4 Stages Of Job Hunting All New Job-seekers Should Know
In the 7 habits of highly effective from Steven Covey, habit #2 states: Begin with the End in Mind. In the case of a job hunt, the 4 Stages of Job Hunting gives you clarity and context on exactly where you are in the process so that you can chart your next steps.
“What gets measured gets managed”
Peter Drucker, legendary management consultant
Only after knowing the big picture and where you are now, can you then decide where you want to go and how to reach there.
In this post, I will break down the job hunting process into its major components from beginning to end in a systematic manner. I will call them stages.
The 4 stages of job hunting are: 1) Understanding Yourself, 2) Sourcing the Opportunities, 3) Acing the Interview, and lastly 4) Choosing the Offer.
Let’s have a closer look at each of them.
Stage #1 – Understanding Yourself
The 1st out of the 4 stages of job hunting is to understand yourself. Before even starting, you should have a strong understanding about yourself through deep reflection.
Sun Tze in the Art of War once said “知己知彼， 百战百胜”. In English, that means: “Know yourself and your enemy, and you’ll win a hundred of a hundred battles”. And he nailed it.
Here are some of the key questions you should ask yourself and have a clear answer to.
What is your personality like?
Understanding your personality ensures you can identify a job those nature matches well with your personality. For example, if you are an analytical person who likes to study things on your own, you may prefer a data analysis role as opposed to a sales role where much interaction with others is expected.
If you are unsure what your personality is like, you can check out https://www.16personalities.com/. This gives you a short personality assessment that can help you better understand yourself and your preferences.
What industry do you want to enter?
Different industries contribute to the world in different ways. For instance, in the education industry, the focus is on imparting skills and knowledge to others. On the other hand, the Food and Beverage provides meals and mealtimes to people. In the risk management industry, it’s to manage risk to protect the organization. How do you prefer to contribute to the world?
What skills do you have?
Skills are what enable you to do the job; think of them as a toolkit used for solving real-world problems. Certain skills are pretty much universal – for example, communication and interpersonal skills are required in almost every job. In risk management specifically, programming skills are becoming or have already become mandatory.
What are your priorities?
Priorities are a very important aspect to consider and are often underrated or glossed over. What are your priorities when looking for a role? Is amount of salary the most important consideration? Or is it work-life balance? Maybe both are not that important, but the opportunity for quick career progression is. In any case, what do you want in the job? What can you give up and what is non-negotiable?
Stage #2 – Sourcing the Opportunities
Once you understand yourself thoroughly, you have passed Stage 1 and now come to Stage 2 out of the 4 stages of job hunting – sourcing the opportunities.
Here, the key is to adopt a multi-pronged approach. Also, it pays to understand that a lot of the job opportunities first come through word-of-mouth before showing up publicly.
There are a number of avenues one can source for job opportunities – let’s have a look.
Online Search
This is first and easiest avenue to search for jobs – simply Google the role you’re interested in. Key in the most relevant key phrase into Google and see what turns up. For instance, if I’m looking for a market risk role in Singapore, I’ll simply key in “market risk jobs sg”. Or, if I’m looking for a quantitative analyst role, I’ll key in “quantitative analyst jobs sg” or “quant job sg”.
One thing I’ll say here is: check across the various job platforms, direct (the company itself) or indirect (e.g. Jobstreet, JobsDB). This as jobs almost always appear only on a few platforms (and not all), meaning you run the risk of missing out if you don’t check all of them.
Now, just because you don’t see job opportunities appear on any platform doesn’t mean the company isn’t hiring. The only way to find out is to ask.
This is as simple as dropping the company an email, making your intention known, and asking if there are job opportunities relevant to what you are looking out for.
Network / Referral
This is one of the most effective ways to source opportunities but it takes time and courage. You don’t reach out to some random stranger and expect them to recommend you for a role – that is just not going to happen. Instead, networking is really an investment into a relationship, to learn more from someone else, and when any opportunity comes, they are more likely to think about you.
One effective way to expand your network is to get in touch with fellow alumni, or people who have graduated from the same school as you. Interested in a particular industry? Look around for alumni who are working in the same industry and talk to them.
Stage #3 – Acing the Interview
You’ve applied to a number of job opportunities and waiting for interviews to come in. Then, you get a call or email from a company that you applied to, inviting you for an interview – now what?
My friends, you are now in Stage #3 out of the 4 stages of the job hunting process – Acing the Interview. This stage is crucial as it’s the last stage before you land the offer. Hence, nailing the interview is your utmost priority.
At this stage, what should you know?
It’s no longer about the resume, but you
Once you have arrived at the interview stage, your resume has pretty much done its job – to get you there. Now, it is no longer about your resume, it is about you. While your resume still gets involved during the interview, whether you ace the interview becomes the core deciding factor if you would ultimately get the offer.
You only have one shot
Remember, you only have ONE shot at any given interview so make it count – don’t make the common mistakes! Otherwise, that’s it – a job opportunity gone. I say this to remind you how precious an interview opportunity is, especially in this extremely challenging economic environment now due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.
Confidence is key
Repeat after me: Confidence is key. Start off with a great first impression and you’re one step closer to the offer. In today’s corporate world, it is really challenging to get hired if you don’t project confidence via both verbal and non-verbal communication. And confidence emanates from adequate and targeted preparation.
Stage #4 – Choosing the Offer
After going through rounds of interviews and a long and arduous wait, you finally receive a call from HR one day – to offer you the job. Chances are you would have more than one offer to choose from.
Congratulations! You have now reached Stage #4, the final stage of the job search – Choosing the Offer.
However, two key problems arise at this stage and is often hard to navigate:
1) Deciding which offers to choose is difficult
2) The offers almost always come and expire at different times
At this stage, what should you think about to help you pick the right offer to accept?
What are your areas of consideration
When evaluating an offer or comparing two or more offers, it is key to be clear about your areas of consideration and even better, their relative importance.
Make a list of different aspects of the role. For example, you could have 3 areas of consideration: 1) Salary, 2) Professional Growth, 3) Work-life balance. Then, evaluate the competing offers for each of these areas and see in totality, which offer better satisfies these areas.
How much time do you have to decide
In general, accepting a job offer is a big decision and therefore, it is better to think about it thoroughly before accepting or rejecting it.
To that end, the more time you have before the offer expires, the better. However, the company may retract the offer any time before you have accepted so try not to take too long to decide.
If you have multiple offers, it is helpful to put them side-by-side on a timeline so you are clear how many offers remain open at any point of time.
What happens if you quit
As the saying goes: “Hope for the best, prep for the worst”. Do not assume that all will be smooth sailing after you accept the offer and join the company.
Thus, before you accept an offer, consider what happens if things don’t go as planned and you have to quit your job (or the company terminates your employment). Important questions include: What is my notice period? what penalties are there (if any) when I quit? Is there any clause to restrict joining competitor firms upon quitting?
Where are you in your job hunt today?
Recall the 4 Stages Of Job Hunting: 1) Understanding Yourself, 2) Sourcing the Opportunities, 3) Acing the Interview, and lastly 4) Choosing the Offer.
Which stage are you in today? What will you do to progress to the next stage? Share with me in the comments below!
Risk Manager by Profession, Mentor and Coach by Passion.
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