Be a Top Candidate as a Pastor Leaving Vocational Ministry: How Our Clients Get 1 Interview for Every 3 Applications

♟️ STRATEGY SHIFT: How to be a top candidate without having to compete with everyone else.

If you want to be a top candidate, get in before the jobs are posted.

The best results from our coaching group are coming from opportunities that aren’t even available yet.

Here’s the trend.

The best hiring managers already have their candidates before they post the job.

When one of our clients gets a rejection, this is the story we are hearing:

“They already had an internal candidate.”
“They were already in final interviews when the job went up.”
“The interview was a legal formality.”

That’s because the best hiring managers (the ones you want to work for) have a great network already. 

They’re already thinking about who in their network they are going to hire when they are building the job description.

They will have a list of 5 to 10 people they like and will interview before the job goes live.

How to think about this differently.

Networking (ew, gross word) is the way to be a top candidate.
BEFORE the first 24 hours.
BEFORE the job is even posted.

The goal is to be known and a top candidate before the job goes up.
Before there’s more competition.

If you’re looking at job boards for job openings, you might be too late.

And here’s a mind blowing thought:

Rejections might not even be about your ministry experience.
They might be because you’re just too late.

How to change your strategy to be a top candidate before the job goes up.

Here’s how people in the Interview Accelerator are doing it.
(All links below are to other newsletters that go deeper on these subjects)

1. They get clear on the job that they’re looking for next - both titles and functions, using the Career Compass. Not so they can search for jobs, but so they can clearly talk about what they're looking for over breakfast, coffee, lunch, phone call, etc.

2. They translate their experience clearly so that it makes sense to a hiring manager on a well designed resume. 

3. They have a clear “Next Step Statement” - the elevator pitch that is memorable and tells the person you’re meeting with exactly what you’re looking for.

4. They have an “inner circle.” A group of people that they can ask for introductions without feeling weird and knowing they will help them. A list of 30 will do wonders for your job search.

5. They developed a “throughline story.” A 1-2 minute story explaining where they are now, how they got there, and why the next step makes the most sense for the job search.

Then they reach out and follow up every. single. day. 

Even if it is just one per day. Something every day.

That’s what gets the momentum going.
That’s what creates the opportunities.

Do those 5 things plus the reach outs to your inner circle, and you’ll find yourself in conversations about jobs that will never go on the job boards - because they already found the person they were looking for: you.