Undoubtedly, the competition is tough in the job market out there, and sadly not everyone is lucky enough to land his/her dream job. So, what sets apart those fortunate professionals from the ones who try their best but hardly get the expected results? Or is it just luck?

While creating an imposing cover letter and resume and prepping for common interview questions are all important, these are a few habits of successful job seekers that make them stand out from the competition. So, if you are looking for job opportunities and really want to come out on top, you should try inculcating some habits of highly motivated job seekers.

Not only will these take you a few steps closer to your dream job, but let you evolve as a better professional, ultimately boosting your career graph. Keep reading to learn about these habits.

Know your worth.

No job seeker is or can be successful in their job hunt unless they have high self-awareness- know yourself. What are your personality, values, skills, knowledge areas, strengths, and weaknesses? What are your career goals? By getting to know yourself first, you may determine what kinds of positions you are interested in, as well as how to present yourself in your application letters and during the interview. The majority of businesses today focus more on soft skills and charisma when making hiring decisions. Know your strengths and how they can improve your bottom line, but also be aware of your limitations. If you become self-aware first, then it will make the rest of the process looks much simpler.

• Market Yourself: In today’s highly competitive world, simply keeping the tailor-made cover letter and resume ready is not going to work. Instead, you require to present your accomplishments in a distinguishing manner. Make use of personal branding tricks to showcase your skills and achievements in a way to leave a lasting impression on hiring professionals.

Keep your LinkedIn and other social media handles optimized and updated all the time. People you are looking to meet to boost your network along with customized cover letters and resumes are keys to communicating your personal brand effectively and consistently.

So, how you can market yourself? Try answering questions like: Are you an accomplished operations manager, who is highly dedicated and keeps motivating his/her team to exceed expectations and production? Are you a seasoned IT lead, who is known to complete his/her projects on time?

Remember that whatever you will present to recruiters – from social profiles and expert blogs to resume and cover letter – should reflect what you are worthy of as a professional.

• Hone Your Skills: Will you start working on a crucial project without having a proper plan? Certainly not! And if you are actively looking for an opportunity, you should consider your job search as important as projects assigned to you at the workplace.

Thus, you should show the same level of determination, and care as well as dedicate the same amount of time as you do for that VIP client’s project at the office. Make a list of your target companies and ways to approach them. What networking strategies you would be following and what you will do to implement those strategies should be your priority.

Also, figure out those activities that can enhance your skills and bring new opportunities to you. Monitor when you have sent the proposal, connection requests, and inquiries and when you need to follow up. Make sure that whatever you search and do should have a purpose along with regular checkpoints to keep everything on track.

• Capitalize on Social Media: Employers these days extensively search for job candidates on social media. So, keep your social media handles intriguing enough to compel recruiters to consider your profile.

Optimize your Twitter, Facebook, and most importantly LinkedIn profiles for your job hunt. Mention all relevant or target keywords in the headlines while making use of updates and posts to share domain expertise and industry affairs to showcase your prowess and engagement.

When a recruiter searches for your profile online, make sure that they see you as an updated professional who knows his/her stuff. Apart from the content, this also includes a professional profile photograph, which should ideally be the same across all platforms.

• Boosts Confidence Level: Successful involvement in volunteer work can certainly boost your confidence level. Additionally, opportunities for service help keep you motivated while you are hunting for a job or planning to make a career switch.
• Reaching Out to Contacts: You never know someone in your LinkedIn connections, alumni service network, industry association contacts, or phonebook can be on the inside track with your target company.

Trying to reach out to your old, new, and potential contacts via emails, over the phone, or in person. Often ask them how they are doing and share materials that might be useful to them, such as a link to an article or guides. Thereafter, let them know at which stage you are in your job search.

Networking goes mutually, so never approach someone with a mere request to help you with your job hunt. On social media, you can follow top influencers from your field and try connecting with them by commenting and re-sharing their posts. Also, you should personally engage with those professionals who follow you on social sites by sharing industry insights and useful information

• Monitoring Your Job Hunt Activities: Even the best execution plans fail because of a lack of monitoring. Track your daily activities and compare them with your daily as well as weekly targets. Your job search monitoring should revolve around questions like: How many applications you will send each week? How many contacts you will reach out to every week? How many posts you will share or engage weekly?

Try keeping yourself on track or aligned with your personal targets. Plus, quantify your progress by regular monitoring as you can’t get better without keeping a tab on your activities.

• Remaining Positive: With every assessment of your activities, continue making improvements and positive changes as you move ahead. You can learn from your own mistakes, take necessary actions not to repeat them, monitor your report, and eventually use such information to stay updated and boost your job search strategies.

On a daily basis, do something as part of your job search efforts, even on days when you don’t feel like doing so. It is all-important to remain positive, not only because it is good for you as an individual, but also to augment your job search

Manifest in yourself.

It is imperative that you give yourself some time to recharge or refill during any job search. It is crucial to take care of oneself in order to prevent burnout during the job search process because it can be really taxing at times. Remaining mentally and physically healthy during your job search is as important as during your regular office hours.

You can use these techniques to work on yourself by exercising and eating healthy, reading, volunteering, meditating, traveling, or participating in a recreational activity. Or else you can take some time to exercise, cook healthy meals, relax, and engage in leisure activities daily.

Moreover, when not searching for a job, you can spend time with friends and family, read a good book, go for an outing, and do many other things that can help you remain energized and stress-free.

Conclusion:

You don’t have to go to great lengths to develop these habits of highly motivated job seekers. Rather, you will need to bring some minor changes to your approach and the things you do for your job search while regularly tracking your progress, and remaining positive, refreshed and calm.