Easy Job Hunting Strategies - How to Look for a Job While Still Employed

Job searching takes a lot of energy. It's often seen as a second full-time job, but nearly always landing your next job is easier if you have a current job. Now, of course, doing the more traditional job search methods such as controlling job boards and company websites and applying online to dozens or even hundreds of jobs is not a good plan. Then you get these atrocious rejection emails, often weirdly quickly after you apply or months later after you've even forgotten these companies exist. This is exhausting and can be extremely difficult to do while you have a full-time job. That is why you need to use other strategies like job shopping to make your job search more passive while you are currently employed. This is what you will learn in this video and do stay to the end because I will give you a tip on something that will take you about a couple minutes a week that will dramatically improve your performance in job interviews should you suddenly have one. There are several reasons why you should start job searching before you actually want to leave your job. First, there's no such thing as job security. Playoffs are rampant and you think there's no way that a company that I have dedicated years of service to would get rid of me, but they do. Those sneaky little sausages. This has happened to my clients and it's devastating. And I have a video of eight signs that your company may have layoffs, so I will link that below. People have commented on that video saying those signs are eerily accurate, but layoffs are an extreme situation. What is actually more common is that you get passed up for a raise or a promotion or your work starts to become demanding and causes you stress or sleepless nights or your boss becomes toxic and it's chipping away at your mental health. You need to have the upper hand and have companies already interested in you so that you are able to step away whenever this role no longer meets your values. Life is too short to put up with all the BS that comes with suboptimal employers. The next reason is many employers prefer to hire employed candidates. I know, it's completely biased and infuriating and I consistently see managers favor employed candidates as being the most successful in their careers. For example, about a month ago, I was in a room full of CEOs. There was a presentation on how to effectively hire great talent. And one CEO spoke up and said matter of factly, in the end, it's not that important to look at applications sent in because we really want people who are currently employed because those are the ones who are nearly always the most talented. No one contradicted him, not even the executive recruiter who was presenting. And I even saw several people nodding along with his sentiment. And as a human resources leader and job search strategist, I read almost no information about job search tips. Instead, I'm staying up to date with how companies are hiring. Why? Because I am not here to regurgitate outdated tips. Instead, I'm entrenched in the most bleeding edge approaches that companies are using to hire people and then giving you the strategies to stand out by reverse engineering them. Such as in my viral TikTok where I walked through the new updates that LinkedIn sent to the companies that use their platform to hire, which was so revealing on what job seekers can actually do with that knowledge to use it to their advantage and get hired more. I will also link that video below and be sure to follow me on TikTok if you haven't already. Another example is in Work Rules by Laszlo Bock, a book about Google's human resources function, how they hire, all that. Bock specifically instructs companies to focus less on reading online applications and more on finding talent themselves or building relationships with individuals. And he actually says, the very best people aren't out there looking for work. This mass emphasis for companies to move away from focusing on online applications and instead move to other methods is the reason why I created the job shopping methods, which we will talk more about in this video because old methods simply aren't working. The third reason you should start interviewing before you're ready to leave your current job is that changing jobs every few years leads to higher earning potential across your career. According to an analysis of the data, if you wait for a raise from your current employer, you can expect about a 4% pay increase per year. But every time you opt for a new job at a new employer, you can see that jump to 5.3%. Anecdotally, I typically see my clients get an average of a $30,000 salary increase when they move to their next role. And of course that's with the assistance of a coach and negotiation help and all of that. But I say this to put it in perspective of how normal it is for someone to make a substantial jump when they move jobs. How long do you typically stay at a role? Is it usually a few months, a few years, a few decades? Let me know in the comments, I'm very interested to see what kind of mix we have. So you should be interviewing several times a year and there are ways to make more opportunities come to you. And so let's review some of these approaches. Now, before I dive in too deep, if you're new here, hello, so good to meet you. I'm Madeline Mann, I'm a human resources leader and job search strategist who turns job seekers into job shoppers. You may have seen me on Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Business Insider and more. Make sure you're already subscribed. You're already subscribed, right? And if not, I feel like we're ready to take this thing to the next level. The first way to get more opportunities coming to you passively is to know exactly what you want. I'm talking job title, industry and type of company. The