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Your Job Search–Specific List

26 November, 2015 - 15:06
Available under Creative Commons-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

Even though your whole list is important to your search, some contacts will be closer to your search outcomes than others. For these contacts, you need to track information beyond just contact information or category. For the search-specific list, this includes everyone with whom you have inquired about your job search. Your well-connected Aunt Mary is appropriate to your job search–specific list because in addition to being family, she works in the industry you are targeting. Informational interview contacts go on this list. Of course, people who interview you are on this list.

For the search-specific contacts, you will want to track the following information:

  • How you heard about them
  • When you first contacted them
  • The quantity of activity involved with them (e.g., how many phone calls, how many meetings, how many attempts to contact or other back and forth)
  • The quality of activity (e.g., what did you talk about, what reactions and rapport were evident)
  • The most current point of contact and the date
  • Any follow-up required (e.g., send a résumé, e-mail John Doe and say this contact referred me)

KEY TAKEAWAYS

  • You need two lists of contacts: an overall list; and a job search–specific list.
  • You need to track all of your contacts because you need one go-to place for information about your network.
  • You need a job search–specific list because there is additional information to track regarding the contacts for your job search.
  • For your job search contacts, you want to know the activity, dates, and follow-up actions related to your contacts.

EXERCISES

  1. How are you currently organizing your contact list—cell phone, Outlook, LinkedIn, Facebook, paper address book, business cards you collect?
  2. How do you currently categorize your list, if at all?
  3. If you don’t yet categorize your list, will you use the categories and priorities suggested earlier? If your list is already categorized, is it suitable for your job search activity? Do you need to update any of your contact information or categories?
  4. How in the past have you managed a long-term project where you have to track different pieces of information at different times—on paper, electronically? This may give you some guidance in terms of how you might stay organized with your job search project.
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