If you want to start a new job in twenty twenty four, this is the podcast episode that you need to be listening to. I don't care if you are cleaning your house, if you are driving your car, if you are walking your dog, if you are ignoring your partner. Maybe this is what you need to be doing. Also, Hi, I'm I'm Aalit Durham, the host and the producer of the Straight Shooter Recruiter podcast. This has been a one woman show for the last four years dedicated to helping you thrive
in your nine to five and beyond. Like just cut the fluff. We don't do the fluff. We don't do the bs. We talk real practical tips. Coming from someone who's worked in recruiting for over seven years. I am a careers coach, I am a careers writer. I've been in Forbes, BBC like you name it, I have done it. This is literally my jam and I've made a really successful career out of navigating careers. And
my goal is to just brain dump everything onto you. So now here child, if you are ready to receive my brain dumping self a cup of coffee, I have one as well, warm and next to me. Today I am drinking the pumpkin spice and espresso pod and I mixed it with that new Tim Horton's creamer. If you're Canadian, you know it is so good, and I think that's it. Don't forget to leave a rating in a review.
And if you're holiday shopping you don't know what to get your friends, your partner, your mother, your boss, get them my merch because that shit is funny. There's a very real possibility you don't like the first thing that I'm about to tell you, but it is very honest. If you actually want to get a new job in twenty twenty four, and most specifically Q one of twenty twenty four, so like January, February, March, and April, you need to start today. And I'm recording this the second
last week of November. It's probably gonna go live that exact same week. You need to start now. And part of that is because there's homework you need to do in advance of you actually applying for jobs, and there's like a couple of timing constraints and things you need to know that frankly, a lot of companies are not actually going to tell you. And I want to keep you on the loop on what all that good stuff looks like. So let's start off with right now. You need to decide is is actually the
right move for you. Maybe you think yes, absolutely totally fine, skip ahead, But I would encourage you to ask yourself the next couple of questions, because sometimes it's normal for us to want to quit our jobs and want to have like a whole new outlook on life. Maybe we're bored, Maybe we just got a new boss and we don't love said new boss. And it's super easy to jump to the mental conclusion that I'm gonna quit my job, like get me out of here. And sometimes that's the answer. Sometimes
it's not. And I'm going to tell you something. When I first started recruiting, I wanted to quit so badly, Like I was interviewing for jobs in marketing, I was interviewing for jobs and a whole bunch of other companies because I was miserable, and I was convinced that frankly, like I would never enjoy it. Stuck it out in extra few months and I fell in love with it. And obviously, talent and recruiting and TA is my whole world. So ask yourself, have I given myself enough time. For me,
enough time is six months. If you still hate it in six months, you're gonna hate it forever. Let's move on. You probably realistically even know what you want after the three month mark. Don't make any hasty decisions in like month one or month two of a new job. Okay, now that you know for sure you are quitting, it is time for you to do some real life for research on where you would like to work. So easiest thing to do is start off by going on a website like LinkedIn,
or indeed take a peek at what companies are actively posting the most. I do want to tell you that this is a really shitty time to apply for jobs because a lot of companies are waiting to post new jobs until January. That's when their budget tends to reset. So take a peek at who you have seen that's posting jobs that you're interested in, and just make sure you're not discounting companies that don't have postings up right now, because January is actually
the best time to apply. But the purpose of this exercise is for you to create a list of maybe twenty or thirty employers that are your tier one target employers like these are the places you really really want to work. Doesn't mean you're not applying for jobs at other companies. What it means is the strategy for your tier one I want to work for you employers is a little bit more high touch and it's a little bit different. And then like the
E I'd apply for this job kind of employers. And that's what we're focusing on right now to get you ready for your dream job in January or February. So make a list of your tier one employers. What you're going to do now is be very honest with yourself. You need to be very honest with yourself about what skills you might lack that you would need to move into that new position. So, for example, if I'm a recruiter and I
want to move to Facebook, are there skills I'm missing? Yeah? Probably, I'm not as deep on AI. I don't know AI as much. So what I'm going to do over the next couple of weeks is I'm going to take some online courses. I'm going to put those on my resume. I'm going to start networking with people and we'll get to networking in just a sec. But I'm going to use the next month and a half to close those skills gaps so that when it's time to apply in January, I am
