We're going to look at how you go about generating interviews for yourself. I'm going to emphasize the importance of being active. One of the worst mistakes you can make in a job search is to stop moving forward: to sit back and wait for job leads to materialize, for agencies and recruiters to call, for want ads that appeal to you to appear in the newspapers. If you do, you will spend 90 percent of your job search time doing just that-waiting.
Setting Up a Job Strategy
Jobs leads can originate almost anywhere-from dozens of sources. But the sources, of course, will differ in terms of both the number of leads they generate and the quality of those leads.
You should set up your strategy accordingly. The classified section of your Sunday newspaper, for instance, is a generally fruitful source of job leads. You could read about as many as six different openings in fifteen minutes. But newspaper advertisements get read by just about everybody looking for work. You're operating in a crowded field, and it won't be easy to get yourself singled out. On the other hand, an introduction to a certain person in a certain company with a job opening for which it hasn't yet begun to advertise could sometimes take days, but will give you a direct shot at the job.
So, keeping these two variables in mind-the number of job possibilities a source can generate and the quality of those leads -you can give your campaign a degree of efficiency that will be lacking in most. Think of yourself as being on a treasure hunt. Hidden within a confined area and in different places are a dozen or so items of varying value. The less valuable items are nearby, easy to locate. The more valuable items are tougher to find; you have to dig deeper. If you're smart, you don't spend all of your time looking for the less valuable items simply bemuse they're easy to find. Nor do you ignore the relatively says items in an all-out effort to find the more valuable item. You strike a balance.
What I'm going to do is to describe in detail the most common sources of job leads and how best to pursue them. Some of them are want ads and are relatively easy to pursue but may yield leads of limited value. Others- good personal contacts, for instance-are tougher to pursue but, in many cases, well worth the extra time it takes to pursue them. Some of the leads, however, are worth pursuing. You have to set up a plan that strikes the most effective balance.
Contacts: Pyramiding the Name Game
Personal contacts are, hands down, your best source of job leads. Seek them out, pursue them, and use them intelligently.
By "personal contacts," I'm talking about anybody you know, or can get to, who can do any of the following:
- Offer you a job
- Refer you to someone who can offer you a job
- Refer you to somebody who can arrange an interview or read your resume
- Tell you of a job opening
- Give you the name of somebody who can do any of the above
- Give you the name of somebody who can give you the name of someone else who can do any of the above. There is no limit.
These are noble sentiments, but the fact is that many job candidates who get good jobs get outside help at some point along the way. Maybe it is a phone call from a business associate with a tip on an opening or a personal introduction to a potential employer. Maybe it's nothing more than a personal recommendation. But it's something-and it's frequently the something that can tilt the odds toward that particular candidate.
Setting Up Your Own Contact List
Anybody you know who might conceivably be of help to you in your job search should be considered a "contact." How much this person can help you isn't easy to predict. Nor can you know, until you've asked, how far a contact will go when the time comes to pull strings or go to bat for you. One of the most dispiriting experiences in job hunting is to discover that a person you always thought you could count on is suddenly difficult to reach now that you're looking for work. Recently I heard about a man who was working as a correspondent in Los Angeles for a national news magazine. He became friendly, as the result of the assignment, with the head person at one of the major studios. They socialized, played tennis together. The studio man would constantly tell the correspondent that he was wasting his time on the magazine and should come to work at the studio.
Well, the time came when the magazine wanted to reassign the writer, but the writer didn't want to leave the West Coast. So he quit his job, figuring that with his contact at the major studio, he'd be better off than he was before. There was only one problem. Once the correspondent no longer worked for the magazine, the studio executive was suddenly hard to find. The correspondent never even got as far as an interview, and was out of work for six months before he got another job.
Your primary pool of contacts is the people you're the closest to, your relatives and close friends. Go there first. It's not asking for charity when you ask a relative or friend to set up an introduction for you, or to give you some names of people: you're simply using the most obvious source for the information and the help you need. Wouldn't you do the same for them?
