The campaign plan for job hunting will guide you to logical and effective courses of action, just as other types of plans guide you in reaching objectives on the job. The campaign plan for job hunting has been designed to enable you to get the job you want in the shortest possible time. Do not embark on a job campaign without first developing a plan. If you do, you will remain on your job hunt longer and will limit the range of jobs available to you.
Any job campaign consists of three phases:
- The pre-interview phase
- The interview phase
- The post-interview phase
Successful interviewing means that you have sold the PE on hiring your services, which puts you in a position to get the job offer. Your final objective is to negotiate that offer successfully.
Every campaign is different, reflecting different job objectives as well as different professional career goals. Using the outlines and campaign plan detailed in this chapter, you must tailor your campaign to your particular situation.
The Pre-interview Phase of Your Campaign
Preparing Your Resume
It will take you two to three days (assuming eight hours per day) to get all your materials together and write your resume. Once you do, you will have all the data you need to:
- Write sales letters with at least five major accomplishments in support of your job objective.
- Prepare responses to advertisements that are right on target with the requirements listed in the ads
- Prepare special resumes of your experiences that slant your accomplishments to the requirements of the job.
It will take you two to four days to write sales letters that support your job objectives and mail them to both PEs and executive recruiters.
Printing Letterheads for Your Sales letters and Envelopes
Printing your letterheads and envelopes depends on your printer. This can take up to two weeks. If you shop around a little, you should be able to find a printer who can do the job in a week or less. If you have a laser printer and suitable fonts this can take much less. However, if you want to go first class, you will have your letterheads done with a process called thermographing. That way it looks like engraving, but you'll need to go to a printer for this.
Obtaining Mailing Lists
You should start with a mailing list of 1,000 companies, any one of which you would be prepared to work for if aspects of the job met your requirements. You do not need to know everything about these companies. Just make sure they fit your basic requirements based on what you know about them. For example, if you are looking only for a large company, you shouldn't have any small companies on your list. You will also need a similar list of executive recruiters. Preparing these lists can take several days of somewhat tedious work.
Mailing Sales Letters
Mailing sales letters includes the following mundane, but necessary chores: typing your name and address on both sales letters and envelopes, signing the letters, sealing and stamping the envelopes, and mailing. If you do these tasks yourself, you could spend about 5 hours per 100 letters. Therefore, if you mail sales letters to 1,000 companies and 500 executive recruiters, you can estimate 75 hours of work, or roughly nine days to complete this part of the job. This points out vividly the advantages of getting some family assistance if possible, or even hiring some part-time help. Still, when you remember that the job you will obtain will be a great job, much better than you would get normally, the effort and added expense is well worth it.
Answering Advertisements
Begin to collect job advertisements the day you decide to look for a job, but don't start responding until you get your sales letters out. More than likely, you will not start answering ads until the beginning of the third week. Don't worry about this "lost time." The fact that you answer ads "late" is usually not a disadvantage.
Practicing the Telephone Training Program
After you have caught up on your ad answering and have it under control, start your telephone training program (TTP). You should maintain the program for two weeks, or as long as it takes you to become comfortable and proficient in speaking with PE-related people on the telephone. Shoot for talking with 20 executives (not their secretaries) per day. Try to get at least one interview a day in this fashion. If you follow this regime every weekday for two weeks, you will have talked with 200 executives; and if you have done it right, you will have lined up at least ten interviews. These are not the kind of interviews you may have had in the past. These are quality interviews, with a good chance that you'll get a job offer.
Meeting with Employment Agencies and Headhunters
Start setting up interviews with employment agencies and headhunters at the same time you begin your TTP. Do not interview with more than five agencies unless it is for a specific job. Otherwise, your resume is likely to be scattered throughout your potential job market. Like most products that appear to be in great supply, you will not have the image of being in much demand.
Keeping Records of Sales Letter Results
Your record keeping will begin with the receipt of "rejects'* about one to two weeks after you mail your first batch of sales letters. You will use these records to update your list of names (several executives will have resigned, retired, or been fired or transferred), and to start building a new mailing list of executives for a second mailing. Your records will show you how effective your sales letters are and whether you should revise them before your next mailing.
Writing the Second Sales Letter
You should write your second sales letter about three weeks after your first mailing. If you received good results with your first letter, you will need to make only minor adjustments. If the results were poor, you may have to make major alterations. You should not hesitate to do this. The factor that distinguishes good from poor results is not replies, but interviews. You should plan on about two days to write a new sales letter.
Printing the Letterheads and Envelopes for Your Second Letter
If you planned ahead and had extra letterheads and envelopes printed at first, you may not need to do this. But if you did, don't hesitate to make an additional investment.
Mailing the Second Letter
You will not need to spend a lot of time compiling a new mailing list, since day-to-day record keeping has updated your initial list. Eliminate those companies on your list that have contacted you to set up an interview. Keep track of your second sales letter results, as you did your first, in case an additional mailing is required.
Setting Up Interviews
You will begin to set up interviews generated by sales letters about three weeks after your first mailing. Invitations will come from the executive you have sent the sales letter to as well as from personnel department people and staff personnel. The majority of invitations will come by telephone. This is one reason the TTP is so important. Most executives will want to talk with you by phone before seeing you, especially if the interview requires travel at the PE's expense.
