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HIGH TECH - HIGH TOUCH PHILOSOPHY
Career Transition is a Contact Sport! Its important that you view networking is a two-way street—sometimes with you, the information seeker, being able to provide information to the same person from whom you are seeking it—and at other times being a source of information to other people. In order to get information from others, we must be a good source of information. All it takes is being willing to share information, ideas and resources. Further, many employers prefer to hire someone they know personally or hire someone who has been referred to them by a mutual acquaintance. Familiarity and referrals reduce much of the uncertainty involved in hiring a new employee. While e-mail is too easy to delete from an unknown party... it becomes an effective communication tool with people who are known to each other--and it can contribute to rapport building, as well. The TOP TEN Internet issues relative to job search... 1. Use technology to leverage
the extensive Internet research resources. Find potential employers and/or
stand out from the crowd with a highly personalized resume and cover letter...
customized to the employer.
Use
the Internet to identify potential employers, evaluate them, and contact them.
Customize your resume and cover letter based on your research, and then dazzle
them in the interview with your insight into their products and services, their
market, their competitors, etc. 2. Limiting your job search efforts to the Internet only. Internet job banks have several, designed in limitation to your efforts. Even if you have a job, use the Internet as a tool, a simple component of your job search "system." 3. Posting your resume without worrying about privacy, especially when currently employed. Using your company computer (or other assets) to job hunt at work simply doesn't honor your employment commitment. Unless part of a corporate sponsored re-deployment strategy, put simply, don't do it! And, we cannot overlook identity theft as one of the top Internet frauds. Millions of posted resumes make it easy! As importantly, if you are employed, protect your identity and your existing job. 4. "Niche Boards" can be more effective, so consider using more than simply the big name Web job sites... Many of the "big names" are expensive for employers to use and not focused for some job opportunities. So, in tight budgetary times, employers save money using smaller, less expensive or "niche" sites that may have exactly the applicants they want, like an industry- or location-specific job site or even the Web site of a professional or industry association. Further, the smaller Boards are more likely to verify all postings. 5. Using the "shotgun" method of distributing your resume. Posting your
resume at hundreds of job sites or "blasting" it to hundreds or thousands of
recruiters and employers is a self-defeating strategy. Your ability
and strategy of "personalized approaches" is minimized, thus reducing your
chances of being called. By choice, any single employer probably won't be interested in competing with several
other employers. 6. Depending on e-mail as your only
method of initial contact. Spam, defined as unsolicited bulk commercial e-mail,
makes it a challenge for your initial, unsolicited email to be received
efficiently... way too easy to delete. A better approach is to
initiate your relationship with an employer through referral or personal
networking.
Its important that you view networking is a two-way street—sometimes with you, the information seeker, being able to provide information to the same person from whom you are seeking it—and at other times being a source of information to other people. In order to get information from others, we must be a good source of information. All it takes is being willing to share information, ideas and resources. Further, many employers prefer to hire someone they know personally or hire someone who has been referred to them by a mutual acquaintance. Familiarity and referrals reduce much of the uncertainty involved in hiring a new employee. While e-mail is too easy to delete from an unknown party... it becomes an effective communication tool with people who are known to each other--and it can contribute to rapport building, as well.
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Robert J. Maher, CMF, has been in the
career services field since 1980, and mostly as an independent since
1983. Bob has provided services or spoken to audiences in most major
metropolitan areas of the US, and several in Canada and the UK. He
has served a very broad-based and diverse clientele over the years
with a solid reputation for effective group facilitation, one-on-one
coaching, marketing support and consultation at all levels,
including executive.
Articles appearing in...
Embracing The OTHER Job Market
For the convenience of those I serve...
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A well conceived
Personal Market Plan can bring you
face-to-face with "insiders" and even with unadvertised positions before anyone
else learns of them. It is tempting, in our age of electronic
communication with e-mailing and voice mailing and relaying information rapidly
to one another, to want to over-rely on electronic job searching activities. As
we said earlier, job seeking is the business of developing relationships with
others. 
March 7, 2009