume for such jobs, I am also an Inbound Marketing and Sales expert and have a completely different resume for those types of jobs.
Why?
Simple, setting up and running an Inbound Marketing system using the Hubspot Inbound Marketing and Sales Platform, Salesforce, Shopify and a variety of other non-SAP systems, for a newly launched business is a completely different beast than running a SAP Implementation. While I’ve never had to learn how to set up and run Google PPC campaigns, LinkedIn paid ad campaigns nor Facebook advertising campaigns as part of my role as SAP Project Manager, I’ve have done just that for many, many clients. In fact, I’ve set up and am running multi-million dollar paid ad campaigns for clients using Google PPC as I write this.
Recruiters can’t quite wrap their head around how I could have more than one such skill so I have found it more effective to have two different resumes for two different audiences. However, I typically do not modify either one for a particular job. That isn’t focusing on the constraint.
The second strategy is to have a large network, which I do. But much of this ‘network’ is really just people on LinkedIN trying to sell me something. So the right strategy for any network is to have a large one, composed of the right people, in the right jobs, and in the company or companies you want to work in. If you want to work closer to home, perhaps across the street, at a business you may be able to see, the odds are you don’t know anyone there. To remedy that situation, mapertunity does two things no other system does:
- It allows you to find the name of the company by looking on a map and
- It allows you to find the name of the hiring manager within that company.
Now you can either reach out directly via mapertunity to that person in that company or you can begin on-the-ground networking. The first is fast while the second approach takes a little longer. But both strategies need to be employed as part of your job search.
Online Job search tools help you manage the job search process
When we set out to build Mapertunity, we did so recognizing that the current system wasn’t designed to help you manage your job search process. In fact, it wasn’t ‘designed’ for you at all. It emerged, over time, without any overarching goal in mind, except for the owners of the individual systems. The system, if it can be called one, is very complex. There are individual Human Resources departments within each company, all of whom operate very distinct systems. There are unemployment offices, who you would think would have the goal of helping every available person in their territory to find a job. There are countless job boards, such as LinkedIN and Indeed, who actually insert themselves between you, the job seeker and the company who needs to know about you to offer you a job.
Mapertunity Reduces Complexity
Human beings are visual creatures. We can look at an image for an instant and be able to determine what we saw. That’s why we built our entire system to use a map. By placing both jobs and candidates on a map, searchable without knowing either the name of a company or a job title, we’ve created what we consider a revolutionary tool for the job market. That’s why whether you are company looking to hire someone or a candidate looking to get hired, you need to create your profile today, post your job or your resume and find each other.
