You should be all revved up and ready to go. Most people start their job search process with some energy and a sense of purpose.  I'm making the assumption that your scope statement is SMART - remember?

• Specific
• Measurable
• Achievable
• Results-Oriented
• Time-Oriented

This helps you step directly into planning, because you've set a specific goal and estimated how long it's going to take to get there.  Oh, you haven't?  Well, how long do you want to give Project New Job anyway? 

"As long as it takes" is not an acceptable answer.  If you're like most people, this is a prescription for failure.  It's certainly true that you can't make anyone hire you, but a lot of job search is pure determination and staying on task.  Tom Jackson, author of one of my all-time favorite job search resources, The New Perfect Resume, says that job search is a process of:

No, No, No, No, No, No, No, No, No,

The trick is getting to that yes, recognizing that you'll have to get through some No's first.  Count on some brute force efforts to get you to where you want to be.  And that's going to take some time. 

Give yourself at least three months as a baseline.  Four might be better, or at least more realistic.  Depending upon the kind of job you're looking for, it could be six months or longer if your conditions are very specific or if you're after a CIO or CTO position and you're not in one now. 

Don't fold training or education into your job search project as an integral part.  That will extend the project's duration out much longer than is sustainable. If you've decided that learning new skills is required for either a new career direction or just moving up, make that your first project. Think Career Life Cycle - you can begin Project New Career after you've completed Project Learn Something.

Last month I outlined the four phases of a career project. Each phase has a particular purpose, so it's important to follow them sequentially.  Each phase includes specific tasks and ends with the achievement of a measurable milestone.  The four phase (note catchy new) names are:

1. Propose
2. Plan
3. Pursue
4. Produce

You know when you've completed the phase when you've achieved the milestone that marks the end of each one.  A milestone is a point of considerable progress in a project, used to measure both speed and accomplishment

The Propose phase ends with the scope statement milestone, which you've completed already.  Congratulations, you're farther along than you thought.  The Plan phase ends with

your project plan.  Duh.  The Pursue phase (the part everybody thinks is the only part of job searching) ends with the milestone of a valid job offer. Duh again.  But the Produce phase ends when you actually start work on that first day … and start thinking about the next career project.

.

Now you get to outline your project plan.  Estimate how long you think the entire process is going to take.  Now be realistic and estimate again.  If you're giving yourself four months, figure out what date 120 days from today will be.  If it's six months, add another 60 days.  Then subtract a week.  There's your project end date.

Why subtract a week? Because that's essentially your handicap - the time you've previously taken to get through the Propose phase.  Though you're starting the project plan today, you are ahead of the game since you've finished the first phase.  You know how long it really took you to come up with that scope statement, but to give yourself a boost, use a week instead.  You don't want to eat into the effective time you have left, do you?  Set your start date for a week ago.

So you've bracketed the project by identifying both start and end dates. Now it's time to fill in the middle.  Your Propose phase lasts a week and that leaves the remainder of the time you've outlined.  You have three more phases, but you don't split that time evenly between them.  Instead, you outline the tasks which have to be accomplished in each phase and assign a duration to them.  Let's give it a shot:

Phase #	Phase Name	Tasks in Phase	Duration
1	Propose	Preliminary career research Creation of scope statement	1 week in total
2	Plan	Develop career project plan	__ week(s)?
3	Pursue	Write resume Draft models for cover letters and email Draft and practice interview responses Craft outreach strategy Go on interviews Get an offer	__ week(s)? __week(s)? __week(s)? __week(s)? __week(s)? __week(s)?
4	Produce	Negotiate acceptable terms Start new job Plan next project	__week(s)? __week(s)? __week(s)?

Again, some of these tasks and their duration are under your control; some aren't.  The trick is to estimate values for the known/relatively controllable tasks and then dice up the remaining time and allot it among the activities that are out of your hands. You'll want to limit the time you spend on those fixed tasks to keep the project moving. 

The Plan phase probably shouldn't exceed a couple of weeks at the most.  The Produce phase can be estimated to last about the same time (I'll cover this in a future column.) That leaves the bulk of your time for the Pursue phase, which is both the most grueling, and least controllable part of any Career Project. 

Take the chart I've supplied and fill in the blanks.  Calculate the dates for completing each task, working forwards from your start date and backwards from your end date until you've estimated the interval for each milestone.  Now, record each one on your calendar.  Voila, version one of your very own Career Project Plan.

Don't get nuts about this!  It's a plan for your job search, not the landing on the beach at Anzio.

Nobody dies if you miscalculate.  The Career Project Plan is always a work in progress.  You establish a baseline (your original estimate) and then revise it as you go along. 

But you revise it based on reality and the curveballs that invariably are thrown your way.  You don't revise it because you fooled around or didn't pay any attention to the looming deadlines you set for yourself.  The value of the Career Project Plan is to keep you on track towards your own goals.  To keep you focused and progressing.  Here's a little tip - post the Career Project Plan calendar where you will see it every day, like on the refrigerator or the mirror in the bathroom.  That way, you can't pretend it doesn't exist.

Next month, we'll pause for a moment and drill down into the role of the Career Project Manager. (Uh, that's you.) You've got some clear responsibilities here and I'll supply some metrics so that you can keep yourself on track.  We'll also start on the Pursue phase, which is what everybody usually thinks of as the actual job search process.  It's definitely the longest, most involved part, but you shouldn't distill your Career Project down to just this one phase.  Questions?  Comments?  Write to me at jamie@jobcircle.com. Later.

Enjoy this article?  Read more of JobCircle.com's Career Coach articles.

Jamie Fabian spent more than 15 years as a human resources executive before changing careers to become a senior project manager for a growing IT consulting company.  Now in management consulting for a large Pharma company, Jamie would like to be seen as a hybrid of Tom Peters, Tom Jackson, and Tom Wolfe, but spends too much time working, driving carpool and watching mindless TV to write more than this column.  You can contact Jamie with questions and comments at jamie@jobcircle.com.