How Long Will it Take You to Land a New Job?
I found a graphic recently from LinkedIn where respondents had indicated how long it was taking them to land a new job.
I wanted to share these data with you – and give you five strategies to reduce that time.
Here’s what I know for sure after all these years doing what I do: Your job search will take longer than you expect. I find it fascinating to see where people’s brains go when their job search goes past its arbitrary expiration date – we’ll talk more about this a bit later.
I’m also fully aware that some of you may be holding out for bonus season before leaving your current position. The point, then, is “How can I make my job search take the right amount of time for me?”
The prompt from LinkedIn was as follows: “I have been searching for a new job for…”
5%: 1 week
16%: 1 month
17% 3 months
19% 6 months
12%: 1 year
22% over 1 year
I could slice that data in a lot of different ways, but let’s instead focus on those strategies to reduce that time.
Strategy #1: Don’t spend all your time on job boards.
If you listened to any of my previous podcasts, you’ll be familiar with this metric:
-If you are just out of college: 75% on job boards
-If you’ve been in the workforce for a while: 50% on job boards
-If you are at the senior or C-level: No more than 25% on job boards; preferably 0%
How much time should you be spending on your job search?
-If you are working full-time: 5 hours/week
-If you are unemployed: 30 hours/week
You may need to adjust those numbers slightly; the idea is to decide on a number that you can consistently stick with barring emergencies or unforeseen circumstances.
Pick your job boards, set up job searches that come to you daily, and then review those daily emails during passive time (think waiting for your Starbucks order or the microwave to beep).
Then set aside time twice weekly to respond ONLY to the jobs that meet both these criteria: 1) You are very excited about the position, and 2) You are at least 75-80% qualified.
Which leads nicely into Strategy #2:
Strategy #2: +1 Approach or don’t apply.
When you are applying online, you are meeting with the maximum amount of competition. The +1 Approach requires you to do one more thing in addition to just applying online like everyone else.
Implementing the +1 Approach as a guardrail means that you won’t permit yourself to apply for any jobs you don’t want to go the extra step for, because you are either not that interested in the job or you don’t think you are sufficiently qualified to be competitive.
This keeps you out of “doing for doing’s sake” and keeps you into more proactive action.
Strategy #3: That Hidden Job Market is real.
Depending on where you look, 70-85% of all jobs aren’t posted on job boards. There are numerous reasons for that, but let’s focus on what that means.
If you are only looking at job boards, you are missing as many as 4 out of every 5 jobs. Often, these “hidden” jobs are the best ones.
Enter networking. The flip side of the percentages I provided earlier is as follows:
-If you are just out of college: 25% of your time should be spent networking
-If you’ve been in the workforce for a while: 50% of your time should be spent networking
-If you are at the senior or C-level: 75-100% of your time should be spent networking
One of the things I work with my clients on is what networking activities make sense for their career goals; I also help them with the before, during, and after phases of networking and we set specific networking goals.
Strategy #4: Focus on what is in your control.
So many people measure their job search success by whether they received an interview request or job offer that day. These things are out of your control.
What IS in your control are the job search activities you decide ahead of time to engage in, as part of a comprehensive, proactive job search.
For example, let’s say you decide to spend 1 hour, twice a week on LinkedIn. You set aside this time on your calendar, and you include on your calendar what your deliverables for that hour will be.
For example:
-Find 3 people who work in the X department at ABC company and ask them to connect.
-See who has accepted a connection from me since [date of your last LI session] and thank them for connecting.
-Follow up with [name of 3 people] to ask them for a Zoom meeting to [include the goals for these meetings]
This is all doable within 1 hour. And when you accomplish those 3 things, reward yourself.
One more thing: before you finish up your LI session, write in the deliverables for your next session on your calendar.
Strategy #5: Mind your mind.
Those of you who know me would be shocked if I didn’t talk about the importance of your mindset during your job search.
Take for example the fact that you think your job search is taking too long.
You could be thinking:
“No one wants to hire me.”
“The job market sucks right now.”
“I’m too…[fill in the blank].”
None of these thoughts will energize you to continue your job search. You are likely to start phoning it in, such as only applying to jobs online.
What if, instead, you think:
“My job search is taking longer than I thought it would, and that’s okay.”
“Companies ARE hiring people like me.”
And my favorite, for obvious reasons:
“It’s probably my job search strategy…let me find a job search coach to help me.”
You could even go so far as to look up some data on the job market – to prove to yourself that people are getting hired, and companies are hiring.
Watch what you are thinking – about yourself, the job market, your marketability. It makes all the difference.