Be Realistic
The perfect job and organization does not exist. Advantages and disadvantages exist side by side. Your splendid traits may be hidden and known only to you.
Scout the Field
Some organizations and supervisors will suit you better than others. You have a special blend of abilities, interests, and needs. Look around and pick the jobs and organizations that best suit you. When potential employers are found pursue them.
Sell Yourself
For a job opening a company will screen many people and have interviews with five, ten, twenty or more. If five people - counting yourself - are considered for an opening, your chances of getting the job are 20 percent. If twenty people, your chance is 5 percent. What happens to your job chances when economic times are tough? It may sound hard and brutal, but the simple fact is that you are offering a commodity - yourself - to possible purchasers. These purchasers may be actively looking, lukewarm or even cold in terms of hiring employees. Whether you make the sale - get the job - depends on how well you market your skills. What can you do for the company?
Developing Your Marketing Package
One of the basic ideas in marketing is the 4 P's concept - Product, Place, Price, and Promotion. Accept the idea of selling yourself to win the job. For the most part your competition probably is doing a poor job of selling themselves.
In terms of the 4 P's, the product is you. You need to provide many assurances that your special talents can be satisfactorily used to the benefit of the firm. You need to offer skills and abilities which satisfy the needs of your target companies. What special skills do you have that will interest the company? How can you lessen any liabilities? What do you know about your target companies and their requirements? Of course, your attitude and self-motivation goes a long way toward creating a desirable product.
The place refers to the time and the location of the company. Decisions on place - actually where and when you want to work - are important. These decisions have long range implications and are harder to change than the other P's. A move may be required to land a satisfactory job in a reasonable amount of time.
The price pertains to your wage and fringe benefit needs in comparison with what the organization will offer you. Typically, large firms have salary guide lines and benefits which are fixed by management decisions or a union contract. Unless you have very special skills which are in demand you cannot easily alter the price to any great extent.
Promotion is critical. This is the communication between the seller (you) and the buyer (interviewer). Your job is to combine your background, education, work experience, etc. into a blend which tells the target firm that the right person is available. Objectives are to inform, persuade, and remind. It may be necessary to get across various messages to different firms - try to match your talents with the current needs of potential employers. Self-promotion is critical - most of this guide is devoted to promoting you: the product.
You need to decide the place you want to work, but often the company's product or service determines the location of the organization. Service companies like banks, stores, repair shops and insurance offices are near people. Natural resource companies locate where they can drill for oil, cut timber, or mine for coal or metal. Other companies are located because of special needs - transportation, raw materials, customers, universities, or skilled and trainable people. Things may be slow in one area but booming in another area of a state or of the country.
To get a job you need to promote the product (you) to firms needing your special talents. What do you do? Read and study this guide on seeking a job. If the ideas help you obtain a job and get you on the payroll sooner or a bigger paycheck - by a few days, or even weeks or months - the time spent with this guide will be worth it for you and your family.
Job campaigns are sales programs which involve verbal and written sales presentations. The major objective of the campaign and each part of the presentation is to prove your value and convince the inter-viewer that you are right for the job.
A Plan of Action
The best investment you can make is to have a written organized plan if you are seriously interested in obtaining a meaningful and better position. This action plan should involve a variety of paths to a job offer. An exact plan for everyone seeking a new job is impossible to develop. Each person has his/her own situation and objectives. A general plan that you may want to use or modify follows. Check each item as completed.
Before the Campaign
- Decide what you want to achieve over the next 1, 5 and even 10 years. Review your strengths and weaknesses; list what you plan to do to improve. Develop immediate job hunting objectives.
- List prime and secondary employment prospects. Find out all you can about their key personnel, products and problems. Carefully file this information.
- Collect and review all the information about your job related experiences and accomplishments.
- Use this for the initial writing of letters and resumes.
- Prepare single copies of all written material for subsequent use. Be concerned with the appearance and presentation of letters and resumes.
- Prepare answers to potential interview questions. Practice answers aloud as your spouse asks the questions.
The Campaign
- Make a plan with a time schedule. Carry it out. Have an overall plan but fill in details as you work your plan. Keep records and copies of correspondence.
- Subscribe to publications which list employment opportunities. Read all ads.
- Finalize your resume and have it printed. Several different resumes could be used.
- Send a brief cover letter and resume to employment agencies. Contact other appropriate sources of help in the coming weeks.
- Using letters or cover letters and resume, answer appropriate recent ads. Do the same for future ads.
- Mail individual letters to prime employment prospects; cover letter and resume to secondary organizations.
- Selectively follow-up initial correspondence which was not answered. Interview Preparation Review all of your information on firms inviting you to an interview. Known necessary travel details to the firms so you can arrive on time.
- Review for each interview by answering aloud potential interview questions.
- Plan what to say in order to stress ability, accomplishments, and user benefits of interest to this specific organization.
- Develop a list of topics and questions (use 3x5 cards) you plan to use during the interview. Interview Follow-up
- Analyze and evaluate the interview. Use ideas from this interview for subsequent contacts with potential employers.
- Definitely use a follow-up letter or possibly a telephone call.
