Recognize that production of materials for your search is a big undertaking, and get started on this assignment as soon as you possibly can
Unless you are a perpetual job-changer, you may be unaware that there are a lot of purely mechanical aspects to mounting an effective job campaign. You'll need to write letters. That means you first have to order stationery! There is nothing in the book that says you must use personalized writing paper, but it looks far more professional than a name and address typed on a sheet of erasable bond. And your goal is to do everything you can to create an impression that you are, in fact, a pro in everything you do during your job search.
Ordering stationery isn't hard to do, but it does take time to get it-anywhere from one to four weeks. So you've got to make time to order it now, or it could delay your job-search campaign later on. Fortunately, almost any business stationers can order it for you, but you might want to consider getting stationery by mail from one of the national outfits like The Stationery House in Hagers town, Maryland, or The Drawing Board in Dallas, Texas. These companies, and others like them, sell on such scale and avoid the markup the local printer must make, and so might save you money. You can call either for a catalog.
Once you've ordered your stationery, you'll need to find someone who can type or word process your letters and resume. Perhaps you or your spouse are good enough to do this. If you are, don't make the mistake of trying to do your typing on a home portable. If you plan to be your own secretarial service, at the very least rent a good business typewriter. If you plan to write to prospective bosses on your own, be sure you can turn out letters that look totally professional. (No dot matrix printing if you use a processor, please!) The impression your letters make when first opened by a possible employer can be as important as what you say in your letter. Again, you want your prospective boss to think to himself that he is dealing with an individual who does everything first class, because that's the sort of person he'd like working for him.
If you decide to be your own typist, you can rent a business typewriter for $70 a month. When you consider it, it is a small investment to make in getting your next job! Unfortunately, renting a business-quality word processor by the month is next to impossible. So if you plan to type your job-search letters, it will take a good deal of time. You don't want to delay a follow-up note because you simply didn't have the time to get to it, or answer an ad a week or two later than you should have, just because you had no time to sit down to type it. That's why you may well opt for an outside secretarial service. If you do plan to get help, take the time to call around. In our town, you can pay as little as $3.75 per page and as much as $14.00 for the same quality work. It would pay you to make a few visits to see examples of typefaces, and just how professional the typist's work really is.
You'll need to locate a good quality printer, too. There's nothing that says you can't go to the closest local printer you can find. But you could end up paying a great deal more unless you look around. Today there are a number of printing chains that specialize in short-run offset printing. Outfits like Sir Speedy, Insty Print, Postal Instant Press, and others, are geared specially to individuals, and many specialize in resumes. As with all things you can buy, not every service does the same quality work. It would pay you to look at samples of printing from several outfits before you make up your mind. One caution in this regard: some local printing outfits are using Xerox high-speed copiers as printing devices. They may not always be up to the quality of photo-offset. Don't try to save a couple of bucks at the expense of creating a "what, me worry?" look about the resumes you send out.
Many executives prefer their resumes to be "composited." This is a reasonably priced technique (approximately $100 for two pages) that makes your resume pages look as if they were set in type like a book rather than looking as if they were typed. This technique has two advantages: it looks more professional, and you can get more information on a page. If you plan to have your resume composited, you'll have to locate a good compositor, as well as a typist. Often you'll find compositors listed under "letter shops" as well as printers in your Yellow Pages.
Letter shops can be useful in mounting an aggressive campaign in another way, too. Many letter shops have word processors as well as composing machines. The advantage of word processors is that they can create individually typed letters without individually typing them. IBM, Xerox, ATT, Lanier all make word processing equipment, and any is suitable as long as it prints with a daisy wheel and not with a dot matrix system. If you plan to conduct a broadcast campaign-and most job-seekers should-you may well want to locate a letter shop with word processors so that your letters look as though you had typed each individually. In this regard, shopping for the right letter shop can be very much worth your while. For example, automatically typed letters are available for $1.15 each (one page, in quantities of two hundred of the same letter) from one outfit in our locale, and for three dollars per page from another outfit only a little ways away.
You may also wish to locate a good mailing house. These outfits will stuff your letters into envelopes, seal them and stamp them automatically for you for six to ten cents per envelope. Some mailing houses have both compositor and word processor services in-house so that they can conduct your direct mail campaign for you from beginning to end. You may want to explore that possibility to save yourself running around from printer to mailer, although you may pay for this convenience.
