The Art of the Approach (networking to your next job)

Posted by jobspeaker in Job Market on February 16, 2010

This post is Part 4 in our 7 part series on how to manage your job search.

So I have to admit that writing this blog post took longer that I expected and I guess it reflects the difficulty of the subject matter. Making contact with colleagues, friends and other acquaintances in looking for a job is difficult, delicate and not what you would expect if you haven’t done it before. But before we get to how you go about doing this, let’s first talk about why:

According to a 2009 survey by Career Crossroads, 38% of all jobs get filled from candidates that are already known to the company. Only 8% get filled by candidates that sent their resume in without an introduction. So, are you better off sending your resume in the hopes of hearing something back or are you better off investing some time and effort to network so that your resume gets a warm introduction?

Clearly the answer is to get the warm introduction wherever possible, but how do you do that? That’s where networking comes in – it is an attempt to get that introduction through one of your existing or new contacts. In our opinion, it’s definitely an art rather than a science as it requires you to be creative, diplomatic, and delicate in how you find/approach people. You need to be able to understand the strength of your relationship with each individual and gear your approach based on that, plus other considerations such as: how badly do you need them to introduce you; how many times have they helped you before; the last time you’ve talked to them and do you have something to share with them. If you have established a pattern over the years to show that you have reciprocated any assistance given or kept in touch with people, then you’ll likely be helped. Otherwise it may take some time and effort in order to re-establish those relationships and politely ask them to help.

LinkedIn is a great tool to help you manage your professional relationships, but it too requires time and energy over a prolonged period in order to help. LinkedIn helps you understand how you are connected to companies in your Target list. Even with tools like LinkedIn, Plaxo, Facebook at your disposal, you’ll still have to manage it all yourself and keep track of your contacts and the result of conversations. In some cases you might already know people at the company. In others, you’ll have to carefully work your network to get to the hiring manager. In most cases though, you’re probably no more than 3 steps away from someone at that company. Start with the people you know best, but don’t expect a response from everyone – move on to the next person who will bring you one step closer to the company.

There may be cases where you’ll have to reach outside of your network altogether in order to reach someone at the company. In these circumstances we recommend understanding where people from that company might hang out. Remember face-to-face meetings are best where you can establish a personal relationship so whether it be a coffee house, a professional club or another social setting, you need to put yourself in situations where you can meet these people and where they too are more open to meeting new people.

But make sure to stay open to exploring new opportunities during these conversations as that’s the best way to uncover the hidden job market.

Next:
Step 5: You’ve made contact with the hiring manager, now what?

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Using XBox Live to get your next job

Posted by jobspeaker in Job Market on January 22, 2010

Sounds unusual doesn’t it - XBox Live is an online gaming platform that allows users to play each other using the Xbox game console. It’s not usually where you would look for work, well now it can be used for exactly that!

We’ve heard many stories recently about how people have landed their new job - through an an introduction from an ex-colleague; through another parent at a child’s daycare; through a blog; via a direct contact through a recruiter on LinkedIn; etc. These are all great accomplishments and congratulations again to those involved; but the most interesting story we heard was when one job seeker told us how he found work through a gaming friend on Xbox Live.

For the purposes of protecting his identity let’s call him Brad. Brad was laid-off last April from a bank that has recently been merged with another (not an unfamiliar story). For the first couple of months of unemployment, he took the normal route with recruiters and online job boards for the with no success. Then, he decided to target specific people from his past that he knew were working at banks or similar institutions. Brad systematically identified people that might be looking for candidates and got in touch with them directly or through other colleagues. However, there were a few for whom he didn’t have contact information. He tried LinkedIn for a few contacts and that helped, but he couldn’t find one particular contact.

He knew an ex-colleague on Xbox Live that would have the target contact details so he just had to find a way to ask politely. He began to spend more time on Xbox Live in order to find his ex-colleague, and to do so “naturally” within that environment. Now, he was also able to justify why he was spending so much time gaming to his wife;-). Then when he got the chance to open up a conversation he asked for the contact information of the mutual ex-colleague. Ultimately, this led him to start work through that contact at another bank in September last year.

For Brad, this worked out perfectly; but for you Xbox Live may not be an option. Perhaps you don’t have the Xbox console already or perhaps you don’t know anyone on there anyways? Well, that’s not the point! In this job market you have to build and leverage your network - doing so within an environment where you are most comfortable gives you the unique opportunity to set yourself apart.

