The Job Hunt As A Project

  Career Development   PM Network  

Searching for a job can be a daunting task, especially in today’s market, with competition still high and opportunities scarce. Project managers shouldn’t let the job hunt overwhelm them, however, because they’ve already honed the knowledge and skills needed to take on the process. All they have to do is think of it like a project.

By using the project management approach of initiating, planning, executing, monitoring and controlling, and closing, project managers can break the job search into manageable pieces and work toward a successful outcome.

Step One: Initiation

This phase should focus on gathering requirements. Ask yourself these three simple questions I derived from the classic job search guide, What Color Is Your Parachute? by Richard N. Bolles [Ten Speed Press, 2011]:

1. What do you want to do?
2. Where do you want to do it?
3. Who has the power to hire you once you find the job you want?

The answers to these questions will help you determine what jobs for which you should apply.

The one mistake I made when I was last unemployed was not establishing solid requirements on the front end. As a result, I was never on a path to a goal but on the road to perdition.

For instance, I was never specific in my job category. I knew that I wanted a job in IT, but was I looking for telecommunications, programming, systems …

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