Continuation of Ascent Pathing - The path of Job Search

In the link below is a presentation I provided to the University of Utah job club in May 2011.  While it addresses 6 steps toward successful job search, I'll further expand these suggestions in this post.  While job search isn't exactly like climbing the North Face of Eiger, there are elements of stress and the roller coaster ride we face with the highs and lows of the journey.  The successful job searcher has a vision of where he/she wants to end up when employed or engaged in other business pursuits.  To me that vision should enoble you and add purpose.

http://www.box.net/shared/rhgv1f13zf (6 Steps to be successful in our Job Search)

While Juan Riboldi's path has 5 steps toward one's successful journey - the last of which is to record results and reward oneself with small rewards upon reaching milestones, I find the results stage necessary at each level and especially as a precursor to creating the roadmap upon starting the journey.  There are numerous books and articles written about charting one's job search path for success.  I have numerous blog posts that provide valuable suggestions of successful networking, interviewing and branding.  There are job coaches and even some employment experts willing to help for a modest fee.  If you can't do it yourself and need assistance - get it, even if you have to pay a little for a professional branded message (e.g. resume, cover letter, tagline, me in 30 seconds (elevator speech), power statements & accomplishments, personal best stories, LI profile and roadmap).  I provide numerous suggestions in my posts, but some would be wise to engage an expert at the outset, especially if they are in a hurry to get started.

See my powerpoint presentation about finding hope and light in your job search at the bottom of my LinkedIn profile. 

I find it critcal that one has an action plan, a vision of a successful career (dream job & dream life), and a way to get engaged and recognize success along the way.  I find it helpful to continue reinventing yourself along the way with new ideas, new ways to market your strengths, and creative ways to be the solution to your prospective employers pain points.  Good business intelligence, SWOT analysis and brainstorming also help.  Pre and post communications and business intelligence not only keeps the door open but positions you for another opportunity that might serindipitously appear.

Reading through some of the performance factors used in Baldrige can also prepare one for an interview and job.  See file below which helps with both strategies and key terminology we can include in our marketing portfolios.

http://www.box.net/shared/1e3vgv5e1z  (Baldrige criteria) 

Interestingly,  it contains some of the same Riboldi success points but covered in more detail.  While Baldrige scoring is intended to give an organization  a snapshot of where they are,  the most important element is to give a roadmap of where they need be in the next years to get to the next level.of perfomance.  Riboldi's guarantee is to get you in 100 days to at least a 400% ROI - something more rigorous than Baldrige.  Baldrige typically doesn't have a facilitator but just an examiner.  If I were to rollout a Baldrige examination on a struggling team, I'd do the brief HR/Management audit to begin with and then identify performance gaps to work on.  These could include training team members in collaborative problem solving, could involve a learning and/or talent management initiative, or could involve talent acquisition and succession planning.  These are all HR initiatives that help align an organization to it's key strategic initiatives.

In final analysis, whether its a job search or a performance improvement initiative, it always includes an upward path: visioning, strategic mapping, empowerment/engagement and finally tracking results.  I strongly suggest one records this upward path so that they can grow from the experience and share the upward path and learnings with others.