Please share your story on the unusual way you have built your network in the comments section below.

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Jobspeaker: “Manage your Job Search” FREE Service now available

Posted by jobspeaker in Job Market on December 27, 2009

Jobspeaker is excited to announce the availability of our next feature: Job Management. Using our FREE service, the Jobspeaker Firefox Add-on and our Jobspeaker Website you can now manage all of your jobs in the one place online. With the New Year almost upon us and hopefully a new job market beginning to open up we want to help job seekers land their next position. Our service helps you save, rate, and track jobs from any job board (e.g. careerbuilder, biospace, hotjobs, craigslist, etc.) or jobs listed from any company (e.g. ibm, genentech, facebook, safeway, etc.) all in one place. Get started organizing your job search today: www.jobspeaker.com or download our Firefox Add-on now.

Our new service enables you as a job seeker to find the jobs just once, then save them to jobspeaker and have a permanent record of the job. Then you can rate them, track them and make notes on them as you progress in your job search. You can compare jobs directly on one page using our jobs dashboard and monitor your own progress. Spending hours everyday finding the jobs you’ve already found across many different job sites or keeping a list on computer/paper is not necessary once you start using Jobspeaker.

We are the only service that is your “personal job aggregator” - you find the jobs and we’ll help you manage the process of landing that perfect job. We’ve developed this service because we believe that it’s you, the job seeker, who knows best where your jobs might be listed. You know, better than any service, the job boards that might list the jobs that interest you, the companies that you’d like to work for and the people you’d like to work with. So, while you search for those jobs, our Jobspeaker service helps you manage all those jobs in one place.

Try it out today and let us know what you think.

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Tech Tips for Job Seekers: How to Make the Job Search a Little Bit Easier

Posted by jobspeaker in Job Market on July 18, 2009

Unless your career interests are so narrow as to only include one position in the world (for instance, personal assistant to Heidi Klum), there is a good chance you will be applying to quite a few positions during your job search. For example, if you are looking for an entry-level financial analyst position in New York City, there are hundreds of positions you could potentially apply to. Besides being time-consuming, this process is seriously tedious. But if you think smart before you begin, you can cut out a lot of the work.

1) Turn on the auto-fill feature on your web browser. For crying out loud, why would you want to type out your phone number on 350 applications? If you have that much time on your hands you’d do better to spend it counting the blades of grass on your lawn. There are built-in tools for this in the Google or Yahoo toolbars but also some very cool new tools for your browser to help manage all your private data, e.g. Sxipper.

2) Have your browser save your passwords for future access to sites. Every job site and almost every company has their own registration and password procedure to complete before you can fill out an application for employment. Having your browser remember the passwords for each site makes your life a lot easier, and it gives you faster access to the site should you need to look over your application again. Some products can accomplish both auto-fill and password management (e.g. LastPass) and more (e.g. Billeo), so going that route may be better than getting multiple tools.

3) Make a .txt version of your resume. Many companies require you to copy and paste a version of your resume into a text box as part of the application process. Rather than copying and pasting from a nicely formatted Word document, wouldn’t it be smarter to save a version of your resume as a .txt file? This way you only have to delete extraneous spaces and bullets once, and you can then spend your time customizing the resume to the specific job to which you’re applying. You can use Google Docs and/or Yahoo Notes to capture text files that you need to cut and paste again and again in online forms.

4) Keep a record of jobs to which you’ve applied. We have mentioned this tip before, because it is seriously important to stay on top of where you have applications and where you are in the application process. If you maintain a good record of what you’ve done and what still needs to be done, it’ll be a cinch to prepare for a job interview. If you get a call asking you to interview for a position and you have no idea what the recruiter is talking about, you stand little chance of adequately preparing and being an impressive candidate. Tools like Jing or Clipmarks can also help here - it allows you to take a snapshot of any piece of an online page. This is particularly relevant if you need to reference the job description and it’s not posted anymore.

5) Simplify and streamline your search by using company indexes like Hoovers. If you’re interested in working for a specific company or industry, a search on a site like Hoovers can give you a list of all the top national players, with links to jobs, financial statements, news, and expert analysis and forecasts. This eliminates a lot of guesswork on your part and can give you an edge over job seekers who are less savvy. It is also essential in preparing yourself for the interview so that you can speak intelligently about the industry and ask relevant questions.

I’m sure you have other tools or ways of making the whole process easier for yourself, would love to hear about them.

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