Be Valuable - How Do I Get Jobs To Come To Me

Ever since I parted ways at my standing position for my previous employer all of my colleagues, friends and family had been concerned. I decided to be out in the toughest market in history with no "solid" prospects for renewed work.

However since my departure I have been able to consistently get opportunities presented to myself on almost a daily basis often times up to a dozen a day. This has been consistent even during the most difficult of times and as optimism in the market improves the opportunities have been piling up enough so that I have been challenged to reply to every one of them.

Most of my colleagues find what I do incredible and for many of them very unbelievable. I have taken a few of them and helped them along showing them my inbox, the opportunities that I have followed up with, and more importantly the steps I had taken to help me get to this point. Even with just a few helpful suggestions they have seen improvements in their own situations from what they were getting before. I thought to share some of these suggestions with others in the hope that others will be able to benefit from them and improve their own situation.

I have blogged about some of these before but here are the suggestions that I can make that have worked for myself:

• Know your value. What makes you valuable? What is your value? These simple questions need to be answered concisely and honestly. Look to past reviews or just general comments and compliments from others. Hidden in this feedback is the answer to these questions.
• Have a story. Make sure to have a central theme to what you are professionally speaking. Are you a leader? A troubleshooter? A miracle worker? Do not be afraid to take the time out to look at this carefully. A job title is not your story. I explain it the following way. If I tell someone that I am a "technical architect" for company "XYZ" that tells them very little about what I actually do. They draw their own conclusions. Your story should be able to stand alone without the preface of title or affiliation. After all your story comes up right after those anyway. Some things to keep in mind about your story:
  • A story is not just about your responsibilities, duties, or tasks. These are nice facts to fill in the space of the story. These are not the story itself.
  • Your value is your story. An example story I use all the time is "You are the world's best father." This is a great start. Why are you that? What do you do to get that? What inspirational examples do you have? These are the core of your story.
  • Your work experience is nice but secondary as well. It is what you accomplished throughout your experience that people care about.
• Communicate holistically. In today's world it is not merely enough to focus on a single source to present yourself. You need a mixture of several different sources blended and woven together to make a powerful presentation:
  • Resume. A resume is still used by many companies so make the investment in a good one. Spend some money. Spend the time to make it represent you. Keep it up to date.
  • LinkedIn. An online professional site, LinkedIn is fast becoming a place where professionals go to accentuate their abilities outside of a traditional resume. It is a good place to keep things up to date, professionally speaking. It is an excellent place to provide additional information about your professional abilities.
  • Blog. This is next big area that lets others know more about you online. This is far less structured than say FaceBook and less concise than Twitter, but a blog let's others know more about you on both a personal and professional level. A blog can be whatever you want it to be so take the time to get one, experiment and post something about yourself.
  • Twitter. Letting the world know what you are thinking is great. However keep in mind that Twitter must be concise and to the point. You can be whatever you want to be on Twitter just make sure that if you are going to use it for professional purposes, make your tweets align with your online presentation. 
• Practice! One of the most common mistakes I run into is that people do this but then fail during the actual interview or networking event. Take the time to practice what you have done. Look at it or have others look at it. Get their critiques and improve. Rarely do you get it right the first time and without practicing. So take the time and make sure it becomes second nature.
• Be honest. I am sort of shocked at how often this occurs which is people introducing little white lies. There is absolutely no need for that. Just stick to the honest facts and you will be fine. Be proud of who you are and what you have accomplished. That goes much further.
• Network. Even if you are highly qualified no one will offer you a position if they do not know you are looking. Make sure you reach out to your network and let them know you are looking. Many times I get asked the question "What if I am currently working and I want to look?".  My answer is simple, go look at other opportunities. If you are not happy with your current employer looking around for other opportunities is no great shame and nothing to hide. The worst thing you can do is not be honest to yourself and limiting your contact to your networks for new opportunities.
• Update everything at every major event. Deliver a big project? Move to a new city? Looking for a career change? All of these are big news to your network and create opportunities for yourself. If you are going to change make sure those that would want to hire you know what you are thinking about and why. It makes all the difference.

One big point I would like to make before I start which I have with my friends and colleagues as well. If you have something that is working stick with it. What I offer is just my opinion of what has worked for myself and from the feedback I get has worked for others as well. These suggestions might not work for you, but then again they might.

This process takes time but it is really worth it. Being on top of your professional career is a full time job. You need to stay on top of it and quite frankly manage it as if you were your own company. In the end you can only rely on yourself and that is where all doors to opportunities open and close.