How Career Development Partners Helps Career Transition Participants Streamline Their Search Efforts
The results speak for themselves. Check out our website for landing and satisfaction results. When we work with people exiting their employers, we often hear the job search process overwhelms them. Read on to learn how our expert career consultants help people focus and mitigate this feeling.
We train our participants on what we call the focus factor which helps them make decisions, from career choices to even purchases. One of the reasons participants often feel overwhelmed is because there is simply too much information. A single search on the internet, for example, can result in 1,000,000+ results in fewer than two seconds.
The key is to reduce the information to a manageable level based on their professional goals and objectives. Additionally, a clear focus affects every aspect of their search from identifying jobs or vendors to researching industry news to networking.
However, before we can focus we must be clear on what we want to do next. Like they say, “If you don’t know where you’re going, any road will get you there.”
As a participant evaluates their career path, there are generally three options:
- Continue down the road from which you came (i.e. continue to do the same or similar work)
- Veer off into another sector within an industry (e.g. from a traditional banking into FinTech)
- Pivot on to a completely different career path (e.g. from the corporate world into an entrepreneurial direction)
Regardless of the option they choose, an effective approach requires focus and intentionality. One key component to being deliberate is creating a target list of companies. Narrowing their list of companies (based on what they want to do and where they want to go) will allow them, to conduct the necessary research that will, ultimately, allow them to network their way into a target organization or direction.
As they create a target list of companies, we teach them to consider the following criteria as to who goes on your L-I-S-T and why:
Location: Create geographic parameters based on preferred location, commutability or distance, and industry hot spots.
Industry: Select an industry (or two) that they can research to identify trends (think “growth” trends) and industry-leading companies.
Size: Select their target companies based on number of employees or annual revenue.
Type: Consider what type of business they want to work for? The types of organizations may be for-profit or non-profit, publicly held company or family owned, headquarters or branch office, start-up or established, etc.
Identifying specific organizations will help our participants in their networking efforts. For example, if you are focusing on the banking and finance industry you may want to attend networking events specific to the industry. Connecting with like-minded individuals will increase the likelihood of your crossing paths with professionals in the industry you are focusing and also with people within the companies you are targeting.
When it comes to focusing on key decisions in your job search, the phrase, “To be specific is terrific; to be vague is the plague,” has never been more relevant.
TRAVIS JONES CEO
Travis has been an entrepreneur and business owner in Tulsa for over 30 years. He is a certified Life Options Retirement Coach and is certified to facilitate and deliver the Manager As Coach Learning Series (MACLS) through CPI, and a certified Career Coach. He previously served on the board of Career Partners International (CPI) and is an equity partner in CPI, offering a global reach with over 350 offices.
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