Resolve to Improve Your Job Search Strategies

Online Job Search

As 2023 approaches, consider resolving to improve your career image and job search strategy. Unlike more ephemeral goals like gym workouts and diet plans, set some goals within your power to achieve, with the added benefit of ultimately improving all those things by landing a better job. 

 

1.   Clean up your online presence.

 

Managing your online presence is particularly important today since many studies show that most hiring managers and recruiters utilize Google and social media searches to find candidates for new positions and vet applicants before making a hiring decision.

70% of managers reported successfully hiring candidates through social media, particularly Millennials and Gen Zs. In 2020, a survey of 1005 hiring decision-makers conducted by the Harris poll deducted that 67% of employers use social media sites to research potential job candidates. In the same survey, 70% of employers believe that every company should screen potential candidates' social media profiles when considering them for a job opportunity.

 

Of equal importance to those actively searching and applying for positions, a different survey conducted by CareerBuilder found that 54% of employers rejected a candidate due to finding something on their social media profile that they found disagreeable.

 

2.   Polish your professional brand

 

"Your brand is what people say about you when you are not in the room," said Jeff Bezos, founder, and CEO of Amazon. In Branding Pays: The Five-Step System to Reinvent Your Personal Brand, Karen Kang elaborates and defines personal branding as "your image and reputation" and "the act of developing the strategy and actions to guide your brand."

 

This resolution requires you to ask yourself, "Who am I, and what do I stand for? What is my ultimate goal, professionally? What challenges in my life and career have shaped my professional journey? The clear answers to these questions can separate you from a pack of similarly qualified candidates by making you relatable to hiring managers and appealing to office cultures.

 

3.   Cultivate your network

 

Creating and maintaining a solid professional network is imperative to your career development and ultimate success in your chosen vocation. This can provide business guidance, opportunities, and a system of support throughout your working life. It is, therefore, essential to maintain and increase business contacts steadily for them to be effectual.

 

One way to do this is through social media, such as LinkedIn, relevant to your profession or even specific companies that you want to work at. Keeping your accounts up to date and active lets you share your career information with your network through notifications. 

 

Also, connect by attending in-person events such as recruitment meet-and-greets and virtual speed networking. Nothing makes an impression like a face-to-face conversation! These days, some of these can even be done by Zoom, so it's important to keep feelers out in your professional community to find out when, where, and how these occasions pop up. Again, keeping up with social media is beneficial in this regard.

 

These are just a few possible resolutions that can help you get the jobs that you want in 2023, but if you are feeling ambitious, there are tasks you can assign yourself to improve your professional prospects. You can also take continuing education classes to brush up on your skills or reach out to companies you applied to inquire about any new openings. These are the kind of resolutions that will hopefully result in your ideal job, thereby elevating your overall wellness.