Marketing Yourself: The First Steps of a Job Hunt

I was interviewed earlier this week for an article that will be appearing in the Sacramento Bee soon. In it I talked about how you should help other people find a job. It made me stop and think about advice I would give to someone who needs to find a job. Here are a few items- I'll add to these tips over the next few months:

1. Figure out what you want to do. This sounds easy but you do need to give it some thought. I will admit the first time I was laid off I was really worried and I focused on just get a job. The second time I was a bit more relaxed - I had a good severance and I was a bit calmer. So I focused on answering these questions:

• What do I want to do? What am I best at? What gives me the most pleasure at work?
• Where do I want to be? Do I want to stay in this area or, since I'm changing jobs, do I want to move somewhere else?
• What sort of company am I looking for? Enormous Multinational, small startup, midsize, etc?
• What do I not want to do ever again?
• How much travel do I want to do?
• What do I value most in a company - free dinners, good work/life balance, workout facilities?

Those questions will give you a start. Write all the answers down and really look at them. Then write your resume to appeal to the companies that are the best fit. Don't have a lot of training experience in a marketing resume - unless you want to do both (I learned that lesson). Make sure you are selling yourself in this resume. Then start researching companies.