The following is a guest post from Amit Puri of Sandbox Advisors courtesy of Recruiting Blogswap.

Companies are always hiring, even during a recession. However, there will be fewer jobs during a bear market and the competition for these positions will be more intense. In such a scenario, it is only sensible to use job search tactics which provide the maximum success rate. Especially if you have limited resources at your disposal.

So what are the most effective ways for conducting a job search? They are mentioned below. These percentages refer to the number of people out of every 100, who find a job using only that method.

1. Job leads from friends, colleagues and other contacts:   33%
2. Directly approaching an employer (hiring manager) that interests you in-person or over the phone: 47-60%

The real benefit comes from using an integrated approach, which is by far the most effective way to look for a job. The success rate improves dramatically to ~85% by using this approach:

Step 1: Career discovery

• Preparing a comprehensive profile: Of your personality, interests, values, beliefs, skills, past experience and goals/constraints. Basically, a detailed representation of ‘who you are’

• Identifying ideal career/job possibilities: This involves matching ‘who you are’ with ‘what you do’. At the end of the exercise you should have a list of actual jobs and companies where you would be an ideal fit

Step 2: Prepare a personal marketing plan

• Customized plan to market yourself to your ideal ‘customer’ i.e. potential employers

• This is based on the work done in step 1

• It enables you to effectively showcase and convince employers why you are right for the job

Step 3: Use proactive job search tactics, personal contacts and networking to reach people who have the power to hire you

• Target both the published and unpublished job markets

• Effectively reach the people who can hire you for positions you are considering

• Supplement with a few other methods such as head-hunters, job boards and so on. However, do not spend too much time on these.

The reasons why this approach is so successful is simple. One of the big challenges hiring managers constantly face, is to recruit the right person for the job and to ensure that they retain this person. By targeting jobs/companies for which you are the right fit, you make the hiring manager’s job much easier. In your resume, interviews and other communication, using inputs from your personal marketing plan ensures that you can effectively show why you are the best person for the job. And finally, by using contacts/networking you access the unpublished job market (in addition to the traditional job market) which broadens the number of good jobs you can target.

As with all good things in life, this approach requires a bit of effort, which is systematic and organized.

Article courtesy of the Recruiting Blogswap, a content exchange service sponsored by CollegeRecruiter.com, a leading site for college students looking for internships and recent graduates searching for entry level jobs and other career opportunities.

Related posts:

1. Guest Post: Three Job Search Lessons from Two Californians
2. Guest Post: Now Hiring – Company Career Sites
3. Guest Post: Social Media and the Job Search
4. Guest Post: Being Out of Whack
5. Guest Post: How’s Your Job Search Going?

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