How to Make a New Job Fall into Your Lap
BY DEBRA FELDMAN, JOBWHIZ, EXECUTIVE TALENT AGENT
Many earnest job seekers end up feeling hopeless that they will ever find a new opportunity, let alone have a new job find them. They’ve submitted countless resumes, told everyone within earshot that they need a new job, been in touch with every recruiter they can think of, and have been doing what they believe is networking. But, still, they remain no closer to an offer. After a while, they run out of ideas and energy. A new position feels like an impossible situation. But giving up, complaining or having a pity party won't change anything. It’s no wonder they are discouraged; but are they doing what it takes to be a competitive candidate and win an offer in today’s tough job market?
If this scenario sounds all-too familiar, don't despair. By making some subtle changes to your job search tactics, you can get back on track and position yourself as a go-to, in-demand expert in your field.
The surest way to improve your odds of getting an offer is to capture key decision-makers’ attention and then further convince the hiring manager that you are the best choice available. Sounds simple. But how do you do it? The best way to get the attention of decision-makers and hiring managers is to network purposefully. By networking purposefully, I mean emphasizing connections over job vacancies, and opportunities over HR requirements. Focus on building relationships based on trust and mutual professional interests, and the opportunities will come. If you build a network of connections, you will be privy to opportunities before you are even looking — and, more importantly, before other job seekers find out about them. Those are the jobs — also know as the hidden job market — where most of today's hiring takes place.
Networking purposefully means being in the right place at the right time. Getting there isn't always easy, but if you combine the right job search strategy with effective and efficient tactics, your chances of success will improve dramatically. Following are eight steps to help you start building your network in a purposeful and strategic way:
1. Focus: Know what you do, what you want to do and how you produce results.
2. Package: Describe your unique skills, talents, knowledge, know-how (i.e., your unique value contribution) in easy-to-understand terms that can be passed along in a recommendation.
3. Target: Be clear and specific about what you are looking for so that when anyone has a “golden needle” they recognize that you are a good fit.
4. Clarify: Your elevator pitch (i.e., your verbal resume), written marketing documents and online profile ( LinkedIn, author bio, byline, etc.) should be simple, concise and consistent, and must compellingly communicate the message you want others to understand, remember and pass along.
5. Refine: Don’t try to be something for everyone to get any job. (This only results in being nothing to anyone!)
6. Connect: Limit the amount of time you spend applying to online postings; instead, devote the better part of your job search efforts to sourcing job leads directly (interacting and exchanging ideas with a human being!) by talking to prospective employers, including hiring authorities and target company employees, not HR or external recruiters, who can recommend you to key decision-makers within their respective organization or introduce you to others in their own network.
7. Identify: Target top-choice employers and concentrate on making inside contacts, sharing mutual interests, gaining trust and developing relationships through research, recommendations and observing industry trends.
8. Repeat: Continuously find and cultivate meaningful discussions with new contacts, while introducing those in your network to each other, sharing leads and ideas. These and similar exchanges not only reinforce your value, but deepen mutual feeling of trust and keep you top of mind for more networking referrals—whether or not you are actively in the job market or just want to keep in touch and know what is going on in your field.
If you already have the right insider contacts, you won't need to start from scratch establishing relationships. If you have connections but they aren't producing job leads, it means that one of the above steps is not working as it should be and needs to be fine tuned. All of the above activities are designed to generate leads and make you among the first, if not the first, to know about positions in the hidden job market.
You can give yourself a competitive advantage by being connected where the type of career opportunities you want can happen from time to time. Networking is a proven way to find a job. Contacts can recommend you to a hiring authority, refer you so that you can start be among the first to express an interest, and help you to make the right connections before a job is advertised.
What many people don’t know or forget about networking is that it is a two-way process. You can and should share any leads you have at a given moment (or those you get in the future) with your connections, who will return the favor in kind. If a potentially attractive opportunity comes your way, you can volunteer to be the first one outside the immediate group to get involved — well before a role is formally identified and anyone else throws their hat into the ring. It happens more than you'd think. A new position might be created just for you, a role specifically well-suited to your specifications and which also matches the employer’s “ideal” requirements, too. By having the right connections, you will be well-positioned to learn early and often about impending reorganizations, unexpected departures, unplanned vacancies, etc., all of which produce prime openings in the hidden job market.
All Rights Reserved by Debra Feldman 2012. Reprinted with permission. |  |  | ||
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