Job Search: Define Your Goals

A friend of mine just landed a job. Congratulations to her as the job market is shriveling up. I won’t mention her name for fear it could cause complications at her new job but many of you know her.

She hasn’t worked for a company in 17 years, give or take, and has lived quite successfully as a consultant. However, she became enamored by the possibility of helping companies directly in her line of expertise.

She gave some thought to what she wanted to do and wrote this document, republished with her permission.

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Overall function
I want to provide strategic direction that integrates new and social media opportunities for a dynamic organization. I see this function as working collaboratively with many departments and functions such as marketing, communications, PR, recruiting and retention, customer service, community management, investor relations and product development.

About new media and social media
I’m defining these terms not just as technology and communication tools, such as blogging, YouTube, Flicker, Twitter, Facebook, podcasts, social bookmarking and social networking, but also as a new realm of communications with a distinctly different culture that includes activities such as –

User-generated content
• Conversations and comments
• Personal branding and online profiles
• Personal and personable content
• Community management
• De-institutionalizing of information
• Rating content
• Tagging
• Link, links, links … and more links.

My ideal job looks like –

• Working across a number of departments – marketing and communications, sales and business development, HR for recruiting and retention, IT, customer service and PR.
• Providing strategic direction, internal consulting and project management.
• Interacting with staff at many levels, including executives, managers, creative teams, technical staff and admin.
• Designing, implementing and managing projects.
• Keeping abreast of emerging new media technologies and trends.

I am less interested in work defined by digital media maintenance, e.g.

• Keeping a website current.
• Managing online advertising and email campaigns.
• Handling technical functions of a company’s digital communications.

I am more interested in —

• Being at the forefront of new media.
• Identifying opportunities and developing strategies using new media.
• Designing, implementing and managing projects.
• Internal education, integrating new media and expanding an organization’s capacity.

Company / Environment
The environment in which I want to work is an organization that —

• Already has a strong brand, marketing department and PR component.
• Values creative business strategies supporting both short- and long-term goals.
• Has leadership that is open and pushing to be an adaptive and dynamic company.
• Has leaders who know they need to do something different – and fast, but may not have any strategy or plans yet.

The type of organization I want to work for is —

• A large corporation, even a national brand.
• Military organizations and federal government, or a government contractor tasked with bringing social media functions into the government.
• A small municipality with robust funding for creative economic and community development.
• I am less interested in nonprofit organizations.
• The industry in which I work is of less importance to me than the job function.

Location

• Company location is not important.
• Willing to travel.
• Looking to work in a creative and flexible environment, where technology and online
  communications are robustly supported; meeting space is beautiful, and productivity and
  results are valued over face time.

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Notice how she defines exactly what she does and does not want. She knows specifics, down to the detail, on the principles of her employment. She knows that she may not be able to detail specifically which company or organization she wants to but she knows specifically the role she is looking for and what she wants to accomplish.

As unfortunate as this is, the economy is growing worse and more people are looking for work. You may be one of them. Instead of hitting the job boards with dervish-like ferocity, take a day or two alone and in a quiet place and write your own roadmap.

Knowing specifically what your goals are will greatly increase your chances of finding meaningful employment where you can do what you love and love what you do.

• 
• Stumble it!

About the Author: Aaron Brazell is the lead editor of Technosailor.com and a social media expert. His passion is to see companies and individuals use the internet and web technologies wisely and effectively to promote their brands and companies. He is Business Development Manager for Lijit and he worked as Director of Technology at b5media from 2005-2008 and is currently an independent consultant.