Hunting for a new job shouldn’t be a solo effort. To succeed in your job search and advance your career, surround yourself with a team of people who can help you achieve your hopes and dreams. Instead of going it alone, seek out qualified recruiters, a career coach and résumé writer, mentor and sponsor.
Searching for a new job can be a lonely experience. You scour job boards and send out résumés, but don’t hear back. When offered an interview, you go in blindly, meeting the managers without knowing what to expect. After a couple of interviews, you get ghosted and are left wondering what happened. It doesn’t have to be this way if you cultivate a support team.
It's a challenging job market. On a nearly daily basis, major corporations are announcing significant layoffs. There is a white-collar recession, as college-educated workers in tech, finance, real estate, media and other office-related industries are losing their jobs. The competition to find a new job is fierce, as many people are looking for jobs in the same highly concentrated areas. To compound the problem, when firms enact layoffs, they simultaneously pause hiring. To fight back, just like you have a tight-knit group of loved ones who will stick with you through thick and thin, you want to assemble all the help you can get.
Think of how many mistakes you made early in your career that hampered your professional growth. Most likely, you had to figure out things on your own and didn’t have the luxury of anyone offering you sound advice and guidance. You were thrown into the corporate world to fend for yourself. It's easy to say or do something that makes your boss and co-workers think less of you. Once you get the reputation of being a low performer, it's hard to overcome.
Rather than learning by trial and error, find a mentor. A mentor is an accomplished, well-respected, experienced professional in your field who happily offers advice, guidance and feedback to help you navigate the corporate world. They’ll offer lessons learned from their vast knowledge and impart their wisdom so you can avoid pitfalls. A good, empathetic mentor will look out for you, serve as a role model and continually motivate you to succeed.
Sponsorship isn’t as well-known as mentoring. The difference between the two is that a sponsor serves as an active champion of your career. They are your hype person. A sponsor will advocate for your success by telling executives about your skills and talents, keeping an eye open for career-making opportunities and jobs that aren’t advertised, and guiding you on your career path.
These folks are primarily people at higher levels within the corporate hierarchy. They have pull and are widely respected for their opinions and judgments. One of the best ways to get a sponsor is to show that you are a highly motivated person who wants to build your career and possesses valuable skills and talents. You’ll need to take on high-profile assignments and do great work to get noticed by an executive who sees your potential and will take you under their wing.
A career coach can help you gain clarity and figure out what you want to do next in your career. They will assist you in cultivating the skills to stand out in a crowded job market and motivate you to keep going, despite setbacks. A career coach will cheer you on, offer feedback and ways to improve yourself. Many career coaches also help with writing a résumé, your LinkedIn profile, cover letters and social media posts. The coach will prepare you for interviews, deconstruct what went wrong and make adjustments, role-play interviewing and help cultivate your elevator pitch.
A career coach will charge you for their services. Most coaches tend to specialize in a specific sector or two. They may have even worked in the field and are now doing coaching as a second career. Before you retain their services, conduct due diligence to ensure the person is right for you and the fees are reasonable.
Recruiters offer a job seeker exclusive entry into well-paying jobs in the hidden job market. For various reasons, such as confidentiality filling a role while the firm phases out a current worker, companies don’t want to post certain jobs publicly. Recruiters will be given these roles to conduct stealth searches to contact potential candidates discreetly.
Before you interview, your headhunter will share helpful insider information about the company, the hiring team, and the questions that will be asked. After the interview, the recruiter will get feedback from the interviewers and gather intelligence on how they can perform better during the upcoming rounds of interviews.
A search professional specializing in a specific area will know the industry, the ranking of companies, the hiring managers, interviewers and human resources. They’ll have a strong understanding of the corporate culture, what they look for in applicants, title structure and compensation levels.
Since they have a solid corporate-client base, they’ll know many interviewers personally. They can offer you an insider perspective on their personalities and the type of people they’ve hired in the past. The recruiter will contact the hiring manager, gain feedback and constructive criticism from the interview and share it with the job hunter to help them improve their performance in the next round of interviews. They’ll help negotiate your compensation package.
It's awkward and uncomfortable when you negotiate salary on your own. You don’t want to come across too pushy, nor do you want to sell yourself short. An experienced executive recruiter can deftly navigate the compensation negotiations to get you the best offer. Since most recruiters work on a contingency basis—getting paid only when they successfully place you—their financial incentives are aligned with securing the best possible pay package.
Keep in mind that your career choices impact your family. Finding a new, well-paying job could make a material difference in everyone’s lives by moving into a better neighborhood and having funds for college and the ability to travel and enjoy experiences.
If everyone is on board and supportive of your career choices, it will make for a better home life. When you are happy at work, the good mood will resonate with your partner and kids.
You need to be thoughtful while hunting for a new job or trying to advance within your organization. It's important to ensure that your family is on board and supportive of your decision. For instance, if you accept a new job requiring long hours, nights, weekends and constant travel, you need to consider its impact on your family. Your absence at home could place too much strain on your spouse and kids. Are you prepared to miss all the important milestone events, school plays, ballet recitals and sporting events?
