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Just yesterday, a very well-qualified marketing executive with great credentials emailed me. She had read an article we published about why resumes are not the right tool to get the attention of hiring managers. She told me she has been searching for a year and had no offers. She went on to rhetorically ask if she should give up. How can that be? Unless she has some horrible character flaw, (I doubt that she has one based on her work history) she should be working right now. She too is a victim of a process that cannot create the desired outcome.
Would all of this be less of an issue if the economy were roaring along and there were plenty of jobs? Of course it would. However, the fact is there are jobs available. Companies struggle to find the right people as candidates struggle to find the right company and position. Both use ineffective methods that were never specifically a result of addressing the needs of each today. As a side note, even in a roaring economy with plenty of jobs, there are many employers and candidate/applicants that are not able to connect for the exact same reason. You just do not read about it in the Wall Street Journal or hear about it on CNN. They are the ones we give the sound advice to, keep at it there are plenty of jobs.
So what is the answer? Has anyone made it a point to examine what companies and hiring managers want? Has anyone really researched how companies can get the people they want? Has anyone looked at the process candidates/applicants follow and determined what would work? Has anyone put a process together that will work? One that will work whether the economy is struggling or when it is booming? How about when you want to simply change jobs for a better opportunity? Does that process exist or are you still stuck with what you are expected to follow?
What if searching for a job was not what you thought it was, would you be interested in learning about it?
One of the real misconceptions by most job seekers is, if they put enough paper out in the market place, someone will see them and want to talk to them. Do you play the lottery and expect to win? Is the process you are using to find a job much different? You are trying to increase your odds of getting noticed by increasing the number of potential possibilities for a hiring manager to find you.
During WWII and the even the Vietnam War, planes would drop millions of leaflets into the enemies' territories. The leaflets contained information the people dropping them would want their enemy to know. Many times it was propaganda in hopes of swaying the people reading them. All sides of the wars took this action. Today with a job search, you do not use a plane and there is no enemy, but you use the internet to do mass distribution of what you want various people to know about you. It is for similar purpose, to get the attention and to sway those that read them. Just like your efforts, many of the leaflets fell into no ones hands or they fell into some one's hands that did not know what they had for one reason or another.
Is all lost? Not hardly. Let's examine what has to happen to change the process and to help the hiring manager with his/her dilemma.
The hiring manager takes the same strategy, obtaining mass information in hopes one will be the right person and the tactic is a job posting somewhere. I have shown why it may not be terribly effective for anyone. Is it possible to change how companies find the right person for their open positions? Sure! Many companies train from within, network in their industry, and some other methods they feel work for them. They are few. Those methods do not always work either.
Companies are very slow to change what they are continually told is the process to follow. They believe their process is the best available. Most companies are slow to change at all. There are many reasons why, but the focus of this article is not on why companies are slow to change.
Candidates/applicants do not have to be slow to change. They need to know what process to change to that works. Why not embrace a process that will get the hiring managers' attention by you finding them? There are many tools available. But, there is a prior step that is required by you. The first step is to determine what your skills, experience, and accomplishments are that you possess. If you do not know what you have done, you will find it difficult to determine where you fit. There are very specific steps and specific information in your own career experience you want to pull together.
Once that has been accomplished, you now need to determine what industries, companies and people you want to work for in your new job. That takes research, and lots of it. There is a huge amount of information available to sort through and sources to find exactly what you want. There are skills required that can make the task easier and provide the right results.
Prepare your credential presentation materials. Note I did not use the word resume. There is a tool that is far better and will get the attention of the hiring manager. We have used it for years, always with the same successful results.
Connect with companies. Get to know them. Learn what their needs, issues, and opportunities are for them. Match that up with your abilities. If done correctly you will get an interview. Learn the skills that will serve you well.
Prepare for that interview, not with just the ability to spontaneously recite everything you know about your abilities, hoping some of them are what the hiring manager wants. You already know some of that from your previous efforts. You will have to ask questions to gain control of the interview, and to get the response you want and the information you need. It is not a one way street in an interview. It is a two way street. You have to take charge of your efforts.
Provided you like what you find out, ask for the second interview. You can successfully gain that second interview with the right techniques and skills.
When you receive the offer, do not take the coercive stance to get just what you want. Long before an offer comes, you have to know what would be fair and reasonable. It takes more research. You and the hiring manager want a win-win result. You want it so both gets what each wants. Beyond that, you want to start off on the right foot with the person you report to and the company where you now work. You do not want to be viewed as a difficult person from the start.
The hiring manager wants the offer to go well, because he needs you and wants to achieve the goals and objectives with the best people he can assemble. Due to the time constraint and mounting problems the vacancy has caused, he also does not want to go through this process again. There are specific techniques and steps to take to accomplish this important step.
Finally, plan and prepare for your first days and weeks on the new job. Make sure you hit the ground running. It will take planning with the person you report to now. There are specific steps to take and information you need to know.
Change the process. Take it from a process where you are a leaf in the wind blowing somewhere you cannot control. Learn how to make it one where you are in charge and you determine the steps you take. You influence the outcome of the process. This is the process that is required today. It is a process that will serve you regardless of the economic environment.
How do you learn how to change the process? You do what you have done your entire career. You seek out and learn the skills necessary. The good news is they are easy to learn. The skills are immediately applicable to your job search. Best of all, they lead to success.
There is only one company we have been able to identify that provides real skill-based training to accomplish all that is truly required. Seriously consider gaining the skills needed. You have invested heavily in your chosen profession, trade or technical skills. A small investment in gaining the job you want will pay huge dividends making the investment further shrink in size.
