How
many more jobs and careers do you expect to hold until you
retire? If you are like most people in the fast-forward,
technology driven, highly competitive global economy, the
correct answer is "Quite a few!" Job search savvy is critical
in this age of rapidly shifting jobs. Here are a few tips
to help you effectively manage the inevitable.
Ready,
Aim, Focus!
When
I see people floundering in a job search, it's because they
aren't focused. Failing to commit to a readily understood
job title, or two, or three is a big mistake. If you actually
do have three distinct, viable career options, then you'll
need to have three targeted resumes. Each one should focus
on the marketable skills, experience, and credentials that
support the requirements of the desired position. Why is
focus so important? In the clogged communications of corporate
America, you must have a tightly focused approach to cut
through the clutter. No one has the time to read an objective
statement like this: "To acquire a position that utilizes
my experience and education, that offers opportunity for
advancement, yada, yada, yada." How about "A mid-level marketing
position" or "A telecommunications sales position" or whatever
your objective du jour might be. Recruiters and hiring managers
are begging, "Just be specific!" Don't worry, you won't
'limit yourself' to anything other than the type of position
you really want. And you're only committing to this title
for the moment, not for the rest of your career.
Draft
a Plan:
Once
you've figured out what you want to do, you have to figure
out your plan of attack. How long is your job search going
to take? A conservative estimate is one month of full-time
searching for each $10,000 in salary you're seeking. How
much activity constitutes a full-time job search? For most
people, it's contacting 30-40 companies per week, as well
as following up with everyone you've spoken to the week
before. Contacting large numbers of people is the best way
I know to generate sufficient momentum in your job search.
The idea is to have 5-8 irons in the fire, actively interviewing
with several companies so that you'll be more likely to
have two or three offers on the table at any given time.
A
few do's and don'ts about finding leads:
Newspaper
Classified Ads: Everyone knows (or should know) that the
classified ads, as a whole, represent the bottom 10% of
the employment barrel, and what's worse, the competition
for these low-end jobs is high. Then there is the psychological
effect of believing everything you read: the job descriptions
and salaries quoted can lead to a really negatively skewed
impression of what's available to you. If you let it become
your reality, you're doomed to a lifetime of underemployment.
The truth is, no one can say with any degree of certainty.
Internet-based
Job Searches:
Rest
assured that the factors of competition and clogged communications
are even greater in cyberspace than they are in the world
of snail mail. The average Fortune 1000 firm gets thousands
of electronically submitted resumes a day. Do they read
each one? Ha! Do they put them in a database? Maybe. Do
electronically submitted resumes and letters eventually
reach the consciousness and consideration of a human being?
Highly unlikely. Yet many job seekers spend an inordinate
amount of their precious job search time and energy in an
Internet-based job search. Then they get depressed because
they get little to no response.
The
Shotgun Approach:
Another
type of job search that simply isn't worth the money and
effort is sending out thousands of resumes by mail or even
by e-mail. Think of how watered down your resume and cover
letter will have to be for this type of search. .This is
at best, a passive approach - distributing resumes and letters
into the universe is simply not enough. Unless you are talking
to people before, during, and after getting your credentials
across in writing, you're wasting your time.
Recruiters:
Recruiters
(don't refer to them as headhunters unless they're calling
you while you're innocently working away at your job) get
paid by employers to find them decent people to interview.
I repeat, they are paid by employers. Sometimes they are
paid whether they find the right person or not. Most times,
they get paid only if they make the connection, which means
competition among recruiters is fierce. This means that
they're busy, and you're not paying them for their services.
This means that they are a hit-or-miss proposition, for the
most part, so don't think they are going to do your job search
for you.
So
what to do, what to do?
Target
a job, target an industry, and get the word out. Go to the
library and find the business resources that identify ALL
the companies in that industry. Get involved in professional
organizations as applicable. Call your leads, write to them,
and follow up politely and professionally until you receive
a job offer or a restraining order. Network: In other words,
run your mouth about the type of work you would like to do to
everyone who will listen. Make sure all of your colleagues,
friends, and family members have a copy of your resume.
Go to job fairs, tell them you forgot your resume, and collect
business cards so that you can follow up with promising
contacts. Don't discount anyone in your search. You will be
surprised at how many people in the workforce your elderly
neighbor knows. A little of this, a little of that. Sure,
talk to a few dozen recruiters, skim the classifieds for
a few minutes on Sunday, and post your resume to a few major
Web employment sites. But don't spend too much time with
these job-search approaches. Remember that it takes real,
live, talking human beings to give you the information you
need (assuming you know how to ask for it) and who can give
you feedback, ideas, resources, support, and encouragement
when you need it most. It is the human beings who can be
influenced, who ultimately make the decisions on whom to
hire.
