Improve Your Job Search Skills

 Q. Your team did a great job on a résumé revision for me last month.  It looks amazing and I am really pleased.  I have been submitting it to every job posting I see online and am even getting interviews, but I still haven’t gotten a solid offer on the table.  What can I do to step it up?

JG, Chief Information Officer, Boston, MA

A.  There are a number of things that can be done to improve your chances of success.  The first thing that stands out to me in your question is that you have been applying for online jobs. 

Not that there is anything wrong with answering ads online, but that is only one piece of the puzzle.  It is estimated by the US Department of Labor Statistics that only one or two out of every ten jobs is advertised. This means that over 80 out of 100 jobs are not going to be found on the internet.   

This is a big deal because it means that you are only doing 10-15% of what needs to be done to successfully land a job. What is even scarier is that there are millions of people doing the same exact thing. 

So what does a person do to uncover the unadvertised positions?  The days of going door to door physically with your résumé are pretty much gone.  Your best bet - pound the virtual pavement!  Here are 5 things you can do to conduct a more proactive search.

1. Go to Superpages.com and identify local offices of companies within your geographic zip code that might want to hire someone with your expertise. Since you are a CIO, you will want to search under Information Technology, Software, and Hardware. If you are in a region with large manufacturing companies, that may be a good search as well.
2. Next, make a list of those firms and go to each corporate website to identify the senior management.  You can usually find this info within the ‘About’ page.  If you are unable to get a name from the website, try a search on LinkedIn or Google.
3. Another way to find potential jobs is to join appropriate Groups on LinkedIn.  Once there, you can run a search for CEOs of various companies and tap into those individuals to introduce yourself.
4. You can also use LinkedIn to identify former colleagues from past employment to see where they are.  Even contacting someone who currently works at a firm you once worked for could be productive.  Approach your network with questions about who they might know.  In that way, you can expand your search outward.
5. The other thing that you may want to consider is getting a coaching session or two on job search strategies and/or interview skills.  If, as you said, you have been getting interviews, but not jobs, it may be time to re-evaluate your approach.  Our coaching team has consistently helped candidates reposition themselves to become gainfully employed.  This may be just the thing you need to enhance your interview performance.