When you’re looking for a new position to advance your nursing career, everything you do throughout your job search is a form of job market analysis.  From cover letters and resumes to networking and interviews, each piece of data informs how things will eventually turn out. Additionally, the feedback you receive from the marketplace provides timely and valuable feedback on what you’re doing right and what you might consider doing differently.

The Nuts and Bolts

As you start your job search, it’s essential to focus on the basics. If your resume is outdated and hasn’t been updated in a while, consider revising it. Ensure it’s easy to customize for each position and employer to which you apply.

The same goes for your introductory cover letter, and even though you might think cover letters don’t matter anymore, they do. Some job applications may provide an optional space for a cover letter, but don’t consider it optional — your resume only tells part of the story, and your cover letter can seal the deal by pointing out why you’re the ideal candidate and why you want to work for that particular employer.

You may also want to ensure that your profile on any job boards you’re using is as robust and complete as possible.

Remember that in a crowded job marketplace, anything you do to stand out will generally serve you well (but that doesn’t include writing your resume with the Comic Sans font, or telling the reader of your resume about your love of dogs and scuba diving).

Dipping Your Toes

As you begin dipping your toes into the job search process, things will get seriously underway once you find some positions that interest you.

In terms of marketplace feedback, putting your resume and cover letter out into the world in response to job postings will certainly always let you know how you’re doing in terms of marketability, whether it’s positive, negative, or neutral. And what you do with that feedback is up to you.

Some positions seem like a no-brainer. For instance, you currently have five years of experience in the emergency department, trauma, and critical care

, and you’re looking at positions in the neuro or cardiac ICU. You know the lingo, you can walk the talk, and you’re confident that you check most, if not all, boxes when it comes to fulfilling the requirements of these roles as stated in a job posting.

Meanwhile, maybe you’re that same nurse mentioned above, but now you’re applying for a position as an adjunct professor in a local community college’s LPN program. You know how to explain complex physiological processes and how to perform a nursing assessment, but you have no teaching experience aside from teaching patients at the bedside. If you apply for this position, you may receive valuable feedback about your marketability for this type of job. If you land an interview but are rejected, you can do your best to elicit feedback about what you need to do to make yourself a more viable candidate.

Whether you’re trying to break into a new area (e.g., medical device sales, leadership, research, etc.) or you’re looking for a horizontal move into a position that’s similar to what you do now, listen for hints from the marketplace about where you stand in the current job market.

Your Bucket of Possibilities 

Job hunting isn’t always easy, and it’s not usually anyone’s favorite pastime, but most of us need to do it many times throughout our careers.

One effective way to conduct your job market analysis is to identify the organizations you’d like to work for, reach out to a hiring manager, nursing director, or nurse manager, and request a 20-minute informational interview, even if they’re not currently hiring. These conversations are where you can test the waters, ask them what they look for in an ideal employee, and request feedback on your resume. Not many people use this strategy, but it’s a powerful way to stay informed about what’s happening out there.

Rather than an informational interview, you can, of course, go the usual route and apply for an open position and wait to see if you’re offered a formal interview.

In the end, everything you do about finding your next positive career move provides your very own job market analysis. Whether you scan the job boards, apply for advertised positions, request informational interviews, or contact your peers and colleagues to ask what they think of their workplaces, it all feeds back into your bucket of possibilities.

We all know that assessment is the first step in the nursing process, and a job market analysis is no different. Gather data, seek feedback, test the waters, and use this information to determine your next big move on the long road of your nursing career.

The post Why Your Nursing Job Search Is Actually a Job Market Analysis first appeared on Daily Nurse.