A phone call gets the job done. Don't be evasive. Don't figure that if you let people know you need help, somebody will volunteer this help. Who knows, some people might worry that offering you help could injure your feelings. Worse, being evasive might create the impression that you're fishing around for a loan.
So be as specific as you can. Know ahead of time who the person you're asking for help might introduce you to, or how, specifically, that person might be of help. People tend to respond much more readily to specific requests ("Frank, could you get me an introduction to the marketing head of Widgets, Inc.?") than to general requests ("Frank, do you know anybody who's looking for a marketing supervisor?")
Being direct and specific actually takes pressure off the contact you're approaching. The person no longer has to search his or her own mind or conscience for ways to help you. You're not handing over the whole responsibility of finding you a job: you're asking for a specific favor-a favor that, presumably, is not terribly difficult to perform.
If close friends or relatives are not in an obvious position to help you, let them know what your situation is and the kind of thing you're looking for. Ask, simply, that they keep their ears open for you.
Second-Level Contacts
You don't stop pursuing personal contacts once you've gone through the handful of friends and relatives with whom you're not embarrassed to discuss your situation. There is usually a huge group of second-level contacts who could prove equally valuable, if you approach them in the right way. I include in this category the following:
- Your business colleagues, past and present
- Former bosses
- Former subordinates, who presumably have moved up the ladder
- Your college professors
- Your company's bank or your bank
- Lawyers, ad agencies, buyers, salespersons-anyone who gets around
- School alumni
- Members of a club or religious organization
- The professional people you deal with in your personal life-doctors, dentists, etc.
- Trade organization or professional society leaders
- Your banker or stockbroker
Here again, don't beat around the bush when you call them. Be as specific as possible. And before you get in touch with a contact, make sure you have already formulated in your mind the role this person can have in your job search.
Generating Your Own Contacts
Everybody you meet in the course of your job search is not Only a potential contact but a lead to a contact. One especially fertile and often overlooked source of names is the person who interviews you for a job you don't get. Even if you don't get Tired, you can sometimes emerge from such an interview with a couple of names of people who might be of help. How do you get the names? The simplest and most direct way: you ask for them ("Can you think of anybody it might be useful for me to talk to?")- When you get the names, find out if it's okay to use the name of the person who recommended them. Be positive ("It's okay if I use your name, isn't it?").
Keep a small notebook with you at all times and become a name scavenger. The more names you collect, the better your chances of connecting. Maybe the person whose name you've been given can't help but knows somebody who can. Maybe it will take you a succession of four or five contacts before you finally get someone who can be of direct help.
There is no such thing as having too many names of people to contact. The most each name costs you is the minute or two it takes you to phone them. You might call twenty-five people without getting anything that takes you closer to a good job, but the twenty-sixth call could put you on the scent of one. So keep calling. If you've been enterprising in getting up a contact list, you may have as many as one hundred or more names, so set up a timetable. Set aside at least an hour a day for making phone calls. Call at least ten people a day. Try to elicit an additional name or two from each person you talk to. Play the name game to the hilt.
Keep a record of every name, along with the name of the person who gave you the reference. That person may be as important as the name itself when the time comes to make contact. That person's name is the "in." It gets you past the secretary; to the person you want to speak to ("Hello, Mr. Fields? My name is Mary Jones. I'm a friend of . . ."). This is the standard opening. Don't vary it too much. Occasionally, you may find that the person isn't familiar with the contact. This could mean that your contact has been exaggerating his or her relationship with the employer. It may not even matter. The executive might talk with you anyway.
I repeat, don't worry if you're finding that most of your phone calls are "a waste of time." Expect it. Most of the calls you make will be a waste of time, but the next call you make may not be.
The only thing to be careful of is people who are too embarrassed or too vain to tell you they can't help and "invent" situations the better to keep your morale up. I've heard of job candidates who've wasted three or four days tracking down a lead that originated from a friend who was well meaning but didn't represent a situation the way it really was.
