Tip #3: Find your advocates
Transform your job search with 20 Job Search Tips in 20 Days
This email is part of a series “20 Job Search Tips in 20 Days”. Every day in December, you’ll receive a job search tip for career changers.
Job Search Tip #3: Find your advocates
Advocates are people who are rooting for you. These people can help you through referrals, sending you job postings, sharing tips and other types of support. Advocates are not only your real-life friends but are anyone who thinks of you and is interested in helping you in your job search.
Who can be an advocate? Anyone!
When you are networking, some people are naturally more engaged in connecting with you than others. Those people are your advocates! They can be someone you just met on Linkedin, a family friend, or anyone in between. As long as they are willing to support you through sharing information or referring you to someone, they can be an advocate for you.
An advocate is anyone who is willing to help you in your job search.
How to find advocates
Networking is the main tool for finding advocates. Of course, your family, close friends and ex-coworkers are natural advocates. Start with asking the people you already know, for introductions to new people. Some of these new people you’ll meet can turn into advocates.
Steps to create advocates during your job search:
Reach out to friends and family, ex-coworkers, alumni, and other people you know
Send a message that summarizes your job search and asks them for support
Ask for support on multiple levels (ex. intro to someone, send job posts your way, moral support, etc)
Reach out to NEW people - ask to have a conversation with them about their career journey and role at a company of interest for you
Maintain your new connections by reaching out to them once a month with a quick life or job search update or other related topics of interest
For people to advocate for you, they need to get to know you first. So if you are having a conversation with new people in your networking efforts, be sure to share snippets of your own life and career history, based on the conversation.
Not sure what to talk about? Ask the person about their career journey, and seek to learn from them. On the same topic, you can share a bit about yourself during the conversation. If the person is friendly and open to chatting, invite them on a connection call to learn more about them in real-time on a video call.
🎯 People want to help. Your job is to find those people that are open to helping YOU. Sometimes that means reaching out to people you’ve never met, but that’s key to finding the RIGHT people to help you in your journey.
The value of advocates in your job search
Having advocates in your job search is more than having moral support. Having advocates means you get referrals that can gain visibility in your job application. Advocates also provide vital information about the company culture which helps you gauge if the company is a good place to work. Finally, advocates are people who you can learn from, talk to for support and can help you grow your network, connecting you to even more people.
When you gain advocates via networking:
You are more likely to be invited to interviews
You gain insight into the company culture
You feel supported by people
You gain access to their network on Linkedin via 2nd connections
Let’s look at an example:
Aiden was job searching for 10 months with no results. When he started the Job Search coaching program, he began to embrace reaching out to people whenever he applied to a new role. After a few months, Aiden started to see the results of his outreach - he was landing interviews!
The people who were responding to Aiden were happy to support him and serve as advocates in his job search - they gave him referrals and introduced him to new people.
This approach helped Aiden connect with people who were very helpful, resulting in multiple referrals that helped him land his first role in tech!
Read the full story here:
🎯 Focus on reaching out to new people so that you will find the ones who are willing to help. Some people may be publicly posting on Linkedin while others are not active publicly at all. You’ll never know if they are willing to help you don’t reach out to them.
Tips to look for advocates
There are many ways to find people who are willing to support you in your job search.
Look in niche networks like Slack channels for people who are active. Then reach out to them on Linkedin and say hello.
Ask to connect with people who are posting tips on Linkedin, and give them a compliment or express gratitude. Then ask for advice on a specific challenge you’re having.
Engage with other job seekers in similar roles. You can help each other by sharing roles you find and building projects together.
Reach back out to your alumni network. Ask to catch up to learn about their journey, even if they are job searching, you can connect on that topic.
Make a post on Linkedin and engage with people who ask to connect with you or interact with your post
Remember, you are your best advocate!
To everyone job searching during the holidays… you got this, keep going 🌟