You should continue to set up interviews until you get and accept a great job offer. You can always cancel an interview. It is much more difficult to arrange an interview after you have told a PE that you are declining because you expect a job offer. You may then have to answer embarrassing questions about why the offer was not extended.
Of course, after you interview and have made a "sale," you are free to say you are expecting another offer or have received one. These alternative ways of getting interviews are important to your campaign and should be integrated into your overall plan.
The Interview Phase of Your Campaign
Preparing for the Interview
Once you have an interview lined up, you should learn everything possible about the hiring executive, the company, and its products. You should also develop a list of questions to ask and prep yourself for questions that are likely to be asked of you. Plan on several hours of preparation for each face-to-face interview that you schedule.
One successful candidate I know spent two weeks in preparation. It resulted in an 180,000 a year offer. This was a 100 percent increase over his former salary when he was working - and he was out of work at the time.
Accept every interview offered, unless you are offered so many that time limitations force you to pick and choose. And by the way, that has happened to many who have employed my methods, including one of my students who couldn't get a single interview. After he started using the methods in this book, he wrote that he had to start turning interviews down. Even if you are pressed for time, you should try to make every single interview you can, even if you must schedule two interviews or more a day. Remember, interviews and interviews alone will get you job offers. Also, if you apply yourself, you will get better with every interview. By the end of your campaign you will be getting job offers you would not have received when you first started interviewing. Finally, you will learn more about the job and whether you really want it from the interview than from any other source (short of actually working for the company).
The Post-interview Phase of Your Campaign
Writing the Post-interview Letter
The post-interview letter is written and mailed within a day after the interview. Plan on spending several hours getting this letter just right. Unless you are one of the lucky job hunters who are deluged by inter views, you should have no problem getting an outstanding post-interview letter written and mailed promptly.
Preparing the Special Resume
The special resume is generally prepared after the interview and can be mailed with the post-interview letter if a resume is expected by the PE. In a few cases, generally if the PE must pay your travel expenses, you may have to send out a special resume before the interview. In this case, you will use techniques taught to you elsewhere in the book to obtain all the intelligence you can about the position and base your special resume on this information. It should take you no more than a couple of hours to prepare a special resume, since you have already assembled all the facts and materials you need at the beginning of your campaign.
Negotiating
Negotiations can take much longer than you might imagine, even for middle management positions. This is especially true in large companies or companies that have several different executives involved in the decision-making process. As much as three weeks can elapse between the time that you and the hiring executive come to a meeting of the minds and the time that you receive an offer.
Accepting the Offer
Once a satisfactory offer has been made, do not delay your decision, unless you have several offers that are maturing simultaneously. In that case, it is definitely in your interest to take a good look at all the offers. But don't delay needlessly once you have made your decision.
The Tea-Week Campaign and How to Shorten It
It is difficult to describe the length of an "average" campaign, because there is no such thing. Every job hunter has his own objectives which he has defined, and every individual's situation is different. However, in general terms, the campaign detailed in this chapter is designed to last approximately ten weeks, from start to acceptance of the offer. This allows extra time for consideration of the offer, delays by the PE, and administrative tasks such as printing and typing. You can shorten the ten-week campaign by reducing the time for subcontracted tasks such as printing, having someone else do your typing, or working more than eight hours a day on your campaign. Another way to shorten the time is not to set excessively high requirements as part of your job objective.
If you are currently employed or in school, you will not be able to spend eight hours a day on your campaign. If you are employed, you may need to campaign in secret. You must work harder than the unemployed executive. Work hard on your campaign at night and on weekends. Get someone else to do your typing. Unless you can take a vacation, you will not be able to work on the TTP. Also, you may have difficulty setting up interviews or meetings with employment agencies.
Once you have put your campaign plan into action, you will need to adjust your plan. Certain tasks may take you less time than you planned; other tasks may take longer or may have to be repeated. In addition, responses to your sales letters and answers to advertisements will not all arrive at the same time. You may receive an offer from one company at the same time as your interview with another company. You should adjust your plan accordingly. Finally, you may find yourself so successful in some phase of your campaign (for example, getting more interviews than you can handle) that good sense dictates holding other campaign tasks in abeyance.
What Your Campaign Will Cost
In addition to living expenses, your job campaign will require outlays for printing, phone calls, postage, local travel, and any services you engage. Generally, your PE will pick up travel plus expenses for interviews out of your local area.
You should conserve your funds, but do not be afraid to spend money when it is important. For example, do not skimp on printing costs by purchasing cheap stationery or mediocre printing. Until the interview, and unless you talk by telephone, your sales letter is the only thing a PE has that directly represents you. Always "go first class." Consider it an investment in yourself. The same holds true for your personal appearance. Money invested in appearance for an interview is money well spent.
Finding a superior job will cost money. Of course, a single paycheck can pay back your entire investment. Still, you should consider estimated costs as an important part of your overall campaign plan and fill out the cost form after you have designed your campaign plan.
