Test Engineer (JMR)

Many career advisors, as well as surveys of job-seekers, indicate that a typical job search can take anywhere from three to six months, and in some cases much longer. Therefore you need to treat your job search as a long-term project, and to organize and plan it accordingly! In the beginning of your job search write down all the different job titles you might be interested in. Include job titles similar to your previous job as a safety net, but also do not be afraid to include some nice-to-have jobs. Revise and edit the list over the course of a few days, and then make a polished copy of it on your computer with your favorite word processing or spreadsheet application. Then, use that list as your copy-and-paste source for running online job listing searches once or twice a week, and also send a copy to your headhunter or staffing specialist. Use the list to continously manage your job search, and take notes of the number of interviews you get for each of the job titles and note your successes and failures in each. Then modify your job search tactics each month based on your results, and keep your headhunter up to date also and let him or her act on your behalf to help you find the job you want. By the second or third month you should start to see a much better ratio of job interviews versus job applications. Using an adaptive job search strategy will almost surely have you honing in on the exact jobs you want by the time you reach the six month mark or hopefully even sooner!

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