ready and my profile is correct. If you wait to do this until January, you are not getting a job until the second quarter of the year. I'm going to tell you that right now, the job market is slow. It is no longer this hot, sexy market where there's thousands of jobs available. It's also no longer a market that is entirely ruled by either the employer
or the candidate. We're kind of going back and forth. There's a bit of a like a balance happening after the pandemic, where employers treated our entire workforce like shit, frankly, and then a bunch of people said, hey, I'm going to quit. I don't want to work for you. And then suddenly employers were like, ooh, so sorry, I'm going to treat you well and pay you whatever you want. That's kind of not what's happening anymore. Like the pay is kind of lowering. There's less flexibility for remote
work. It's just slower, So you need to start sooner and be super intentional. Once you have done that and you have your top list of employers. You're going to go on LinkedIn and you are going to find people who work at those companies. Pro tip before you do this, make sure you go to Reddit or fish Bowl and see if these people and these companies have good reviews against them. No one's going to be honest on Glassdoor. No one is going to be honest on their career website. They're only going to
tell you the best of the best. So go to the real deal, like see what they really have to say, you know, like, we want I want to hear the tea. I want to hear what the sea EO is like, Okay, I want to hear everything. So that's what you're gonna do. If everything checks out and you still like that company, it's time to start networking and you need to network now for the job three months from now. And that's a tough pill to swallow, baby, but
it's the pill I'm serving you. I'm serving you the pill because it's all about the relationship game. So what I would advise you do is you reach out to five or six people in total from your target companies, and you reach out literally saying this, Hey, I'm Emily, I'm a senior recruiter working at a tech company. I noticed that you are a senior recruiter at Facebook, and I would love to grab a virtual coffee with you for fifteen
minutes if you get creative and you do something like that. I'm telling you people are more likely to respond when you give them a customized message pulling from their personal experience, because people are more likely to want to talk about themselves than to help you. Sorry, that's the harsh reality of the world.
So make your first conversation with that individual all about learning from their experience and picking their brain, and then make the second conversation with that person, because yes, at the end of the first chat, you're going to say, this was fantastic. Are you comfortable if I reconnect with you in a couple of months, Make that more about your career and ask questions about their feedback on your resume, ask them questions about how they might recommend you grow and
improve in order to be qualified for their jobs. And then you would say, hey, you know, if anything ever pops up, I am open to work. So if there's something that you think is a good fit for me, I would love to be connected to either you as the hiring manager and potentially even be referred for the job if you think I'm a good fit. That is only appropriate though after the first conversation. This is a super
high level summary. I actually have an entire detailed what to say, how to say it, when to say it breakdown on both this podcast and my YouTube channel. They're two different videos or like audio clips, so same content, just delivered differently. If you're more of a visual learner, I would recommend going to YouTube. If you're more of like I'm going to listen in the car, talk me through the details. Check out my podcast episode on
that. But you need to get really good at networking, and that's going to gear you up for job application time. So the holidays are popping up, you know, happy, happy everything, happy happy time off. That's truly what I'm celebrating this holiday season. But you are going to be like, what, let's call it off for two weeks, whether you are off or not. Most major companies are shut down, which means by the time December second hits, nobody's really working. Like they're working, but they're not
really working. So your goal up until January first is networking and understanding what jobs you want and closing your skills gaps January. First, I want you applying for jobs like a maniac like. I want you applying to every single job. And how are you going to get your resume to stand out? Number one, You're going to use that holiday break time to revamp your resume.
Not going to get into the details here, but I have a full, detailed, detailed, detailed YouTube series that breaks down everything on that, So go check that out if you need help on your resume. And then I want you to start applying specifically to the jobs at your tier one companies. And after you apply for those jobs, you are going to message the people that you been networking with and say, hey, friend, hope you had an awesome holiday season. Wanted to let you know I applied for this
job at your company. Would love to know if you think I'm a great fit or if you have any questions about my candidacy. That's it. You leave the rest on them. You don't get pushy. You let them take charge, because here's the thing. If they like you, they're going to refer you for the job. Reason for that is they get paid when you get hired, babe, So it's a win win everybody is a win in okay, So just send them that message. Leave the rest in their court.
