The sources of names are many. The first source is friends and acquaintances. It has been estimated that every person is acquainted on the average with 200 people. Each of these would be then acquainted with another 200 people. Therefore, if my multiplication is correct, simply talking to your friends gives you immediate access to the names of approximately 40,000 people who may be in a position to offer you a job or who may know of a job opening that would interest you or who simply can refer you to someone else who may know something or someone. What makes each person in this group of people so valuable is that since "Nobody Likes a Stranger, you either know that person firsthand or you have a mutual friend. Therefore, these people are friends or friends of friends, and it is human nature to want to do a favor for a friend. It's also human nature to want to avoid the uncomfortable feeling of denying a friend a favor, and providing job leads is as valuable and easy a favor as there is.
Specific sub-groupings of acquaintances to emphasize are professional associations and alumni groups. What more valuable concentration of names than a gathering of associates in the same career field or industry? Identify and join, if you are qualified, at least one professional organization for the career field in which you are concentrating your job-hunting efforts. Even if you cannot join most of these organizations have membership directories. Get a copy somehow. If, for example, you are seeking a position as a salesperson or as a first-level sales manager, a membership directory of an association of sales managers in your target geo graphical area would be a potent and invaluable aid. Attend professional conventions and seminars of every sort for they are fertile fields for making contacts and for behind-the-scenes exchanges of job inquiries and offers.
Alumni of most colleges and universities are notorious for their loyalty to their common heritage. Who could be more qualified for any job than another graduate of good stature? Here again, membership directories are available and can help you find the name of an alumnus in your target career and geographical area.
The want ads can be useful sometimes but only if they are used properly. The primary benefit of the want ads is a quick, fairly reliable overview as to what types of jobs are available, which companies are hiring in general, and which industries are the most active. Remember that only a minority of all job openings are advertised and certainly not the best ones. However, the want ads can also be useful if you find an advertised job that interests you and that lists the primary point of contact as the personnel department or that lists no contact name at all. You can capitalize on this situation by determining the name of the supervisor of the advertised job and responding by telephone directly to that person.
To your advantage, the vast majority of your competition will be responding by mail with their resumes funneled to the legendary personal department, and they will never be heard from again.
Another source of names is the business section of the daily newspapers where various columns and articles will list personnel transfers, promotions, and appointments as well as corporate mergers and acquisitions. Whenever you read about someone in the news paper who has changed jobs in the career field that interests you, you can be sure that that person is worth cultivating as a contact.
He may be soon hiring people in his new job, or his old job still may be open, or, since he just finished job hunting, he probably knows of many other openings that may interest you. Any successful job-hunter still flush with victory, is automatically an expert and is usually willing to share information, leads, contacts, and advice.
Any time two companies merge, or one company acquires another, you can be sure that a significant personnel turnover will result because of some employees being unhappy with the new management or the new company management being unhappy with the inherited employees. Whatever the reason, there will be some job openings. One or more of them might interest you. However, investigate the job possibilities before they are advertised in the want ads, or your competition will be greatly increased and the best jobs will be taken by the aggressive job hunters who came in the back door before you.
