This morning, I had a conversation with a client that was similar to many I’ve had with other clients. When embarking on a job search, they have questions—about the search itself, about their resume, about their LinkedIn profile, and about interviewing. But what they don’t see is that all these aspects are interrelated. When you align your job search, borrowing a simple concept from marketing, you transform from wishing and hoping to a more strategic approach.
In today’s conversation, my client asked about support with writing resume accomplishments and how to answer interview questions. What she didn’t realize is that, once you have developed accomplishments for your resume, you then have stories to tell during the interview. That’s one reason I harp so much on creating accomplishments: they’re used during the interview, on LinkedIn, and in networking conversations. The same is true with many of the components leveraged across the job search. By taking a holistic approach to your efforts, you realize that one thing can be used in multiple ways, and you can work smarter, not harder.
Your Job Search Is a Marketing Campaign
While I built my experience in career services, I also worked in marketing and sales. The goal there is to create an overarching campaign where each piece of content has multiple uses. It’s a branding ecosystem. One blog can develop into several videos, social media posts, and infographics; multiple blogs can become an ebook.
That concept can be applied to a job search as well because, when you get to the core of it, a job search is a marketing campaign. Your goal is to market yourself to employers, tell them how you can solve their problems, and encourage them to contact you to “buy” what you’re “selling”: you. It’s no different from seeing an ad on TV or hearing one on the radio, seeing a pop-up online, scrolling past an ad on Instagram, and finally deciding to visit the website to learn more and, eventually, buy.
The idea with your job search is to create a comprehensive campaign that allows you to borrow from other aspects. Then you’re not doing what I see so many job seekers (and marketers, honestly) do: starting from scratch every time.
Align Your Job Search to Work Smarter
Too often, job seekers create extra work (and frustration) by approaching every activity as new. They have multiple versions of their resume, they do the same prep work for each interview, and they forget what they learned in networking conversations within minutes of ending the meeting.
The truth is that you don’t have to work that hard. Most of this extra work isn’t creating better outcomes; it’s simply creating more work.
One base resume becomes the foundation for job-specific updates. Once you’ve developed your accomplishment stories, they can be used across interviews. And information gleaned in networking meetings can be applied to company research, LinkedIn posts, and interview answers.
The aim is to learn to reuse what you do in ways to extend the life of your activities rather than reinvent each time. Let’s break it down.
Build a Foundational Resume
When I work with job seekers, the goal is to develop a base resume first. As long as the career goal is consistent (or, if there are various targets, they have an underlying theme), that resume is the central repository for tasks and accomplishments. Then, as you apply to different roles, you’ll only need to update your title and summary to support how you meet the qualifications of that specific role.
Develop Accomplishment Stories
When writing that base resume, you’ll go through each position and think of accomplishments. Since resume accomplishments are built on the CAR formula (or BAR, STAR, or SOAR, depending on your preference), you already have most of the components of a story. When you get to the interview, you’ll just add a T to the end to share your takeaway (or L for learning). Now, when an interview asks, “Tell me about a time when. . . .” you’ll be ready with a killer accomplishment story.
Apply Learnings from Networking Meetings
Part of a proactive job search incorporates meeting industry leaders and networking go-getters. To remember what you learned, be sure to take notes. Better than that, use some of those nuggets as LinkedIn posts when you update your network about your job search. You could even get super industrious and write a short blog or make a video to help other job seekers.
All Roads Lead to LinkedIn
I’m not saying that LinkedIn is the end-all, be-all in a job search, but it sure is an integral part of success—especially when you’re really leveraging the platform.
When clients tell me, “I don’t know what to post on LinkedIn,” I often refer them back to their job-search activity. The mistake many job seekers make is believing they need fresh ideas every time they post. They don’t. They simply need to recognize the opportunities they’re already creating. There’s tons of fodder there when you look:
- Company research becomes a “Did you know?”
- Networking conversations create opportunities to educate your network.
- An accomplishment story is a great way to highlight your expertise.
You can also leverage AI to help with creating LinkedIn posts. Just share your notes, accomplishments, or research with AI and ask it to help you repurpose that information into LinkedIn posts and align your job search across the platform.
Build a Job-Search Ecosystem
Since a job search is a marketing campaign, as you start to align your efforts, you’ll see that you’re really building an ecosystem. Instead of working harder and repeating effort, you get more out of every aspect of what you provide.
I had another client lament to me that he struggled with an answer to the interview question, “Tell me about a time when you overcame a challenge.” I referred him back to the resume we’d written, which was chockfull of these types of accomplishments. Once he saw the interconnection, the entire interview process became easier. He realized that he had, indeed, created an ecosystem. And the job search became easier. He literally landed an offer within a couple of weeks of that conversation.
The goal is to get more out of your time because, truly, a job search is a full-time endeavor. It can feel soul crushing to get ghosted after spending so much time updating a resume and crafting a great cover letter. Instead of feeling that time was wasted, why not repurpose that content into different categories?
I don’t give busy work; you’re busy enough. Instead, I provide proven strategies that help you work smarter and align your job search to see results faster.
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Learn more about my services and how I can support you. If you’re with a company that wants to provide outplacement support, I can help there too. Visit https://transitionsolutions.com.