A Job Hunt Is A Marathon – Not A Sprint

When Job Forum volunteer, Michelle Liu, decided to look for a job at a large consulting company, rather than continue her own successful consulting practice, she was searching for more teamwork and more opportunities to manage large transformational projects for more companies.

What happened next showed her how important having the right professional contacts matter for today’s job search,

The Job Forum advises job hunters that gaining informational interviews and obtaining referrals into companies the job hunter intentionally targets, is much more productive and strikingly more effective than is applying to a large volume of companies. The “apply and wait” plan just does not always work well due to the enormous number of other people applying.

Michelle saw in her own experience that what The Job Forum is advising candidates is accurate. Referrals, direct employer contacts and very targeted networking produce more results than applying online and filling out applications all day to many openings. 

She also discovered that job hunting efforts can certainly feel like a marathon.  She is grateful for friends and colleagues including those at The Job Forum who actively contacted her, assisted her, and encouraged her.

A job search does require not only smart targeting but also persistent tailoring to communicate why you are the right fit for a role, staying on top of the multiple company processes and the extreme follow-through and interview skill-building that Michelle successfully used for her marathon job search.

Because Michelle volunteers herself with The Job Forum, she was in a good position to have a large network of professionals, and she knew to reach out to those at The Job Forum and her own work colleagues, as is so often advised by job search experts, but less often actually done!

She says the volunteers at The Job Forum and others from other nonprofit services, including Nova, helped her as The Job Forum does with so many job hunters. She was referred into her current company by Job Forum colleague, Marc Gallo, who recommended her to one of her target companies, PwC, for a role where she could certainly excel.

Michelle also realized she needed more practice for interviews and she was encouraged all along the way, regarding helpful ways to communicate her value and plan how to answer the behavioral interview questions, -those where a candidate tells about real life work situations in order to demonstrate to a company their proof of problem-solving skills, conflict management finesse, leadership,  ability to prioritize, skill at influencing others and adaptability successfully when there is rapid change or ambiguity.

Michelle says one surprising but important arena, was the necessity of adapting to on-line interviews. She learned to look at the camera rather than the interviewer since many others at a target company will look at the video, not just the recruiter, so one has to learn to come across effectively for them. While she was at it, she also practiced coming across with Executive Presence – calm, not shifting around in ways that may seem nervous and to concentrate on eliminating filler words that may be okay in person, but are certainly not helpful on video.

Michelle’s job search took around 4 months, to get her to the company where she now works. She had 5 rounds of interviews, then a negotiation meeting, then an onboarding process. She is thrilled with her new job and has already managed a major transformational project successfully for their client, working with a 12-person team in multiple time zones. Michelle advises other job hunters to do a search as she  did and  not overlook the importance of keeping your sanity by exercise, yoga and actually including 3 decent meals during your own marathon job search.

She thanks all for contributing to her success in the job search.