You may want a new job, but are you ready? -- Career Center Blog

NWjobs | NWautos | NWhomes | NWsource Classifieds | seattletimes.com

February 12, 2010

You may want a new job, but are you ready?

1 Comment |
E-mail |
Print
- Share:

By Randy Woods
NWjobs

Sometimes in life, just wanting something more than anyone else may be the secret to success. But when looking for a job, just wanting it may not be enough--you have to come better prepared than the competition.

Perhaps you've been in the hunt for a new job for many months and you may think that readiness is the least of your problems; that the struggling economy is your biggest hurdle. But have you really done the legwork necessary to catch the attention of hiring managers? A new study by staffing firm Robert Half International suggests that most people delude themselves about their own preparedness for an extended job search campaign.

In a recent Robert Half poll of 493 workers across the country, 82 percent of the respondents said they were either "somewhat prepared" or "very prepared" to start searching if they lost their current job tomorrow. However, only 20 percent of those same people in the poll had updated their resumes in the last three months, and 44 percent hadn't touched their resume in more than a year!

To make sure you aren't mired in a similar bog of over-confidence, Robert Half has collaborated with career search platform Upwardly Mobile to develop the Job-Hunt Readiness Evaluator, an automated tool that asks a series of questions about your job-search prep work. After answering the questions, which take less than 10 minutes to complete, the Evaluator assigns you a point score on a scale of 0 to 100 on your overall readiness and gives you a personalized report on tips to help improve your chances of landing a new job.

I took the free online quiz and answered questions about how many colleagues I keep in touch with, how often I've been to networking events, the number of social networks and professional organizations I belong to, my comfort level in social settings, my strengths and weaknesses, and other questions about my career goals. I'm not currently looking for a new job, but I scored a respectable 88 points out of 100, which is well above the average score of 69 points for the survey. (Still it felt like a bit of a wake-up call considering I write about this subject for a living. Looks like I have to hit that networking circuit even harder!)

"A current resume is an essential career tool -- the longer it remains untouched, the harder it is to update, since specific achievements are not always easy to recall," said Reesa Staten, senior vice president and director of workplace research for Robert Half. "Workers who are prepared in the event of a sudden job loss also are ready when new employment opportunities arise." She recommended creating a "personal personnel file" in which you keep track of your accomplishments that can be uploaded quickly to refresh your resume when needed.

Of course, there's for more to job searching than resume-building. "It's also imperative to have an active network and up-to-date skills," Staten said. "Many people may focus on one particular area during a job search when many factors can play a part in career advancement."

Randy Woods writes about job-search tools, networking techniques and other tips to help you land your dream job.