Learn the 3 critical things to keep in mind if you find yourself in the perhaps unexpected position of having to search for your next professional role.

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Hi, this is Stephanie Maas.

With restructuring downsizing working on efficiencies.

A lot of these activities are ultimately leading folks who under their own decision making Would not be out in the job market.

By the way, some of these things are huge blessings.

They are having an opportunity to be downsized with a tremendous severance.

It's giving them a break.

It's giving them some freedom to go be with family, whatever the case may be, but it's also putting them on the offense where they actually have to go out and find their next job.

So, what I want to do is to give you three strategies.

If you find yourself having to go on the offense and find your next professional role, there are three things I want you to keep in mind.

First and foremost, you need to be very well prepared.

Nothing reflects less on a candidate when they get a call from an organization and they say, hi, this is XYZ.

I see you applied.

And the candidate says, wait, what?

Who?

I don't remember that role or whatever the case may be.

It's a terrible reflection on the candidates.

Same thing is if a recruiter might call you and you go, Hey, you know, I've applied to everything and anything online.

I have no idea where my resume is or what it's doing or so forth and so on.

Again, if you're out of work, this is your new job until you have another job.

So you've got to be well organized.

Second thing is you've absolutely got to use your network.

Statistically to date, Still, the most effective job search technique is getting hired by people who know you or by people who know you who know you seven degrees of separation kind of thing.

So, if you find yourself needing to look for new employment, make a list.

What are your competing organizations?

Who do you know there?

Who can give you the warm introduction?

Who can speak on behalf of what you're capable of doing?

The absolute worst thing is having to submit a resume into the black hole of online jobs.

People get so frustrated and there's a time and a place for that.

But be smart, use your network.

And then thirdly, you need to own the followup process.

For a lot of people, this makes them very uncomfortable.

If you're in sales, this is part of who you are.

You got this all day, every day.

But for most of us, we're not.

So you need to be the one that does the follow up.

You need to make sure that you're constantly doing the legwork.

If somebody says, Hey, I really enjoyed meeting with you.

Let's follow up next week.

All right, the ball's kind of in their court.

But by the way, if it's Wednesday of the next week and you haven't heard anything back from them, you need to be the one that reaches back out.

Nothing too aggressive.

But hey, you mentioned you wanted to get back together.

I wanted to honor that timeframe.

Were you thinking about trying to do something this week?

Or should we look for something next week?

Same thing if they say they're going to introduce you to somebody.

Let a few days go by.

But after three or four, if you haven't seen that introduction, Follow up.

Hey, I just wanted to follow up from our last conversation.

I really appreciated your willingness to introduce me to dot, dot, dot.

Here's my contact information.

Feel free to forward it on or reply all and copy them on or whatever the case.

You can use all kinds of different language, but the idea is you need to be the one owning the followup process.

Hope this helps.