Having recently experienced a career transition, I decided to dedicate the next blog posts to things that I found useful in managing my search campaign. I certainly hope some of my experiences prove useful and beneficial to others.

When I first started my career transition I looked at it as both a challenge and an opportunity. In our home we believed in the mantra that you may not be able to control what happens to you, but you can control how you choose to respond. While my career transition was not a planned event, I did decide to use this as a once in a lifetime opportunity to shape my next set of experiences. It brought with it a wide range of emotions that included anxiety and excitement. My search campaign ended up being a remarkable experience. While I would not wish that experience on anyone, I choose to believe that I am a better person and a better leader as a result of my experiences and growth during my search campaign.

Following are some of the ideas that I found worthwhile. I will explore these ides in more details in future blog posts, but for now I just want to acquaint you to some of the ideas. Note; the ideas are not necessarily in priority order nor are they in sequential order of steps you should take.

1)  Work hard at your search campaign but make certain you also take some time off to feed your soul.

 2)  Structure your search campaign. Create a marketing plan that provides the direction for what industries and companies you want to pursue and update it weekly as you are progressing forward in your campaign and discovering new information.

 3) Know your value proposition – companies are interested in people who can help them solve business problems. Position yourself in this capacity and don’t just be a job seeker. The real value proposition is the results that you can deliver  – it becomes how you lead you way into the job so lead  with your strengths

 4)  Use a Multiprong approach in your search campaign. While networking and conducting informational meetings is how I spent the majority of my time, I also employed other techniques. I developed relationships with recruiters and I used the power of the internet to conduct my search campaign. I did not use any fee based services.

 5)  Conducting informational meetings. Learn from others and use the information to further direct your search campaign.

 6)  Do your homework before any informational meeting and especially do your homework before an interview. Research the industry, company, and the people you will meet with.

 7)  Make it easy for people to help you. If you want someone to make an introduction on your behalf, send them a brief script that they can use. I used a variation of my 30 second commercial.

 8)  Have a 30 second commercial!

 9)  Be sure to say thank you and never miss an opportunity to help them out. As an example, someone I had met was working on an initiative to create a global virtual team. I had just read an excellent article on that topic so as part of my thank-you I shared the article with them.

 10)  Be online – LinkedIn is a must.

 11)  Track the details. I tracked my contact information, follow up, leads, etc. It is not unlike the tacking a Sale representative would do for client prospecting, meetings, etc.

 12)  Attend seminars and other forums for learning and networking with others.

 This is not an exhaustive list, but I hope some of these ideas are helpful. If you have other ideas that have worked for you, please don’t hesitate to share. In future posts, I will expand on some of the details and samples that I found useful.