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Back in
the 1990s, when I worked for other people, one of my
clients was a little company from Tennessee called
Federal Express. Since its founding in 1973, FedEx
has grown from literally a "fly-by-night" 14-plane
operation into a multi-billion dollar corporation.
And ... what does this have to do with your job
search?
Well, success leaves clues, as the success experts
say.
And one of the reasons for the astounding success of
FedEx can be traced to the following motto, which is
a part of their corporate culture: You can't improve
what you don't measure.
It's the same for your job search.
To get the most from every hour of every day -- and
get hired faster -- you have to measure how you
spend your time. Only then can you really improve
what you're doing.
Now. Let me make a proposal and a prediction here.
The proposal is this: I want you to track how you
spend your day from the time you wake up until you
knock off at night. Track your activities in
5-minute blocks and do this for one full work week,
from Monday to Friday.
That's my proposal. What's my prediction?
You will be shocked -- shocked! -- by how much time
you're frittering away each week. We're talking
hours and hours of wasted effort, if you're like
most job seekers I meet.
Since I try not to dispense advice that I wouldn't
follow myself, I tried this time-tracking experiment
on yours truly. Here's what happened ....
Two weeks ago, I started carrying a little black
notebook to write down how I spent my time Monday
through Friday, from 6:00 a.m. until 7:00 p.m. I
tracked it all in 5-minute increments, right down to
telephone calls, checking email and bathroom
breaks.
At the end of that week, I tallied up the numbers in
an Excel spreadsheet for analysis. The results were
nothing short of astonishing.
Here's just one example: I spent 585 minutes that
week reading and responding to email. That's 9.75
hours -- more than one workday! Multiply that by
four weeks and it's 39 hours -- nearly one full
workweek -- spent on email each month.
If I were looking for a job, do you think I could
have spent, say, four of those hours each week on
something more productive? You bet your bottom bippy.
So I made changes.
I limited myself to checking email only three times
a day instead of the 9 or 10 times I was before.
Result? The next week, I slashed email time to 250
minutes, or about 4.15 hours. That's an extra 5.6
hours of time every week to spend on higher-level
activities.
If you're in a job search and save 5-10 hours a week
by tracking and eliminating unproductive activities
this way, you could see a dramatic increase in job
leads. Especially if you replace low-level tasks
like checking email with high-value activities like
networking and calling on employers directly.
Example: you can make networking calls to 6 friends
in one hour to remind them that you're in the job
market, explain what you're looking for and ask for
assistance. Six calls multiplied by 5 hours equals
30 calls a week -- 120 a month.
Now, do you think you MIGHT get hired faster if you
called to network with 120 people this month? I'll
answer that for you -- Yes!
It all starts with tracking how you spend your day,
identifying chunks of wasted time and replacing them
with productive activities, like networking or
hand-delivering your resume.
And here's an immediate, extra benefit: the mere act
of measuring what you do will improve how you do it.
By some quirk of human nature, when we know that
we'll be held accountable for our actions, we tend
to perform better. Try it and see.
The first step is easy -- carry around a little
notebook for one week and write down how you spend
each day. Start tomorrow.
Please don't underestimate the incredible power of
this simple idea. I promise you will be energized
and excited when you measure -- and improve -- how
you spend your time. You WILL get hired faster if
you do this.
Now go out and make your own luck!
Kevin Donlin is President of Guaranteed Resumes
and creator of GetHiredNow.TV. Since 1996, he has
provided job search assistance to more than 10,000
people. Author of "51 Ways to Find a Job Fast --
Guaranteed," Kevin has been interviewed by USA
Today, The Wall Street Journal, CBS Radio and
others. His latest product, The Instant Job Search
System, is available at
www.gresumes.com/instant.
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