Organizing the Job Search – Part 1 February 13, 2009

Searching for that next great career step can be such an overwhelming task. There’s the 216 million job search engines out there, the networking, the personal branding and of course making time for it all, budgeting yourself, and keeping up with it all. Making this a little more difficult for my journey is moving to a new state where I need to start from scratch.

Being the extremely organized person that I am I had to wrangle the monster and make sure I took it into my own hands.

I am a true believer in networking, especially for those in the marketing and P.R. community, which led me to my step one. My second belief system is structured around social media.

Step 1-A: Update my social networking sites.

I already had a LinkedIn profile, a Twitter account and a MySpace profile(in the process of deleting). After updating my recent info and making sure it was some what obvious that I was searching for a new job I realized I might not be covering all my bases. So, I signed up for Facebook. Once my profiles were updated I made us of my networks. I found people related to my alma mater, who worked in specific industries I wanted to get into, members of organizations I was interested in, etc. that lived in my new city. Not only making them my friend but starting conversations with them. The first round was a great experience!

Step 1-B: Networking (In Person)

I met really great people through my online networks who I started emailing with, meeting for coffee, asking advice from and who continue to introduce me really good opportunities. From joining networking groups I never heard and being introduced to new job search engines my growing network has been very helpful.

I also did a lot of searching for local P.R. associations and communication organizations who have monthly meetings. After researching I found 11 in the Los Angeles area (see list below) that seemed to fit what I was looking for. No one can go to every event, but after making a calendar of the events and cutting out those that conflicted with my schedule I had to cut out ones that were outside my budget.

Getting ready for my first event and the results will be my next post.

L.A. area P.R./Communication orgs:

1. Public Relations Society of America, Los Angeles Chapter
2. Southern California American Marketing Association
3. Advertising Professionals Association, North Los Angeles County
4. HSMAI, Greater Los Angeles Chapter
5. Legal Marketing Association, Los Angeles Chapter
6. International Association of Business Communicators, Los Angeles
7. Healthcare P.R. and Marketing Association of Southern California
8. Business Marketing Association, Southern California Chapter
9. Direct Marketing Association, Southern California Chapter
10. Promotion Marketing Association, L.A./Southern California Chapter
11. Word of Mouth Marketing Association