Pilgrimage for a job - The introductory plan

The time will come when I will finally stop being a student and the doors of a most welcomed career will open for me. I am finally finishing my PhD as there's less than a year to go, and finding a job is my ultimate project. This time I want my job search to be completely different from the desperate entropy that characterised my search plan back in 2010. This time I will focus on the advises of those who know better, the recruiting professionals sharing on LinkedIn, scouting science people for science jobs. I know I have a few things on my side but also some aspects that can work as barriers. On my side the experience, the knowledge and the professional drive. Against me, a strong will to abandon academia, my age, my preferences.

For months I have been collecting numerous pages of authors dedicated to help people find their best career opportunities, enhance the outcome of their searches, apply their inner potential to the best jobs out there, learn how the employment market pulses and moves, and learn not to do common deadly mistakes whilst understanding where to reinforce specific strategies. This job searching market is a cannibalistic organism on its own, and I need to move wisely.

This time I decided to post the steps I am taking to get the job of my life. By job of my life I mean only this, the one job where my profile fits perfectly and its demands fit perfectly on my career prospects. Just that! Because it might be of help to others like me, or maybe your personal/professional experience can help me in the process, I will invite all of you who might be interested to join me in this ever so special Pilgrimage for a job. A dedicated trip to the guts of the system, determined to find the best for myself and consequently for my family. 

The first step I took after collecting all those career related articles was to define inside myself who I am as a professional, what I want for my career and how I want to obtain it. The identity and goal issues are more than resolved. I am now to dwell on the "How to obtain it" bit. Thus, I divided all those articles collected in three main job topics:

1) Search

2) Application

3) Interview

For the coming weeks, months, who can actually say for sure, I am going to analyse all the details the experts share with job seekers. I will learn the talk and walk the walk. Tomorrow, I'll start with the Search section by scrutinising these three articles:

The whole Cheeky Scientist folder dedicated to PhDs looking for jobs, shared by Laura Anderson on LinkedIn

"PhD Jobs: How to transition from Academia into Business" shared on LinkedIn by yet again by Laura Anderson;

"How to get the job you want - Part 1" shared on the University of Nottingham Alumni LinkedIn Page by Neville Gaunt.

I shall see you tomorrow, have a nice Monday!

Image kindly taken from http://kalvikalanjiam.com/english/files/2012/07/job-search.jpg