Set New Year’s resolutions for your job search

Career Builder

Whether or not you make resolutions at the start of each new year, you should consider setting goals or creating a commitment plan to ramp up your job search and maintain your professional presence.

Know what you need from a job

In a non-cheesy and career-related way, this will help you find the right job for you. Get familiar with your needs and wants, which will help you prioritize all the job search to-dos and steps. Do you need a temporary or part-time gig while you continue searching for full-time or to support your budding freelance career? What kind of work are you trying to do and in what industry? What pay level or structure do you need? Is company culture important to you? Think through how your job affects and supports your life, thoroughly understand what you need from your next employer, and take control in 2021 (as much as you can).

Optimize your work setup

If you work at home and are on the job hunt, make sure you carve out a space or routine that serves your productivity. This might be a formal desk with two monitors and an ergonomic chair, or it might be you tethered to your laptop moving to different spots in your home. Invest in your space so you can hunker down, find a job and get great work done. Just make sure you have a great location for all of those job interviews you’re sure to get!

Commit to learning new skills

Lifelong learning is always a wise investment, especially when it comes to your career. Not only can new skills lead to a new job, committing to self-improvement and professional development will help you weather shifts in future job markets. This resolution will build your confidence and maybe even give you a sense of control during uncertainty – pandemic or not.

Utilize the right tools to find your next job opportunity

Put yourself out there and connect with employers in every way you can.

Your candidate profile: Stand out from the pack, connect with employers and get hired for the right role with these new features. Your job seeker profile acts like universal resume, ready at your fingertips and available any time. It adds personality beyond a one-page PDF, giving you the chance to show hiring managers and recruiters your full self. You can – and should – save multiple versions of your actual resume to your account, but here are a few ways we’ve recently upgraded your ability to expand beyond that document for potential employers.

A job board: Uploading your resume to a job board can be part of a successful strategy to apply to jobs that aren’t posted and position yourself to get hired quickly.

Mobile apps: Your phone might be the key to finding your next role. Here are three ways you can use just a sliver of your time to update your resume, apply to jobs and connect directly to companies – all from your smart phone.