What do you do next?

So, you know what your career anchors are, you know what you like doing and you know what you are good at. How do you use this information to find a great job?

You have already researched one side of the equation, now to look at the other; the job itself. Forget whether it's currently being advertised, does it actually exist? Is it likely to exist in the future? How can you find out? By doing some more research.

You may have decided that your career anchors limit you to a particular area. Which companies are in that area? How many people do they employ? What do they do? What are the challenges they face? What is it like to work there? With the internet and especially social media, it is fairly easy to find the answers to these questions.

Begin to be a voice. Through groups, pages, conversations, blogs etc. it is easier than ever to be heard, and if you have researched sufficiently the type of place you might like to work, it is very easy to be a new voice in that community. Remember, you are not asking for a job, you are just getting involved, contributing to the discussion, providing helpful information.

There may be many reasons why jobs come up, it might be because someone has left, it might be because demand is increasing, it might be due to a strategic expansion. Whatever the reason, the time it takes between identifying a need for a position and actually having someone in place can vary greatly, weeks, months even years. What tends to vary much less is the relative position of when that position is advertised; it is somewhere near the very end. So there is an opportunity of time between a position being known about and that position being advertised.

Remember, a hiring manager wants the best possible person for the role, someone who can do the job, will fit in and be an asset to the company. What if that someone was someone they already knew...