St. Louis Business Journal
Got Focus? It's the key to landing the right job for you

By Anna Navarro

March 2003 - Focus is the key to successful job hunting. Why? Employers prefer to hire individuals who will meet the company's needs and are enthusiastic about the position they are seeking.

For the job seeker, this means answering three basic questions:
1) What kind of a job do I want?
2) What do employers expect from people they hire to do that work?
3) What evidence can I put forward to demonstrate that I've got what employers need?

Answering these questions is essential to organizing every aspect of your search from how you write your resume, to who you network with, to what you say in an interview.

Mark's story clearly demonstrates the need for and benefits of focus in job hunting. Mark had recently lost his job as general manager of a small division. His company consolidated two product lines, which resulted in layoffs for Mark and a number of other people.

Mark wasn't exactly sure what he wanted to do next. He'd enjoyed some of the work of a general manager, especially in the two-year start-up phase. He had also done strategic business development for his most recent employer, coming to that position from a job in a small venture capital firm. There he had started as an analyst and then moved into developing presentations for prospective investors. He originally began his career as an auditor in a public accounting firm.

With his varied background and an undergraduate degree in finance and accounting, Mark felt there were any number of directions in which he could head. He decided to be flexible about the kind of position he pursued, believing that would improve his chances of finding a job quickly.

Mark wrote a resume that pointed to his accomplishments in each of his jobs. He didn't want to pin down an objective for fear he would be excluded from some openings.

He knew that networking was the best way to find a job, so he assembled a list of his contacts from a variety of fields and started meeting with them. When they asked him what he was looking for, he indicated that he was flexible and that he thought there were probably any number of jobs he could do well. He talked about his varied background and experience. Everyone promised to call if they heard of openings. But after several months, Mark had made little headway.

When we met for the first time Mark was understandably discouraged and, except for the general downturn in the economy, not sure why things weren't going well. After our initial meetings, I concluded that Mark was working hard but not smart. While there was something for everyone in the way he presented himself, none of his strengths came through clearly.

My first suggestion was that he figure out what specific kind of job he wanted to target. This required that he put the job search on hold so we could first assess what he was good at, what he would enjoy doing and what would meet his needs. The process of doing this took time and energy, as well as courage, given the pressure he was feeling to find a job. But he tackled the task and decided on business development as the focus of his search.

With new clarity, we wrote a more focused resume that emphasized the business development aspects of his previous jobs. The resume truly sparkled and presented a picture of a dynamic person with a purpose and a contribution to make.

He'd already met with most of his contacts in business development, so I suggested he attend meetings of professional associations in business development. I also suggested he make use of the on-line archives of newspapers in his metro area, searching for "business development", "business incubators", "mergers", "acquisitions" and similar topics, and note names and companies that came up. Finally, I recommended he pore over a local business directory and come up with a list of companies likely to be heavily engaged in business development. This research yielded a rich collection of new contacts. We developed a brief oral presentation that made his enthusiasm and skill in business development self-evident. It did not take Mark long to find a job.

Mark's success came about because of his clarity about the kind of job he was seeking. It helped him maximize the results he got from his considerable efforts. Mark's more focused approach to job hunting not only landed him a good job, but also one he enjoys.

Anna Navarro is the founder of Work Transitions, a nationwide career consulting firm that trains independent career strategists and consults with individual clients.

This column was originally published by the St. Louis Business Journal. The actual title of the column and date in which it appeared in the Business Journal may be slightly different from what appears on WorkTransitions.com.