‘Tis the Season to Prepare for Your New Year’s Job Hunt

The holidays are a season of hope, but they should also be a season of preparation if you are thinking of changing jobs in the new year.

According to Monster.com, January is the busiest month for job searches, although we typically see hirings begin to ramp up in February. We have found that when you apply for a job — as in, how soon you apply after the job is posted — can decide whether you get selected for an interview. That means you cannot wait until a job is posted to refine your resume, cover letter, and LinkedIn profile. We call these your personal brand, and we recommend you nurture and hone that brand on a regular basis.

If you are considering looking for a new job in 2021, give yourself a gift this holiday season by investing in your personal brand today. Follow these four strategies to get ready for the new year.

1. Build out your career success “story bank.”

Our clients all start in the same place: writing down their top accomplishments and writing short stories around them. We call these your career success “story bank.” These stories are critical to building out your personal brand and selling your successes in a job interview.

To start, answer these questions for each of your jobs:

    1. What three things are you most proud of?
    2. What awards and/or recognition did you receive?
    3. Were you promoted or given new responsibilities?

For each answer, be specific, and quantify your successes whenever possible.

2. Update your resume.

One of the biggest mistakes we see is resumes that describe only what you have done but omit how successful you were at doing it. This is where your success “story bank” can transform your resume. You should include three to four success stories and a summary of your job duties below each job, starting with the most recent and working your way back in time.

Format your resume for today’s postings by removing your objective and replacing it with a bulleted list of professional skills, strengths, and areas of expertise. These should mirror the keywords you see in the job posting.

Finally, format your resume to be readable by an applicant tracking system (ATS), a program used by employers to filter resumes that match their required qualifications. To work in this format, avoid using tables, update your job title to mirror the job posting title, and prepare a Word version of your resume ready for uploading. Your resume should be updated at least semiannually with new achievements and changes to your skills or duties.

3. Refresh your LinkedIn profile.

Your LinkedIn profile should not simply be a repeat of your resume, and it should not include the overly personal information in your other social media accounts. The primary rule for LinkedIn is to keep your profile professional. Consider it an extension of your resume, a place where you can add personal touches to tell a recruiter or potential employer a little of the “who” behind your resume without sharing information you would not share in an interview.

For starters, your profile summary, the About section, should succinctly describe who you are professionally and how your experience has led you to today. My LinkedIn profile, for example, notes that I specialize in building the personal brand and competitive advantage of my clients by leveraging my 13 years of experience as a recruiter.

Make sure your headshot on LinkedIn portrays you in a professional light. Do not include other people or animals. If you have not updated your photo recently, now is a good time to enlist a friend, go outside in good lighting, and use the portrait mode on your phone’s camera to get a fresh new headshot.

4. Prepare your cover letter template.

While you should never send a generic cover letter (this can actually hurt you more than help), you should have a basic template. Your cover letter should explain who you are and why you are a fit for the position you are seeking.

Match your experience to the job duties outlined in the posting by using the same words as in the posting when describing your relevant experience. Be sure to represent your background accurately while doing this. To make the cover letter more visually appealing, to draw the reader in, add bullet points that highlight your success stories that are relevant to the job posting.

Include just enough information to motivate a recruiter or hiring manager to read your resume. With that in mind, your cover letter should never be longer than one page.

By making time this holiday season to elevate your professional brand, you will be prepared to conquer your professional resolutions come New Year’s Day.

Picture of Franklin Buchanan

Franklin Buchanan

Franklin is a professional recruiter by trade. He founded Post Up Careers to offer personalized career management services for professionals at every stage of their careers. These services, which range from professional resume writing and LinkedIn profile optimization to career coaching, are designed to ensure his clients make it past the pesky applicant tracking systems and, ultimately, get hired. A native of Aiken, he and his wife Kendall are raising their two young daughters on the land where his mother was raised. For more information, visit LinkedIn or PostUpCareers.com or check out @PostUpCareers on Facebook and Twitter.
Picture of Franklin Buchanan

Franklin Buchanan

Franklin is a professional recruiter by trade. He founded Post Up Careers to offer personalized career management services for professionals at every stage of their careers. These services, which range from professional resume writing and LinkedIn profile optimization to career coaching, are designed to ensure his clients make it past the pesky applicant tracking systems and, ultimately, get hired. A native of Aiken, he and his wife Kendall are raising their two young daughters on the land where his mother was raised. For more information, visit LinkedIn or PostUpCareers.com or check out @PostUpCareers on Facebook and Twitter.

In the know

Related Stories

Honesty + Leadership | Palmetto Bella

Honesty + Leadership

Leadership is influence, and we each influence those around us. What type of influence would you like to create? Having a vision or purpose for life empowers actions to be executed with intent and a desired result. Leadership in action is the best way to create influence. There are two ways to influence — by reason or by force. Living with reason is fundamental to safety, education, and progress; actions without reason, morality, or understanding are dangerous. One of the most unique characteristics we have as human beings is the ability to choose. Who is in control of your choices? Who is responsible for your emotions, intentions, and reactions? Do

Read More »
Being Human | Palmetto Bella

Being Human

If there is one nugget of advice that we should take away from 2020, it is to be human. It sounds like such a simple request, but is often lacking in a business setting. We celebrate love (among other things) in the month of February. Love is a strong word, but loving one another is the basis of our humanity, so how can we love one another in the workplace? Angela Ahrendts, Senior VP at Apple, said, “Everyone talks about building a relationship with your customer. I think you build one with your employees first.” Whether or not you want to be, you are in relationship with the people you

Read More »
What’s Next? | Palmetto Bella

What’s Next?

The new year has arrived, and the expectations are for things to be better than in 2020. That is exactly the forecast from most investment firms. Billions of dollars will be pumped into the economy this year, and that will generate additional spending. More spending means more goods sold, and when more goods are sold, more profits are made. When more profits are made, the stocks of those companies are in more demand, and that results in higher stock prices. It really is not that complicated. You just need to figure out which of those companies will produce the goods that people want to buy, and then how long people

Read More »
In Transit… | Palmetto Bella

In Transit…

I placed the order on December 10, in plenty of time for delivery by Christmas. It shipped, by First Class Mail for $4.75, on December 11. When it had not arrived a week later, I asked for the tracking number, and then I checked the tracking history each day (see below). For several days the tracking history showed a mysterious message that later disappeared: Your package will arrive later than expected, but is still on its way. It is currently in transit to the next facility. My package sat in Florida for 4 days, and then took 10 days to make it to North Atlanta (by mule perhaps?). Once in

Read More »