A job search is a sales job, and keeping your "pipeline" full is a critical success factor in both endeavors.

Both sales and job searches have a life cycle or a flow of events from start to finish for each prospect. At any given time, all of your opportunities across all these steps are called your"pipeline."

These steps are roughly:

• Product & Target Definitions
  • You, via your resume, are the Product. Take the time to re-evaluate what you have learned, and what your new "value proposition" is in your desired industry. Then, review and update both your public resume and your private resume(also referred to as your Career Diaryor a Job Journal / Job Diary ).
  • Defining your Target Market is knowing what industries, firms, and positions you are going focus on. I defined my initial targets Day 1 and during the course of this "sales campaign" known as my job search I have refined them .
• Multi-Channel Target Marketing
  • Applied to a job search, this refers to all the means you are using to get the word out about what types of positions you are interested in, and gathering in leads to as many relevant opportunities as possible. These include:
    • Networking
      • Including networking sites (e.g., LinkedIn), attending conferences, following up with prior executives and contacts in your desired industry, researching articles about your targeted employers, volunteering, etc.
    • Job Boards (e.g., CIO.com, CareerBuilder, Monster, WSJ.com, MilitaryHire.com, etc.)
      • Including full utilization of their auto search and e-mail notification features
    • Executive Recruiters
    • Job Fairs
    • Targeted employers' websites
    • Branding
      • Including writing articles in your field, speaking engagements, blogging, and leaving thoughtful comments on industry articles.
• Leads Screening to Identify and Contact Valid Prospects
  • Once you’ve created all the sources for leads, you need to evaluate each lead against your desired criteria to identify those few relevant potential opportunities that you are interested in learning more about.
    • I recommend you create as many automated means as possible to filter out the irrelevant, random and spammed leads, using and refining the various websites’ search features, your e-mail spam filters, and plain self-discipline.
  • These results are still not true prospects. Next step is to apply your personal and business fundamentals criteria to this narrowed list of job leads.
    • If a lead is not from one of your specific targeted employers, go to their website, research their financials, look for public evaluations and awards for the company, ask your mentors and network contacts about them.
    • If they can meet your target market, your business fundamentals criteria, and your personality/culture fit tests, they can now be considered qualified job prospects.
  • Next step is to turn those prospects into opportunities by taking action.
    • Apply for each qualified position.
      • Ideally, use one of your networking contacts to give you a warm introduction to the hiring manager or the HR manager.
      • Next best is to have a network contact submit your name; as a company insider most companies put insider recommendations to the top of the evaluation pile.
• Prospect Cultivation
  • For a job search, this is the interview, thank you card, and phone call follow up stage.
  • Keeping track of what positions you have applied for, who your contacts are (by correct name and title), interview dates and hiring timelines are vital.
• Contract Negotiations and Closing
  • Nothing's final until all the paperwork is signed on your first day of hire.
  • During negotiations you need to have already researched the position’s responsibilities, flexibility for title changes, career growth, salary range (and company policy on exceptions), bonus ability, benefits (and options for creativity), etc., so you know what and when to ask for more, when to not push, and just as important, when to walk away.

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