With the New Year nearly upon us many of you reading this may well see this as a time to begin the process of seeking out and securing a new job role in 2023 or maybe even making a more fundamental shift in your career direction.

Based upon our extensive and very successful experience at Brosna Career Consulting in helping many individuals to find new jobs, here are our ten tips for making your job search a success in 2023:

Tip 1 - Your Goals

Before you do anything else ask yourself the following tough questions i.e. “What do I really really want from the next important step in my career and where do I want this to lead me longer term?” Are you looking for a progression from what you are doing currently or do you want to do something entirely new and different?

Tip 2 - Your Capabilities

Write down all the significant skills, experiences, qualifications and knowledge that will make you marketable and attractive to recruiters and employers alike; in other words ask yourself “What am I really, really good at that makes me stand out vs others?” Be specific about the distinction between your professional, technical and leadership capabilities.

Tip 3 - Your Achievements

Write down the 10 most significant successes in your career to date particularly achievements over the last 10 to 15 years. To generate this list ask yourself “What achievements am I most proud of in this period?" These successes will be what you should aim to showcase about yourself at every stage in your job search.

Tip 4 - Your Preferences

Record carefully and separately from your capabilities and achievements, your strong personal preferences for your next career stage. Amongst the things you should think about include your preferences for location, size of organisation, culture and values of a new enterprise, desired rewards, extent and hours of working, personal growth potential and how quickly you would like to make the change. You may be capable of many jobs but it is important for your ongoing fulfilment that a new job satisfied your strong preferences or you may find yourself quickly moving on again.

Tip 5 - Your Narrative

Based upon the outcomes from the first five tips above, try and define a clear narrative of the key messages that you want want to project into the jobs market to make you stand out and attract recruitment opportunities. Ask yourself “ How do I need to change and update my CV and Linked in Profile so they positively reflect my distinctive attributes and tell a positive story? ” Make sure you have a well rehearsed, succinct verbal and written response to two of the most-oft asked key questions “Tell me more about yourself and your career to date” and “What is it that you are now looking for by way of a new opportunity?” Seek feedback from trusted friends or colleagues about the distinctiveness and impact of your narrative.

Tip 6 - Your Network

Urgently review and refresh you network of contacts; prioritise these into people who might be of most value to you in seeking out a new role. Reach out progressively to your priority and trusted contacts to let them know you are thinking about moving on; seek out their advice and any valuable contacts they may have who can help you. Pay particular attention to any search or recruitment firm contacts and recommendations so you can ensure you are registered with them at an early stage.

Tip 7 - Your Applications

Try and test you marketability at an early stage by applying for a variety of openly advertised roles that you think are in your "strike zone". Use the opportunities regularly posted on job sites such as LinkedIn, Indeed, Glassdoor and many more to evaluate and apply for job opportunities. Stretch yourself to apply for jobs at the edge of your capabilities to test if you can make progress with these; where rejected, always seek feedback if you can.

Tip 8 Your Time, Resilience and Persistence

If you are currently holding down a full-time job, then one of the challenges you will face is finding the time to pursue new career opportunities. Successful job hunters typically are very disciplined in allocating little but often chunks of time to the task of finding a new job - as if you were routinely allocating time for say a fitness or leisure activity. Seeking a new role can often be very frustrating and sometimes depressing activity so the strong advice is to build yourself a positive mental picture that allows you to not get too dispirited by rejected applications or lack of initial interview success but see each of these as only small setbacks and more importantly an opportunity to learn, refocus and move on to the next job application or interview.

Tip 9 - Your Interview Preparation

There is nothing more frustrating than having applied for a highly desirable job, been successful at the early stages of the interview process and then finding you just fail to secure the role at the final short-list interview stage. Our advice is don’t leave anything to chance; make sure that you are rigorously prepared for each critical interview; think carefully about the questions you are likely to be asked and your positive responses and examples and above all else practice your interview with someone you trust who can give you honest feedback about how you come across

Tip 10 Your Support

Our final advice is not to travel this career transition journey on your own; either partner with a friend or colleague or better still invest in an objective confidential and experienced career coach who can guide you through each stage of the process to secure that exciting new role. For a relatively small investment, you can maximise your chances of a making a big leap forward in your career. .

Good luck with your job search in 2023. If you would like to have a confidential dialogue about help available with all of the above issues, please just invite me to connect or drop me an email at tim@brosna-consulting.com.

Happy New Year

Tim

Tim Chapman

Managing Director

Brosna Career Consulting Ltd

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Ten Tips For Finding a New Job in 2023