And don't underestimate the value of what I call the "courtesy" interview. A "courtesy" interview is one in which the person granting the interview has no desire at all to see the candidate but is doing it as a favor to the candidate's friend. True, there may not be a job, but you can sometimes impress an interviewer in one of these situations so that a genuine opportunity opens up.
Something else: Don't expect too much from introductions to the top people in the companies you're pursuing. As a general rule, the higher up a person is in an organization, the more that person is in a position to help. But very often the most a top executive is going to do for you is to shake hands, make some small talk, and then shuttle you off to personnel. If you have any say in the matter, try to connect with the person who heads the specific department you'll be working for if you get hired. In certain situations, being "recommended" by the president of a company could actually work against your chances. The person doing the hiring may resent the interference. But take the interview from whoever is available.
Want Ads
The most obvious and easily tapped of all job lead sources is the help-wanted section of your local newspaper. But what's obvious in job hunting isn't always productive or efficient. To build a job hunt campaign solely, or even largely, around help-wanted ads is to follow the foolish example of the man in the old joke who loses his wallet on the corner of Main Street and Fifth, but goes looking for it on the corner of Main Street and Fourth. Why? Because there's more light at Main Street and Fourth.
Here is one thing to bear in mind about want ads: the majority of job openings never get advertised in the newspaper. So, if want ads are the only job source you're tapping, you're closing yourself off from a big chunk of the job market-as much as 75 percent, according to most surveys. Secondly, once an advertisement for a good job appears in the want ads, the competition for that job automatically heats up. Some ads in a major metropolitan newspaper draw as many as five hundred replies.
Follow the want ads closely, but don't allow them to dominate your job hunt campaign. Keep in mind that want ads reveal to you only a small slice of the job market, and accept the fact that when you respond to an ad, regardless of how qualified you are, you're playing a numbers game, with the odds against you. To pursue this avenue of job searching effectively, you play the game, but keep in mind the odds.
Sources of Want Ads
The chief source of want ads in most cities is the classified section of the local Sunday paper, but don't confine your search to the local Sunday paper alone. Papers in nearby cities or cities you may relocate to are important, too. Trade or professional magazines in your particular field are likely to list positions available. The Wall Street Journal is a good source of want ads, even though many of the jobs offered may require relocation. The Sunday classified and business sections of the largest metropolitan newspapers, particularly the New York Times and the Los Angeles Times, are thick with advertisements for job openings not necessarily confined to their own metropolitan areas. (The problem, though, is that some large metropolitan papers-the New York Times being one of them -do not distribute the Sunday classified to areas outside their immediate metropolitan region. You may have to find somebody with access to these newspapers to send you the sections each week, or else contact the newspaper directly to find out how to get a copy sent to you.)
Don't ignore local papers in suburban areas, even though these papers tend to advertise lower-level jobs. Get friends who receive newspapers you don't to send the want ad sections to you.
Going Through the Ads
Be systematic when you're looking for job leads in the classified sections of newspapers and magazines. At the outset of your campaign, you should go through the want ad section from A to Z, as if you were reading a good novel.
Get the sense early on of the different headings under which job leads of interest to you may appear. There is no uniform system governing which jobs fall under which headlines. Depending on who has placed the ad, a typical executive position could well appear under any of a half-dozen headlines. Most newspapers list help-wanted advertising alphabetically, by job title. If a company places an ad for an assistant controller, it will probably be classified under the letter A. Yet most assistant controllers will look under the letter C for controller. This means that if you answer that ad, the competition will be reduced and your opportunity the greater. Sometimes a newspaper misclassifies an ad; the result is almost no response. In that event, the paper would probably give the advertiser a free run, but it gives you a head start.
