December is a noisy month. The holiday season, intended for meaningful celebrations with friends and family, often results in folks running around in total frenzy, trying to purchase the right gifts and make all the obligatory social events across town, or several states away. Kids — small and grown up — will soon be home from school. And there just doesn’t seem enough time for anything.
Most candidates take a break from their job search right now, and given that companies are focused on making year-end goals, often delaying hiring decisions until they close out their fiscal calendar, that’s not a bad thing. And while applying for jobs right now may not be the most fruitful endeavor, as I’ve been sharing with my clients, preparing yourself for 2018 should be a priority.
Investing just 15 minutes per day — or late at night, even if you’re decompressing in front of Netflix — will give you a leg up for the January job search. While others will be scrambling to get organized during the broke/sick/depressed post-holiday reality, you’ll already be on your way.
1. Update Your Resume – Remove older jobs, projects and skills, replacing them with the most relevant ones, signaling your readiness for what the market demands now. Then save the file FirstLastResume2018Winter.doc/pdf. Update with each season.
2. Polish Your LinkedIn Profile – Use your resume as the baseline, then spice things up by endorsing and writing recommendations for people you admire and respect. Consider it free gift-giving that also gets your name in front of new eye balls.
3. Clean Up Your Social Media – Regardless of privacy settings ANYTHING we post on social media is out there forever. No matter how personal you think your Facebook account it, only post things to the highest form of audience you have i.e. your next hiring manager, who may be in your network. Humor, sarcasm and personal expression is great — it’s what makes you YOU. Just use your common sense.
4. Order Biz Cards – Keep it simple: name, cell #, email, social media links and what you do. Don’t forget a professional headshot — keeps you more memorable. Most places like VistaPrint.com and office stores run huge printing deals right now, so stock up and circulate.
5. Get the Word Out – Write a brief email — two-three short paragraphs — to state what your skills are and the kind or role/firm/industry/geography you’re looking for. Start sending it individually to your network, with your resume attached. Not only will you get their attention, but the simpler you keep it, the more “forward-able” the message will be to people in their network.
6. Party. Party. Party. – As tedious as it may feel, attend every single social event that you can physically make it to. Bring those business cards with you. Shake hands. Meet people. Tell them what you do. Connect with them on LinkedIn within 24-48 hours of meeting them. You’ll quickly grow your network.
7. Research Your Dream Firms – Look up companies that are of interest to you and see what they have open. If they are publicly traded read up on their Wall Street announcements. If they are public, private or nonprofit, see what’s on their media page. Go to GlassDoor.com and check out what employees are saying about working there. Finally, start following their social media pages to see what they post/share.
8. Prioritize Your Health – This time of year is very caloric. We all know that. And imagining an extreme and unrealistic resolution is a sure-fire path to failure and disappointment. A regular sleeping schedule, physical activity and the right kind of vitamins/nutrition/water consumption will all go a long way for the energy and clarity you’ll need come the new year.
9. Shut Off The Noise – This is wonderful time of year for EVERYONE giving EVERYONE their opinions on how they should be living their lives, the political state of the country, religious divisions and global events. If social media has enabled people to channel their inner Archie Bunker, then the holidays turn this up to 11. Just nod, smile and say, “I understand.” Save the energy of arguing for what you need to do with your life.
10. Design Your Future Job – Whether in a journal or on a piece of paper or on your smart phone, write out EXACTLY what your desired future day at the office (or factory or studio or farm) looks and feels like. From the moment you wake up to arriving at your place of work to the first thing you do when you’re there to how you spend your hours to how you feel when you come home, put all your thoughts and emotions behind what will make you feel most satisfied and happy. Imagine it. Own it. And come back to it. Then a year from now, look back on that and see just how close you’ll be living up to it.
There’s only a few weeks left in 2017. Make them count.
Alexsandra (Alex) Sukhoy. I’m a writer, marketer and career coach at Creative Cadence LLC, and teach business students at CSU. You can find my first business book, Date Your Career: The Longest Relationship of Your Life, on Amazon. I’m currently writing a film noir screenplay called Cleveland City.
Twitter: @creativecadence. #letstalk