Other ways you're going to get your resume to stand out is you are going to message not the recruiter, but the person who is currently on that team on LinkedIn. So if you applied for a finance manager position at Facebook, you're going to find another finance manager and you're going to reach out and
send the same kind of message. Recruiters are inundated with way too many messages, so that the likelihood they're going to see your message is pretty low, especially after the holiday season because it's kind of peak time for people to be applying to jobs. It's definitely one of the peaks of the year. So I would highly recommend checking out who those people are and y players are on the team. It's a pretty easy thing to find. Honestly, you just
need to go to LinkedIn. You know, you type in some keywords, you find some people. Even if it's the wrong person, that's fine. It's a person at the company, right So either way, that's a huge win. So I wouldn't like, don't panic about making it perfect, just get it done. Like, make sure you get it done. A couple of things you don't need to do. You don't need to customize your resume
for every application. You don't need to customize your cover letter. What I would recommend doing, though, for those Tier one companies is do have a tailored message to the recruiter, tailored message to the person you reach out to, and just make sure that your resume is really solid, like make sure you have a solid kick ass resume. If you work in an industry like consulting or finance, yes you do. One thousand and one billion, one
jillion percent need a cover letter. Most other industries, especially tech, they're not going to read it. They're not going to read it. Now, I would be a really shitty career coach if I told you that the secret sauce to getting a job in Q one is applying to a job, because that's not what's going to cut it. What really is going to get you that dream job fast. Number one is networking. Number two is putting yourself
out there beyond the scope of applying for jobs. A lot of organizations are going to host in house sessions, which means they'll have, you know, like ted Talk style sessions happening in their offices. That they'll post online. They're going to attend conferences. You need to start going to those things. That's how you get your name remembered by key players, by recruiters, by
the talent managers, by the teams you want to work for. So you need to actively put yourself out there frankly all the time, but most especially January February March of this is your timeframe. You're doing that while you're networking, so you haven't stopped networking and reaching out to people on LinkedIn, and while you are still firing out your application. Because realistically, it is very
similar to the rule of marketing. There's a rule in marketing where it says it takes seven times for someone to interact with a brand before they purchase. So you open up Instagram and you see, I don't know, like an advertisement for a hair extension, and I'm just saying that because I see hair extension ads all the time. You see this ad for a hair extension the
first time, you don't really pay attention. Then you see an influencer use it and you're like, oh, that's kind of cool, and then you see another influencer, and then you see another ad, and then it pops up in your stories, and then it's in Facebook marketplace and you see it there, and it pops up a few more times till it hits the lucky number seven and you are statistically more likely to say, ah, screw it,
I'll buy these ugly little hair extensions. So it's kind of the same thing with talent, right Like, the more you have repetition and brand recognition to your name, the better. There is no secret key. Like I wish I could tell you there was a secret key, there is not. The best thing you can do is have a very very good resume, have a very solid, regular cadence of networking, and keeping multiple people warm in your network, and then putting yourself out there to become a well known candidate
to that organization via their events. It really is a combination of all three. And if you want to land your dream job in Q one, start today. Your number one priority is networking and it is always networking. And if you do you want to have a sexy, long term career where you are growing and you are making more money all the time, you are never going to stop networking. You were going to do this once a month, every month until the day you win the lottery because with inflation, baby,
I don't know if we're if we're ever going to retire. You know, i'd love to say and just like that, you're going to get your dream job. Unfortunately, with this job market, it is not easy. It is not something that is like effortless. It doesn't mean you're going to get your favorite job in two months or two weeks. The average time to get a job after graduation, for example, is about seven months. And that's an a normal economy. We're in a weird spot where companies aren't really claiming
a recession. The banks are kind of talking about it like everything is really really up in the air, and that causes companies to move slower. But the good news is January tends to advance things at a quicker rate. It also tends to be a period where brand new positions are coming to the forefront. So the best thing you can do is start now. Focus on networking. And I wish I could tell you there was another secret. There's not
like networking, is it networking? It Almost every job is filled via networking. It's someone who knew someone who knew someone. It's you keeping in contact with the recruiter. It's all of those things. So anyways, I really really hope this helped reminder. I've got lots of other resources on this page, on my YouTube channel, on Instagram, and on TikTok. And I'm going to be back next week. I know, I took two weeks off. I was traveling so much for work. I wonder if you can hear
the tired in my voice, but I was literally everywhere. It was a lot. It was a lot. So now I'm back. We are back on our regular schedule, and I really hope you enjoyed this. That's kind of my goal. So that's that's it for me, folks. I think that's it. Oh yeah, we're back. You can hear the shitty accent, so we're back. Awesome. All right, friends, I will talk to you next Sunday. Love you lots, and happy job hunting. Wa