issue can sometimes be that you aren't totally happy with the path you're currently on and you're not optimistic that if you switch jobs, that things will actually get better. The company you work for isn't going to win any best places to cry, I mean, work awards, but at least it's the devil you know. Possibly you considered switching careers altogether, but that feels so daunting, like you're starting completely over and you worry that the path you go down might not be the right one. And then it's going to be such a massive waste of time and energy. It's like that time you try to win something from Publisher's Clearing House. I just need to look at a few more ads and maybe then we'll be able to submit this thing. We are officially entered in. I'm very excited. Hold on, I'm sorry. I just got an email. It looks like it's just a confirmation. We are now awaiting further action from you. Am I not done? I'm not done. If this is you, it means that you are on the lazy river of your career. You're sitting in an inner tube and you're letting your career happen to you instead of taking control and steering. You get promotions and possibly even former bosses or coworkers offer you positions at new companies. And even though you don't really like your job or your career path, you're not all that enchanted with your work, you take it anyway because it's the next level up and you get more pay. And heck, you don't really know what else you'd be doing. So you just stay on this path that you don't really like. And then five, 10, 20 years later, you look back on your career as one that you regret in a lot of ways and realizing you didn't really choose this path. You simply went with the flow. So you need to hop out of the inner tube and start to understand exactly what you want to do in your career. For more context on the strategies of how to hop out of the inner tube, I will link a free job shopping class down below. The second way to get more opportunities is to have those interviews come 100% inbound from companies you didn't even apply to. This process of pursuing open opportunities as a job seeker takes a lot of time. So it is best to have companies come to you without you ever having to apply to jobs. Many of my clients consistently get multiple recruiters reaching out to them each week. The first step is to start optimizing your LinkedIn profile. I will link a free checklist below that will give you step-by-step what to improve in your profile so you can start to attract more attention. I encourage you while you are employed to turn on open to work on your LinkedIn profile. There's an option where it only shows to recruiters of companies that are not the ones you work for. Make sure that you're making it private. Okay, so don't make it public, open to work to everyone because you could get in trouble at your current employer that way, but you can make it private. Third, you must keep your network nice and warm. Job seekers tell me all the time, I hate being on the job market because I feel icky reaching out to people, asking them for things. Well, how about you talk to people when you don't expect anything from them? Reach out now. Here is an example of me keeping my network warm over the holiday with someone who I had met and had coffee with at an event the year prior. And I customized it to him and included a bit of information about myself to encourage him to share as well. And that's it, be like a human, take an interest in people. And there was no hidden agenda. We texted, it was lovely, and I'll hit him back up in a few months. Fourth, and this is such a crucial one that is only going to take you about two minutes a week. If you do this, your ability to crush any last minute interview is going to skyrocket. And that is create a document where you track the different projects you do at your current job. Also put screenshots of nice messages that people send you complimenting on the quality of your work. Quickly, you'll have a list of accomplishments that you would have completely forgotten if you had not written them down. Such as I was looking at one of my old brag books or more like a brag document. And it said that I was praised for finally being the first person who could get our all company meeting to end on time. Now I ran many of these all company meetings over the years I worked at this employer. I did not remember that they were so late and took forever before I took them on. This really helped a lot of memories to flood back that if I wanted to touch on this in an interview, I would now have the memories to bring it up. If you want to be really good at telling these stories in a compelling way, I do recommend that you watch a video on my story toolbox method that will seriously amplify your chances of landing the offer. This is the number one video I get emails about. The bottom line is that the job search doesn't have to be hard. When people hear that they should be interviewing a few times every year, they think of a version of the job search where they are constantly tweaking their resume and sending out dozens and dozens of applications. And it simply does not need to be that way. This is more about farming rather than hunting. It's about planting seeds and having the patience to let them grow. And if you follow the job shopping methods, you are nearly guaranteed a bountiful harvest. Huzzah. So I will walk through those job shopping techniques in that webinar I mentioned before. But focus on your professional brand online, your long-term networking strategy, and you're going to have opportunities ready for you as soon as you are ready to jump. Your biggest regret will be mourning the life you could have had had you made the leap sooner. And on that cheery note, smack a like on this video. We're buds now. And be sure to subscribe if you haven't already. You've got this. Wi-Fi high five.