Mod 4 Job Search Action Plan

Job search plan

# Job Search Strategies I

Session Time: 90 minutes

[Slides for this lesson](https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1ncfDn8PO3bRTwZbNPU01w0kbHGvofLjupUzYBQZ_IVI/edit?usp=sharing)

## Objectives

* Identify your top priorities in your job search during Module 4
* Identify and utilize effective job search strategies
* Devise an action plan for Module 4 (you will use this plan when meeting with Meg)

## Deliverable
By the beginning of week 6, you should submit your [Module 4 Job Search Action Plan](https://github.com/turingschool/career-development-curriculum/blob/master/module_three/mod_4_action_plan_template.md) to Meg via the Career Development Submissions folder [here](https://github.com/turingschool/career-development-curriculum/tree/master/deliverable_submissions)

# Opening
Job searching brings up a lot of questions:

* What do you want to do after you complete Turing? 
* What do you want to do on a daily basis? 
* What do you want from your career in the longterm? 
* How do you see yourself contributing to technology? 
* Will you work on a product that impacts your learning exponentially? 
* Are you open to traveling for consulting or do you prefer to stay put in a single location?

Trying to answer all of these questions can feel overwhelming, but in this session, we'll discuss strategies for distilling your thoughts into a plan for approaching and completing your job search successfully.  

# Four Step Process
We'll break this down into a 4-step process:

* Define Who You Are & Where You Want to Go
* Decide on Priorities
* Create a Plan
* Goal Setting

## Step One: Define Who You Are & Where You Want to Go
The Flower Exercise forced you to take a deeper dive into what skills, knowledge, and values have informed your professional journey thus far, and we'll build on those reflections to analyze how our career could provide us with the opportunities we seek. 

How can you do that? Start by looking at your completed Flower Exercise. What bullet points stick out to you as most important in describing who you are? How can you take the most important bullets and combine them into a career you love?

**I Do:** Allison will model how she might create a professional summary about herself using her Flower Exercise:

* I value helping others reach their fullest potential, and my skills in coaching, active listening, and providing feedback ensure that I can be successful in a career that does just that. I hope to combine my passion and knowledge around curriculum-planning to coach others on a wider spectrum, and I also hope to do this work in a way that provides the right work-life balance to allow me to pursue my passion for writing as well. 

### Your Turn
**Write:** Spend five minutes analyzing your Flower Exercise and writing out a draft of who you are and what you're looking for. 

**Pair & Share:** Pair up with someone else to share your draft. Your partner will repeat back to you what they heard you say in order to convey how clear this draft is. Make sure to ask each other questions if there is something you're unsure of in the summary. You'll then be able to go back and revise this draft of what you're looking for. 

**Extension:** Having trouble with your resume and/or LinkedIn summaries? Workshop this summarized definition of who you are to revise your summaries for those tools. How might you incorporate your strengths into this summary as well?

## Step Two: Decide on Priorities
Now that you have an idea of where you want to go, it's time to decide on what priorities will help you get there. Similar to your priorities when apartment-hunting, job searching is easier to navigate when utilizing a list of must-have's and nice-to-have's. It's important to know what is a deal breaker and when you are being too picky. In the case that you do not find a position with all the items on your list, what are you willing to forego for a great first job as a developer?

Priorities could include: physical location, industry, size of company, team culture, diversity makeup, technologies, flexibility, salary amount, types of benefits, mentorship, etc. 

### Your Turn
Using your Flower Exercise, sketch out a list of things you'll be looking for in a job as a software developer. Then create two columns, labelled "Must-Have" and "Nice-To-Have":

- If you could only have five of those things, which five would it be?
- Move the rest to the "Nice-to-Have" list
- If you could only have one of the things in your list of five, which would it be?
- Prioritize based on how you narrowed it down and identify why they are prioritized in this order