One of my pet peeves is when people use the word strategy when they are talking about tactics. According to “I have a strategy (no you don’t)” a visual guide on understanding strategy; a strategy is a planned/doable sequence of actions/tactics designed to achieve a distinct, measurable goal. Strategy is an idea in my head, I have ideas on what tactics I can implement that will help me achieve a particular goal.
I have a strategy to find a job I’m happy with. Now my success metrics will look different to yours even thought it may sound like we have the same strategy. My success metrics look like; find a good team that is passionate about the products they are building, they have a respect for software engineering quality practices and to receive support for public speaking at technical conferences. Ideally I’d like to have a small gap as possible between my current employment and the new job. I would also like a 10-20% pay increase from my current salary. Through going through a few interviews/having conversations with my partner I have discovered that I want a role based in Sydney so I have adapted my success criteria. A strategy is an evolving thing, the words I write today are an attempt to formalize that strategy but it is just a snapshot. I’m leaning towards a software tester role too because it is my most marketable skill/expertise.
The tactics I’ve used thus far to help support my job hunting efforts have been:
Enable the “open to new jobs” label on my LinkedIn
Reaching out to recruiters who’ve I’ve had good experiences with before
Reaching out to old colleagues
Reaching out to people who I’ve met through the tech/meetup scene
Applying for roles on LinkedIn
Browsing the careers pages of some known companies and applying that way
I’ve had different levels of success in scoring interviews with these different tactics. So hopefully you can see I’ve employed a diversity of tactics that are meant to help support me in finding a new job that fits me
I’ve also been constantly reiterating on my CV. Other tactics that people could use are; create a custom CV per role you are applying for, seek feedback on CV, practice mock interviews for a particular role, build up connections with the company you are looking to get hired at
But all of these tactics are just that, they are actions that help support the strategy,they aren’t “a strategy” on their own. Strategy is steeped in battle, I’ll leave you a quote from Sun Tzu about strategy.
