Is Looking for a Job a Full-Time Job?

How should you spend your time while you are looking for a new job? It’s been said a thousand times over that looking for a job is a full-time job. And we have often heard about the 80/20 Rule, where 20 percent of your efforts yield 80 percent of your results. But when it comes to job search, which 20 percent of your efforts will yield 80 percent of your results? These are all interesting questions, and the reality is that if you are organized during your job search, the process should not feel like a full-time job.

There are three steps to a successful job search strategy:

1. Prepare and Research:
   1. Define Your Career Objectives: Conduct self-assessments to identify skills, strengths, accomplishments, interests, values and management style.
   2. Research Your Market: Find the best place for you to work based on your skills, strengths, interests and values.
   3. Develop Your Marketing Kit: After you have identified what you have to offer to a prospective employer, and what you are looking for in a job, create a marketing kit, which includes documents such as your resume, 30-second elevator pitch, business card and reason-for-leaving statement.
2. Refine Your Action Plan & Increase Networking Opportunities: Develop your job search strategy, and set a work schedule to implement it. Establish networking goals with timelines attached.
3. Launch Your Job Search & Track Progress: If you have performed the above tasks, you are ready to respond to advertisements and apply for jobs. Have tracking systems in place to enable you to be organized, motivated and on top of all job search related activities.

Now that you have a little extra time on your hands, one of the best ways to spend the time is to invest in retraining and up-skilling to make yourself more marketable and valuable to your next employer. In job interviews when the interviewer asks how you have been spending your time, you can impress her by telling her about all the courses you have taken that will enable you to perform at a higher level in your next job.

Looking for a job doesn’t have to be a full-time job if you use the job search strategy template outlined above. In addition to using the extra time for up-skilling, make sure you take time to re-energize and refresh yourself.