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How to Track Job Search Progress

Charting Career Transition Growth with a Positive Outlook

Feb 21, 2008 Tel Asiado

As a job seeker, it is important to track your job search transition progress, and there are ways to sustain level of confidence and motivation.

It is important to track or chart job search progress. By doing so, career goals can be re-adjusted or fine-tuned. The range of target industries or organizations can also be expanded, in line with the responses and feedback received from the job market.

The job seeker has to do his or her homework in searching for employment from printed newspapers and online job search. Job searching continues while tracking progress of jobs already applied for.

Here are suggested ways to sustain the level of confidence and motivation:

Regular review of accomplishments
Upgrade skills if necessary, and continuously identify them
Maintain a positive attitude

Regular Review of Accomplishments

Know what have to be accomplished. Prepare an in-depth study and inventory of your past accomplishments. A thorough effort in this area will provide you with the following:

An immediate awareness of things that you have done well
The necessary information to identify your skills
The base for a strong resumé and a solid job interview.

Identify and express work accomplishments. They can be done by writing down briefly what has already been done, not necessarily how it was done. These values which are beneficial to employers require a quantitative measurement to substantiate them.

Here are examples of the general results in improving of quality most frequently expressed in accomplishments:

Established an administrative process
Increased sales
Increased profits
Improved productivity and team work
Planned a program from scratch
Reduced costs
Reduced time of operations

Upgrading and Identifying Skills

Many job seekers are either too general or too narrow when selling their skills and capabilities to a prospective employer. The job seeker should keep in mind that his or her objectives are to be able to define self by skills and competencies. If necessary, seminars or courses should be attended. It is important to articulate them to an employer’s needs, and to know which of the job seeker's skills are most in demand within the job market.

Maintaining a Positive Outlook

It is a good idea to develop personal strategies which help maintain a positive attitude throughout the period of a career transitioning while looking for a job.

Stress can exist in a number of areas of life at different times, sometimes concurrently and can result in adopting a joyless, negative frame of mind which is both destructive to self-confidence and obvious to those with whom the job seeker comes into contact.

To assist in developing and maintaining a positive frame of mind, it is important to keep a “healthy” outlook in other areas in life surrounding the job search period. For example, a job seeker is able to cope better if physically and mentally active - a regular exercise or a walk, visit to local library, or a pursuit of a rewarding social life where personal interest lies, instead of trying to live in isolation.

Readers may want to check out the following related articles: Tips to Improve Chances of Getting that Job, Networking Important for Job Seekers, and Plan a Job Seeker Needs to Progress an Interview.

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