Week 11(a): Refining Your Project Plan for Your Job Search
Like any project plan, your job search project plan requires adjustments as the project progresses to manage changes in opportunities, resources, information and scope.
Last week I showed how applying the sales technique of keeping your “pipeline” constantly full with new leads is vital to a successful job search. With this job search project now nearing its three-month mark, and a personal deadline (see below), I want to show how I have adjusted my plans and efforts in response to what I have learned, where I’m at with each task, and what I want to accomplish this week.
Returning to my project plan for this job search, here is my refined list with a status for each for this week. Note that from my experience on this job search project so far, I've removed several tasks that were either redundant or useless to my goals, and adjusted several others to more realistic resource utilization levels.
Daily:
- Review my Top Ten leads sites each day (e.g., CIO.com, CareerBuilder.com, Monster.com, Military.com, MilitaryHire.com, Intelligence.gov, WorkForAmerica.com, Vault.com, Wall St Journal, etc).
· STATUS – I have daily auto searches running on most of these and review the results. However, I need to add auto searches to the remaining key sites. By periodically reviewing the opportunities that result from those searches, I expect to see changes in which sites remain in my Top Ten.
- Work on CIO.com blog daily and write full blog entry weekly.
· STATUS – Done, although need to improve consistent weekly output.
- Read business books and articles 60 minutes each day.
· STATUS – While I am exceeding this metric overall, my efforts are not focused enough on the topics I wish to zero in on (e.g., Agile, ITIL, PMP). Therefore, I will pick one subject per week (Agile this week and next) and reevaluate subjects weekly.
Weekly:
- Apply to at least three to five new positions each week.
· STATUS – I applied to only three new positions these past two weeks. To get back on track I will apply to at east one per day this week. [Note that this task was changed from a daily to a weekly task once I realized how much time this goal needs to be effective.]
- Review my Top Ten specific employer sites each week (e.g., top strategic consulting and defense firms).
· STATUS – I dropped the ball on this one. Some have auto searches, but most do not. I will recreate my Top Ten Employers list this week and start this visitation schedule. I expect this list to change frequently.
- Utilize LinkedIn.com's job search features, and
Previous Post: Week 10: Advice for Keeping Your Job Search Pipeline FullNext Post: Week 12: Preparing for Executive-Level Interviews
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