​Are you stuck in a dead end job? Do you want to change careers but are uncertain of which direction you should take?
 
These 12 steps will help you transform your career and land your dream job:

1. Adopt a can-do attitude. Believe in yourself and know you are capable of achieving career advancement. Write goals and affirmations, tape them to your mirror, and read them aloud daily.
2. Brainstorm about alternative career paths. List five choices. Which career is attainable and would be most satisfying to you? 
3. Read The Occupational Handbook and major business publications to determine the availability of jobs in your chosen field. A publication of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, “The OOH can help you find career information on duties, education and training, pay, and outlook for hundreds of occupations.” 
4. Research target companies. Glassdoor.com is a good starting place or search Google for 
   "Top 50 Employers" in your area. Identify 10 companies of interest and follow them on LinkedIn. Set Google Alerts to receive emails with news about the companies you've identified as prospective employers.
5. Search Indeed.com and print out 10 job posting in your chosen field. Analyze the job postings to discover common skill sets.
6. Our Fit-Gap Analysis Spreadsheet (included in Finding Meaningful Work & Career Happiness online career coaching program) is a great tool to uncover skills gaps between where you are today and where you want to be in the near future. 
7. Conduct informational interviews with people working in your chosen industry. Ask their advice on which courses and certifications are most useful in their line of work.
8. Enroll in courses to bridge any skills gaps required for employment in your chosen field.
9. Think positive. Cast your fears aside. You are capable of learning new skills at any age.
10. Be persistent. Study diligently to gain the skills you need to be successful in your new career.
11. Hang out with successful people. Join professional organizations, attend meetings, and build your network. Join LinkedIn groups and participate in group conversations. 
12. Prepare your resume and cover letter. Ask your network contacts for introductions to people who have the capacity to hire you. 

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Source: U.S. Department of Labor, The Occupational Handbook. Retrieved from Bureau of Labor Statistics: https://www.bls.gov/ooh. 

Job seekers, today’s briefing will be quick. Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to click on this link to read a great article on Glassdoor naming the 25 Highest Paying Companies to Work For in the USA. Check it out!

Shhh! Top Secret: Mission Possible HQ wants you to know that Written by a Pro can help you create customized personal marketing documents (resumes, CVs, cover letters, social media profiles, etc.) that can help you land a great job with better compensation. Call the job seeker's hotline at 912-656-6857 - Open Monday - Thursday from 10 am - 5 pm US Eastern.

Are you spending hours of your time sleuthing out job postings and applying online, only to get little or no response for your efforts? Did you know that companies receive hundreds of applications for each online job posting? Not to state the obvious, but competition is fierce.

Would it surprise you to learn that only 25-30% of available jobs are posted online? The vast majority of jobs are unadvertised. Some jobs "are hidden" when a company is conducting a confidential search to replace an underperforming employee. Other positions "are hidden from public view" because they are filled from within the company, through employee referrals, through word-of-mouth publicity, or through recruiters. That means you are missing about 70-75% of available positions by strictly limiting yourself to applying to job boards. Higher paying jobs are less likely to be advertised. In fact, applying online is the least effective way to land a job. The conversion rate of application-to-job-offers is low (only around 1-3%). So, what can you do? 

Don’t rule out online job postings completely, but spend no more than 30 minutes per day searching for and applying to online job board postings. Job postings listed on a company’s website have a better application-to-interview conversion rate, because applications are sent directly to the company’s HR department or hiring manager. 

To maximize your search results, use a job board aggregator like www.Indeed.com instead of surfing a bazillion websites. Automate your job search. Set up job alerts on Indeed.com so that job postings in your field and geographic location come to you. You will be surprised at how much time this will save you! Also, set up job alerts in LinkedIn to receive email messages about employment opportunities based upon your custom search criteria.

Are you wondering how to take control of your job search? Mark Twain said, “The secret of getting ahead is getting started. The secret of getting started is breaking your complex overwhelming tasks into small manageable tasks, and starting on the first one.” 

Start by defining your “must haves” for your new job. Is it a pay increase, a certain geographic location, or a preference for a certain industry? Change your job search strategy to attract the attention of recruiters and hiring managers. We'll show you how. We highly recommend you sign up to attend a free webinar on "How to Get a Job in 6 Weeks, Guaranteed."

The following online tools will put you in the driver’s seat and rev up your job search: Hoovers, ZoomInfo, Google news alerts, JibberJobber, Google Maps, and LinkedIn.

Hoovers (www.hoovers.com) is a Dun & Bradstreet company. It’s a subscriber service with a monthly rate starting at $50, which you can cancel at any time. It is well worth the investment and could speed up your company research. Recent customer feedback indicates that job seekers can use the advanced search features of a paid LinkedIn account to accomplish the same goal and found a company's LinkedIn page more beneficial in finding updated information about the company and the people who work there. The careers center of your local library may allow you to access Hoovers for free.