Occasionally, too, a company inadvertently misleads the reader. A job described as administrative supervisor, for in- stance, may be, in fact, a standard secretarial position. Sometimes, too, the title is so vague it's impossible to tell what the job entails.
An assistant to the president, for instance, may call for a person who is sales-oriented, or factory-oriented, or financially-oriented. The lesson: don't base decisions purely on job titles.
Your system should allow you to keep track of all the ads you respond to. Use a felt-tip marker or highlighter to mark those ads that loom as worthy of response. Once you've gone through a publication, cut out the ads you want and paste each one on a 5 by 8 file card. (Make sure you don't cut out an ad that backs up to the one you are clipping out. In such a case, type one of them on the card.) Mark on the card the publication and the date the ad appeared. This will accomplish two things: one, you won't lose track of ads should the newspaper or magazine be thrown out inadvertently; two, you'll never run the risk of mentioning an incorrect date or the wrong publication with your response.
Use each of these files cards as a "log" for the job pasted to it. Note the date of your response. In the event you get an interview, the ad will be a good starting point for your interview preparation.
Develop a routine. Set aside a certain period two or three times a week to be devoted exclusively to the want ad phase of your job search. As a general rule, you should answer ads within a week after they appeared. But if you see an ad for which you consider yourself the ideal candidate and you detect a sense of urgency in the wording, answer it immediately- perhaps with a telegram or Mailgram.
On the other hand, you should keep in mind that most companies figure on anywhere from six weeks to three or four months to fill a job of substance. So the bigger and more important a job is, the longer many companies tend to look. Because an ad that appeared five weeks ago hasn't appeared again doesn't mean the job has been filled. It simply means the company has stopped advertising for candidates. If you're smart, in fact, you'll go through the want ads of papers five and six weeks old for leads.
Keep a record on your card of all correspondence received from the employer. Note whether the response was a form letter from the personnel department or a personal letter from one of the company's executives. You'll be keeping these letters on file anyway, of course, but having a record on 5 X 8 cards of each job opening you apply to gives you an efficient means of keeping track of the leads that look more promising.
Which Ads to Respond To
Answering want ads is a numbers game, so the general rule is to respond to any advertisement that sounds interesting, albeit with certain caveats.
If you're currently working, tread carefully where blind ads are concerned. Why? Well, you don't know who is getting the response, and you have no idea what they'll do with it. Maybe the person on whose desk the letter eventually lands is a personal friend of your boss. How do you know that as a favor to the friend, your boss may not report that a top employee (you) is getting itchy? It's a small world.
And how do you know that the letter you send in response to a blind ad won't end up on your boss's desk? Don't laugh. I've been told of some employers routinely running blind ads the better to see which of their employees are looking for new jobs. Some of these companies are careful to hide their true identity; they'll even present themselves in the ad as being in a different industry or a different location.
Some of what I've just said may strike you as slightly paranoid, but I don't think I'm exaggerating the dangers. Under the best of circumstances, the odds of your actually ending up with the job you read about in a blind ad are very long. Compared to the ever-present possibility that an answer to a blind ad could very well cost you your present job, they are not worth the gamble. The blind ad is an invitation to unemployment.
Avoiding the "Qualifications" Trap
Don't let the "qualifications" listed in the ad over intimidate you. Many companies list certain qualifications merely to keep to a reasonable number the volume of responses. Don't let words like "desirable," "preferable," and "knowledgeable" keep you from responding. If an ad states "a minimum of three years experience" in a field but you only have a year or so, respond anyway. Just make sure that the letter which accompanies your resume makes a convincing case as to why you should be considered. Point out where you do not conform, and quickly add some of your outstanding strengths.
Similarly, if the listed salary is somewhat below the minimum you've set for yourself but the job sounds like something you'd like, respond. Who knows, if you get an interview and impress the person you talk to enough, you might even get the salary raised. And if the job isn't exactly what you're looking for but the company sounds interesting, again, respond. It's a foot in the door. You'll never know all about a job until you've had an interview.
