Manage Your Job Search

Are you a professional person, such as a software developer, tester, writer, or project manager? You know that a job search is tough. You have to network, online and in person. You have to customize your resume for each job, so you can showcase your talent. You have to look for a culture that fits you. How do you start?

Treat your job hunt like the project it is. Use agile and lean project management approaches that allow you to create a visual system.

You’ll increase your productivity, track your progress, evaluate your work, gain feedback, and throw out what doesn’t work while building on your successes. Learn from your past career to optimize for your next step. Full of tips, stories, and humor, you’ll apply practical techniques to take control of the most important project you’ll ever work on: find your next best job.

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From the Introduction

© 2014 Johanna Rothman

You're looking for a job. Maybe you've just graduated from college. Maybe you've been laid off. Or, maybe you've decided that it's time for a career change. Maybe you want a better job. You might even have a better or different reason than the ones I've listed here.

Congratulations!

It's exciting and scary and unpredictable and overwhelming. If you are anything like me, you can be optimistic one moment, pessimistic the next. You can think you have it “all set” and then your stack of company brochures slides off the table onto the floor and you think, “Oh boy, I do not have anything together.”

And, because it's all of those things, and your emotions fly up and down, you just might need some help to find that emotional balance and intellectual focus to stay on track with your job search.

I've hired or consulted on hiring hundreds of people. I've trained thousands of people all over the world about how to hire. I've written two books about hiring. The most recent is Hiring Geeks That Fit. Many people think that finding a job is the inverse of hiring. It's not.

Finding a job is dependent on other people. It is an emergent project, where you cannot predict the end date. You create opportunities and take advantage of serendipity.

If you are looking for a job, this book will help you create your system for finding a job. Then, with your system in place, you can iterate on deciding what job to look for, what your résumé should look like, what companies to target, how to interview, and how to get feedback on everything.

This book will help you.

Your job: Find fulfilling work.

My job: Show you a system that works.

The Table of Contents

Part 1: Learn to Manage Your Job Search Project

1. Become Your Own Project Manager

2. Start Using Your Kanban Board

3. Reflect on the Past Week

4. Iterate and Organize

Part 2: Choosing a Career, Interviewing, and Deciding on an Offer

5. Know Your Previous Job Patterns

6. Write Your Resume

7. Prepare for the Interview

8. Decide How You Will Decide on an Offer

Part 3: Build Your Network

9. Network, Network, Network

10. Use Social Media to Network

Part 4: Iterate Through these Job Hunting Traps and Tips

11. Avoid These Traps

12. Try These Tips

Part 5: Special Circumstances: New Grad, Career Transition, Over 50

13. What You Need to Know if You Are in Transition

14. Just for People Over 50

Part 6: Special Circumstances: New Grad, Career Transition, Over 50

15. It's Been Three Months. Now What?

Podcasts and Videos About the Book:

• Agile Weekly: Managing Your Job Search with Johanna Rothman (2013)
• Johanna Rothman – Using Personal Kanban to Manage Your Job Search (2013)
• Your Job Search is a Project. Here’s how to Manage it: Episode 24

My video on YouTube: https://youtu.be/_2nQgtKQscM

Buy the book now:

Leanpub. (I also offer an All About Jobs bundle of Hiring Geeks That Fit along with Manage Your Job Search on Leanpub.)

Amazon

I'm happy to report that the Pragmatic Bookshelf also sells the electronic book.

You can also buy the book on kobo, and both the ebook and print book on Barnes and Noble.