ZoomInfo (www.zoominfo.com) is a research tool to use after you've identified your target companies. It uses similar advance search functionality to LinkedIn. You zoom in on target companies, positions, locations, and people to generate insider contacts.

Google News Alerts
Set up weekly Google News Alerts to track industry trends as well as corporate expansions and moves. Conduct keyword searches using search criteria such as “corporate growth + [your city and state]” or “mergers and acquisitions + [your industry]”and see what results turn up. Create a top 10 list of target companies.

Google Maps
If a short commute is a high priority for you, draw a radius of 30 miles from your home. Use Google Maps to find companies in your industry that are located in your area. If you would like to relocate, use Google maps to find companies in the geographic region where you would like to move.

LinkedIn
1.    Take care of the basics. 

• Make sure your LinkedIn profile is optimized with the appropriate keywords for your industry so that it will perform well in a search. Remember, you are writing to two audiences, computers and humans. Written by a Pro, offers LinkedIn profile writing services and a list of resources if you want to do-it-yourself.
• Make sure you have the appropriate skills listed for your specific industry. Get endorsements for those skills. 
• Build your network to 500+ contacts. Connect with LIONS (LinkedIn Open Networkers) in your preferred geographic location. Just search "LION + your industry" and send an invitation to connect. Find Super Connectors, people who have thousands of people in their network and are willing to share their industry connections with others. This will help you build strong third degree reach, which is vital to your job search success.
• Use your LinkedIn network to ask for recommendations from professional associates. Ask them to write about your specific strengths and career achievements.

2.    Follow target companies and their leaders on LinkedIn. Learn everything you can about the company’s products/services and industry challenges/opportunities. In addition, there is a cool way to conduct research on LinkedIn to see the educational background and skills of the employees who hold similar jobs to you.

3.    Make new friends and communicate with the people you meet on LinkedIn.

• Join LinkedIn groups and participate in discussions. Comment on recent news events that you’ve found in your Google news alerts. Help others solve problems they are facing. Offer encouragement and advice to others without expecting anything in return. You have the personal satisfaction of “paying it forward,” and you will attract the attention of recruiters and hiring managers who surf industry groups looking for talent.
• Network with other professionals in your industry without asking for a job. This seems counterintuitive, but it is better to focus on building relationships than asking for favors upon first meeting. 
• Identify people in your groups that you would like to converse with and reach out to them. Better yet, if you have a friend who is connected to that person, ask for an introduction on LinkedIn. Talk about what is going on with them, not you. For example, if you see someone in the group received an award for launching a new product, write them a quick message in LinkedIn. Congratulate them on their recent success. Ask them if they would be willing to chat with you for about 10 minutes. If you show a genuine interest in others, they will usually find time for a brief conversation with you. 
• Communicate with people in novel ways. Consider sending an old-fashioned card with a news clipping enclosed or a genuine letter via snail mail referencing an online article you read. Your letter will stand out like a sports car in a parking lot full of mini-vans, because not too many people take the effort to write a letter. Again, do not ask for a job. Do not enclose a resume. Chances are the executive's administrative assistant will forward anything that resembles a resume to the HR department. Simply congratulate the person on his-or-her newsworthy achievement. Ask the executive if he-or-she would be willing to chat with you for about 10 minutes. If you show a genuine interest in others, they will usually find time for a brief conversation with you.

Personal Networking
No matter how great computers are, there is no substitute for human interaction.
1.    Go to conferences, industry meetings, and local civic club meetings. Most organizations will allow you attend their meeting as a visitor once or twice without joining.

• Arrive 15 minutes early. 
• Go prepared to introduce yourself and make new contacts. (more on this in our next blog). Ask for their business card. 
• Write notes on the back of the business card to remind yourself where you met and if you had a common interest. 
• Follow-up within a week of meeting to express how much you enjoyed making their acquaintance.

2.    Build your contacts. Never underestimate the power of friends, neighbors, hair stylists, church members, realtors, civic club associations, college alumni, and professional association members.

3.    Join a job search support team. If you are a college student, take advantage of your university career services department.

4.    If networking is your weakest job search skill, I highly recommend that you read Network for a Job: The PeopleHirePeople® process to build a job-specific network available as an e-book at Amazon.com for $4.99. This book by Kathleen Conners contains smart, actionable advice. It takes the fear out of networking and helps you learn the most effective ways to contact people on the inside track who can lead you to hiring managers.

Job Seeker, your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to take control of your job search, use job search tools to your advantage, and lure recruiters and hiring managers to you.

• Make a list of 10 target companies.
• Conduct your research to find 1-2 contacts within each target company.
• Join 3 new groups on LinkedIn this week.
• Participate in at least 1-3 group discussions each day.
• Show a professional interest in others. Reach out to at least 5 new people each day to talk about industry news, technological advances, upcoming conferences, etc.

Questions? Ask us anything. Send an email to [email protected] or use the contact form on the website at https://www.writtenbyapro.com/contact-us.html