Are you a college senior athlete who is planning to graduate this winter and wondering to yourself “where do I start?” Perhaps you’re a former athlete that is now a seasoned corporate professional who is thinking about making a job change but not sure where to turn. At any rate, in this three part blog series, we will guide you in the right direction to help get you going on the right (or new) path to your new career!

NexGoal works with former collegiate, professional and Olympic athletes by helping them to take the next steps in their careers away from the sports arena

When making the decision to put yourself out on the job market, whether it’s for the first time or not, it is important to keep a few things in mind. In reality, before you even make the decision to put yourself out there, there are some things you might want to consider. First, what do you want to do? Who do you want to work for? Where do you want to work? For many positions there are different levels or qualifications, to what degree are you qualified? Here at NexGoal, we like to use the F.I.L.L. method when approaching a job change:

• Function: What function do you want to perform? Ex: Sales, Computer Science, Social Work, Consulting, Engineering, Accounting, Software, etc.
• Industry: What industry are you looking to conduct your career in? Ex: Steel, Information Technology, Criminal Justice, Wealth Management, Medical, HR, Industrial, etc.
• Level: At what level are you qualified and does it match your compensation requirements? Ex: What is your target income? Are you looking for a base salary? Are you looking for commission? A combination of the two? What level of a base do you need to ensure your financial stability?
• Location: Where do you want to work? Ex: Do you want to stay in the same geographic region as you are now? Are you open to relocation? Do you want an office setting? Or perhaps a home based office?

The key to each step in the F.I.L.L. process is research. Being fully knowledgeable about all of your options is huge in choosing a new career path. Being able to confidently say “Through my research, I know what I want to do, I know with whom and where, and I know what I can expect/need as far as compensation”. Being able to answer the above questions is important even before putting your resume together and beginning to get it out to prospective employers. So it would be most helpful for you to reverse engineer your job search. Start with the end goal in mind. You need to figure out where you want to end up in order to be able to start your search.  Your job search will always start with your very own research. “Finding a new job is a full time job, in and of itself. You have to work at it just like a job!” – Kevin Dahl, former NHL defensemen, Olympic medalist and NexGoal co-founder and CEO.

You need to know where you want to finish to be able to know where to start!

Below are some great resources for starting your research:

• Family, Friends, Mentors, Coaches, Professors, Counselors, etc. – Talk to everyone you know! You would be surprised how much you can learn just from the people around you
• Attend job fairs, meet with career services, job shadow your friends or family
• Salary.com to help better quantify what your skills are worth in a given industry/region
• Job sites like CareerBuilder.com, Indeed.com, ZipRecruiter.com, etc.
• Yahoo.com is now owner of Monster.com, you can not only find job postings but articles about the job market and recent trends and predictions
• The Federal Reserve Bank publishes an economic trends report for specific industries in specific geographic regions
• Be sure to read through your local publications like Crains, Smart Business, etc.
• Last but certainly not least, check your local newspaper for daily articles on companies growing, closing or relocating, industries that are tanking or taking off, etc.

We will be back next week with our next installment of this three part series: Rules of the Resume

In the meantime, be sure to follow our pages below for more insights, career tips and new job opportunities:

Connect with NexGoal on all of these platforms.

Like NexGoal on Facebook

Follow @NexGoal on Twitter

Connect with NexGoal on LinkedIn

+1 NexGoal on Google+

Check out our website at https://www.nexgoal.com/