In my last article you learned what employers want; now you need to figure
out WHY they want you? The best way to do that is by conducting a Competitive
Analysis (CA). CA is an essential
component of corporate business strategy that is used to help businesses assess
the strengths and weaknesses of competitors.
This same idea can be used to assess job competitors.
--Go to the home page and click the Advanced button located near the
top right hand corner of the page - before clicking make sure the People
drop down icon is selected on the left.
--On the Advanced People Search page
fill out the Location section and the
Keywords area. For the Keywords area make sure to use the top 5 job
description keywords you uncovered using the tips in my last job search post.
After that, if you are in the United States fill in the Postal Code area and
set Within to 50 mi (80km). If outside the US select your country and then
click search.
--When you get the results you will
likely find more people than want to research; if so add more keywords until
you get about 50 to 100 people. You will notice many of the profiles lack
details - don't worry - all you need is
five well written profiles to review; so keep looking until you get those
five.
--Finally, do a quick manual read
and see what stands out and how each
person is trying to differentiate themselves and then copy and paste all
five profiles into Wordle.net/create to make a word cloud to compare with your
job description keywords. As a reminder I recommend limiting the number of words to 25; to do this just click on
"layout" and then click "maximum words" and set it to 25.
That's it! If you do
these things not only will you understand your competitive job landscape, which
is very useful for interviews and salary negotiations, but also know the areas
where you need to improve to stay ahead of the curve.
If you like this article please write a comment below. Also sign up for exclusive content by typing your information below the big blue arrow at the top of the page. - now Go Get Em'!
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1. "Headhunter" Hiring Secrets: The Rules of the Hiring Game Have Changed . . . Forever!
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3. Guerrilla Marketing for Job Hunters 3.0: How to Stand Out from the Crowd...
4. Kindle Fire, Full Color 7" Multi-touch Display, Wi-Fi
Very informative, you basically took the job market and completely dissected it to give job seekers creative avenues that are right in front of us to use without doing any harm.
ReplyDeleteThanks,
Ryan
Hi Ryan:
DeleteThanks for the comment. I wanted to give people insight on how to manage the job search process in a methodical/organized way. I truly appreciate the comments.
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