Quintessential Careers:
Wrestling the Time-Management Monster in Your Job Search
by Katharine Hansen, Ph.D.
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One of the stickiest wickets in the job search is how to manage your time. If you're unemployed and need income fast, you want every bit of your job-search time to be productive and yield some sort of payoff. If you're employed but desperate to get out of your current situation, it can be very difficult to carve out time for a job search. It has often been said that job searching should be a full-time job, but clearly that's not possible if you're employed.
This article offers tips for job-search time-management. The first portion of the article offers suggestions that apply to both the employed and unemployed. The next part is for the unemployed, and the final section applies to the employed job-seeker.
For both employed and unemployed job-seekers:
- Consider crafting a mission statement. What does a mission
statement have to do with time management? The time-management book,
First Things First by Steven Covey, A. Roger Merrill, and
Rebecca R. Merrill, asserts that if you live by a statement of what's
really important to you, you can make better time-management
decisions. The authors ask, "Why worry about saving minutes when you
might be wasting years?" For more about creating a mission statement,
see our article, Using
a Personal Mission Statement to Chart Your Career Course.
- Determine when you want or need to start your next job and set
some long-term and short term goals that will get you where you need
to be.
- Let your goals lead you to make prioritized to-do lists. Daily
to-do lists will keep you on track and remind you of which job-search
tasks are most important and will be most productive. You'll be much
less vulnerable to distractions and interruptions if you stick to a
list.
- Spend time on job-search activities in proportion to how
productive they are. Most studies show that the percentage of people
who obtain jobs through Internet searching is in the single digits.
Sending out dozens of resumes to companies that may or may not have
openings is also a technique that rarely produces results in
proportion to the effort expended. Conversely, 50 percent or more
job-seekers find jobs through networking. Thus, most job-seekers will
want to proportion their job-seeking time accordingly. It's easy to
sit at a computer for hours, search for jobs on the Internet, and
post resumes in response to openings. It's much harder to get out of
the house and meet people who may be able to help with your job
search. It's tempting to do the easy things because you feel as
though you are at least doing something, but don't give in to
the temptation. Sure, spend some time on the Internet, but don't get
carried away. And do employ Internet job-search approaches that will
enable you to get the most from your time. See our article,
Maximize
Your Internet Job Search.
- Don't forget informational interviews as a relatively
low-stress, but often high-yield form of networking. Read more in our
Informational
Interviewing tutorial.
- Set daily goals. Some arbitrary examples: You will contact five
people in your network every day. You will send out 10 resumes every
day. You will research three companies every day. You will follow up
on four resumes you sent out previously and two interviews you went
on recently. The numbers will vary depending on how urgent your job
search is, how much time you have, and which tasks are most
productive for you. Some experts suggest assigning a point value to
these activities -- the more productive the activity, the higher the
point value. See for example, the point values suggested in our
article, Mid-Year
Career Checkup: Are You "On Your Game?". Similarly,
in his book, Don't Send a Resume, Jeffrey Fox says that four
activities lead to landing a job: 1) Getting a lead, referral or
introduction to a potential hiring manager; 2) getting an appointment
with the person making the hiring decision; 3) meeting with the
hiring manager; 4) getting a commitment from the decision-maker that
directly leads to hiring you. Fox says to assign 1 point for a lead,
2 for an appointment, 3 for an interview, and 4 for a commitment. Fox
says to shoot for 5 points a day and try the point system for 10
days, bringing you closer to a new job with each day.
- If you feel lack the self-discipline to manage your time and set
regular goals for yourself -- or if you just feel you need some extra
support -- consider joining or forming a job club or networking
group. Find out more in our article,
For Networking
and Support, Join or Start a Job Club. Or
consider engaging a life or career coach. A coach will likely give
you homework assignments and keep you accountable to your goals.
Check out our Quintessential
Careers Directory of Life and Career Coaches.
- Create an efficient workspace for job-hunting and get organized.
Assemble the materials you'll need for job-hunting and devise a
system -- perhaps a spreadsheet or index cards -- for tracking your
contacts and activities. See, for example, our
Sample
Job Lead Follow-Up Log. Because it
takes time to refocus yourself after interruptions, strive for a
workspace where intrusions will be minimal.
- Provide yourself with some downtime. While you do need to devote considerable time and effort to the job search, be sure to take care of yourself. Take some time to relax, enjoy favorite activities, exercise, and just chill out from the rigors of the job search.
For unemployed job-seekers:
- Come as close as you can to making your job search a full-time
job. You'll get results much faster if you really go at it full
steam. A blog site called Employment Digest, notes that
"under-performing job searches ... are usually starved for time." The
author points out that when job searches don't perform, the
job-seeker sometimes tries to do more of the same things he or she
has been doing instead of analyzing the overall strategy and
determining what could be done better, as well as what strategies to
add or subtract.
- Establish a morning routine that simulates a work day. Get up
early, perhaps exercise, then shower, and get dressed. You certainly
don't need to be in full business attire, but dress nicely enough to
make you feel professional and productive. You'll be a lot more
effective than you would be in a ratty bathrobe.
- Take time at the beginning of your job-hunting day to focus
yourself on the tasks in front of you and put yourself in a positive
and productive mindset.
- Getting the most difficult tasks out of the way first, some
time-management experts say, is the best approach because it helps
you avoid procrastination and provides a feeling of accomplishment.
- At the end of the day, plan your next job-hunting day.
For employed job-seekers:
- Clearly, you will need to make the most of non-working hours.
Get up earlier than usual. Plan to make good use of your lunch hour.
- You might feel discouraged about the prospect of interviewing if
it's impossible to get away from your job during business hours. But
most employers understand that interviewees are working, and they
will not only admire you for your commitment, but will make an effort
to accommodate you before work, after hours, or at lunch time.
- Be extremely cautious about conducting job-search activities on
your employer's dime, including using the company's time and
equipment. Be careful, too, about receiving phone calls from
prospective employers on your office phone. That's what cell phones
are for. Many employers also monitor their employees' e-mail and
Internet use, so be careful there. Sure, people conduct job searches
from work all the time, but if you chose this route, don't go overboard
and consider the consequences of getting caught in the act.
- Consider taking vacation and personal days to conduct your job search.
- Be aware that lots of good networking opportunities and meetings
occur in the evening. Plan to take full advantage of those.
- Keep a portfolio and extra copies of your resume at work so you'll always be ready if an opportunity presents itself.
Questions about some of the terminology used in this article? Get more information (definitions and links) on key college, career, and job-search terms by going to our Job-Seeker's Glossary of Job-Hunting Terms.
Katharine Hansen, Ph.D., creative director and associate
publisher of Quintessential Careers, is an educator, author,
and blogger who provides content for Quintessential Careers,
edits QuintZine,
an electronic newsletter for jobseekers, and blogs about storytelling
in the job search at A Storied
Career. Katharine, who earned her PhD in organizational behavior
from Union Institute & University, Cincinnati, OH, is author of Dynamic
Cover Letters for New Graduates and A Foot in the Door: Networking
Your Way into the Hidden Job Market (both published by Ten Speed Press),
as well as Top Notch Executive Resumes (Career Press); and with
Randall S. Hansen, Ph.D., Dynamic Cover Letters, Write Your
Way to a Higher GPA (Ten Speed), and The Complete Idiot's Guide
to Study Skills (Alpha). Visit her
personal Website
or reach her by e-mail at
kathy(at)quintcareers.com.
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