Six Essential Steps to Elevate Your Job Search in 2025: Part Two

At Talent Career Coaching, I run a Job Seeker Mastermind group, an intimate program where a small group of job seekers get support from a career coach and each other. The group meets once a week to learn tips and tricks tailored to their needs, share their challenges and successes, and set goals for the week ahead. In between group sessions, participants have 1:1 check-in with a career coach and weekly meetings with an accountability buddy from their cohort.

In this three-part blog series, I cover six steps to help you jumpstart your job search as we move into 2025. Are you looking for added support and accountability to implement these steps? The next Job Seekers Mastermind cohort kicks off on January 8th! We’ll focus on one of these elements per week so participants will have the support and accountability to turbocharge their job search and be ready for the hiring surge that happens after the holidays. You can learn more and apply for the cohort here.

3. Establishing Your Professional Brand

Employers look for candidates who have the right skills and demonstrate a clear and compelling personal brand. Your professional brand reflects who you are, what you stand for, and what you bring to the table- it’s the special sauce that makes you unique compared to other people in your industry. When I’m working with clients to solidify their personal brand, we start with self-reflection.

At Talent Career Coaching, we often use the CliftonStrengths assessment, an excellent tool for helping people articulate strengths they might not have considered before. It’s also helpful to reflect on your work history. What are the projects you’ve enjoyed most? What do people come to you for support with? Are you a problem-solver, a team leader, or a creative thinker? Look for themes that come up across your previous work experience and consider how you can create a professional mantra that synthesizes how you show up in the world. 

For example, I have a client who is a data analyst hoping to pivot from healthcare into an industry where she feels she’s making a more meaningful contribution. Outside work, she’s passionate about the environment and combating climate change. After identifying her strengths and reviewing her work history, it became clear that she loves to use data to investigate things. Now, she can articulate that she’s seeking mission-driven work using data to solve problems and identify fraud. 

Once you have clarity about your strengths and values and how you show up professionally, weave this into your online presence—your resume, LinkedIn profile, personal website, or portfolio. Consistently showcasing your unique attributes will help you build credibility and differentiate yourself from other candidates.

4. Creating a Results-Oriented Resume

In the fast-paced digital age, hiring managers are scanning resumes quickly, so making your resume stand out with clear, quantifiable results is essential. Rather than simply listing job duties, focus on your accomplishments and the impact you’ve made. Again, this is an opportunity to demonstrate your special sauce. Here are a few questions I ask clients to consider:

• How did you approach your responsibilities compared to other people with the same job title? 

• Why does what you did matter to the company you were working for? What impact did it have on the business? 

• How can you use numbers to showcase your success? Did you increase revenue, improve efficiency, or lead a successful project? For example, instead of writing "Managed a team," say, "Managed a team of 10 people, resulting in a 20% increase in productivity." 

  
  

Tailoring your resume to each role by emphasizing the skills and experiences most relevant to the job description is essential. To do this, I encourage clients to start with a comprehensive resume document that encompasses their professional experience, including their expertise and skills, different roles, volunteer experience, education, and any certifications or achievements. Then, when you find a role to apply for, you pull relevant information from your comprehensive resume into a new resume tailored explicitly for that role. A strong, results-oriented resume will capture attention and make hiring managers want to learn more about you.

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