Boosting Your Job Search Confidence

Jan 6, 2016 5:16:25 PM

Job search confidence is key when you're looking for a new opportunity.

Just the other day, I was speaking with someone who is on the lookout for a new job. He asked my opinion of how best to go about his job search. I asked him what he wanted to do. He told me that it wasn't about what he wanted to do, but about who would hire him with his skills being two a penny. He stated that he is nothing special.

Building your job search confidence by saying 'no' to negative thoughts

Everyone is special, everyone deserves the same amount of time and attention. Everyone deserves to be heard. Each person is a combination of experience, skills and outlook and that makes them unique. Each job may well fit many people, with many different combinations being able to do the job, but only you can do that job in your way, with your skills.

A lot of people looking for a new job start with a broad search across multiple industries, looking at jobs similar to the one that they already have or feel they are qualified for. This is not a bad thing if you love what you do and have a particular niche in a certain sector. If you have a broad skill set that can be applied to many industries or job types, approaching your search in this way means that you risk working your way through so many job descriptions that you get bored or, if you get to interview stage, you risk being seen as a 'jack of all trades' and a 'master of none'. The worst case in this scenario would be to get a job that you tried to fit into.

Don't be afraid to follow your dreams

You owe it to yourself to aim for a job that fits what you want in the way you want it. What if you aim for mediocre and hit it, will you aim higher at that point? Life often has a way of meeting our own expectations; if those are low, what are you settling for?

You owe it to yourself to identify what you would really like to do or be. You owe it to yourself to identify the kind of company you want to work for. You owe it to yourself to look at what you want to achieve in your life and your job. Once you have an idea of these things, you can establish whether that aim is a multiple step process or just the next rung on your career ladder. No employer is going to create the perfect job description for you and post it up in the hope that you will find it. You need to start chasing the roles that you want to do and find out which companies have them.

Imagine you are a product and your job is to sell you (essentially what a job search is). You need to find the right customers for you, you need to identify the right problem that you solve, you need to sell yourself in a way that makes you consider yourself in the 3rd person. Don't sell yourself short. There is only one you who can do what you do in the way you do it; now go and find the company that deserves you the most and solve their problems!

Find out more about our guest blogger Ghilaine Chan

Ghilaine is passionate about allowing people to do their best work and delight others

Ghilaine helps people to operate fast growing businesses in a productive and streamlined way, keeping an eye on time and money, whilst increasing motivation and improving customer relationships in a fast paced, changing environment. She brings order to chaos and creates scalable processes around the business, empowering them to delight their customers.

She works with tech based or enabled companies who are looking to disrupt their industries, but know that people are at the centre of their success and helping them manage their teams to: 

  • Do their best work and delighting others
  • Create some boundaries, but not cages
  • Know they are acting for a purpose
  • Determine which part they play, that what they receive enables them and what they produce is useful
  • Have autonomy over how and when they produce

She has over 15 years' experience in scaling international business functions for technology companies, within their support and consultancy organisations.

Ghilaine is a graduate of London College of Fashion (now part of University of the Arts: London) with a degree in Product Development. She is a Mentor with Microsoft Ventures,UpRising and Outbox Incubator as well as an Approved Business Coach with Growth Accelerator, now part of Business Growth Services. 

Want to know more? Connect with Ghilaine on LinkedIn, follow her on Twitter and visit her website, Ghilaine & Co

What do you think?

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