The Necessity of Keeping Complete Records
It is imperative you keep your lead book as detailed and as up-to-date as possible. If you conduct an energetic, all-out job search, it will very soon start to fill up with pages of leads. Then, one day you will receive a call from a person or company you forgot all about. Unless your lead book is up-to-date and organized, it could prove to be very embarrassing. Because you have maintained your records efficiently you will have no problem. You will ask the employer:
"Could you please hold the line for just a few seconds? I'll be right back. Thank you."
You run to your lead book. As you head back to the phone with the book in your hands, you flip through the alphabetized pages to that company's name. You quickly review the information there, pick up the receiver, and with enthusiasm and a businesslike tone you say:
"Thank you for waiting Ms. Oliver. I'm really happy you called. I'm still interested in the position we talked about two months ago."
Another reason for thorough record keeping? To systematically review and reconnect each lead seven times, pursuing it to its bitter or victorious end.
Activities Calendar
An activities calendar is used to remind yourself of things to do: calls to be made on certain days at certain times, interview days and times, contacts to be made, materials, books, and articles to be read. Don't forget to include dates, times, and locations of association meetings, conventions, exhibits, job fairs, and similar networking activities. Your activities calendar should note when a resume has been mailed as well as when to re-contact the company if no reply is forthcoming by a certain date. Before you take the action called for, be certain to review or have on hand the appropriate page of information found in your lead book.
Consult your calendar the last thing each day and the first thing when you begin prospecting the next day. Use a calendar with a big block of space for each day, so you will have plenty of room to record the history of your search. An activities calendar provides a visible, albeit sometimes painful, reminder of the effectiveness or ineffectiveness of your search efforts. Empty blocks of space are symptomatic of an unhealthy job search.
Set Goals
A job seeker without realistic, attainable goals is like a ship without a rudder. Determine your own goals based upon the amount of time you can realistically devote to your search. Once these goals are determined and prove attainable, meet them. Let nothing stand in your way. You will find a Weekly Job Search Evaluation form and scoring system on the next few pages. There is an additional evaluation form in Appendix C. Complete a new form at the conclusion of each week of your search. Refer to it and update it daily. If you find the 125-point weekly total to be less than challenging, increase your point goal for the upcoming week to perhaps 150 points. Be certain whatever point total you set for yourself is realistically attainable.
What are some realistic goals? Start with the Rule of Seven. If you have twenty people in your network, call ten per week every two weeks until you have made seven calls to each contact in a fourteen week period of time. That's just two calls to two different contacts each day. Of course you can't know how many ads you are going to happen upon, but naturally you are going to answer all of them. Employment agencies? At least five to ten if possible. Call them every two weeks also. How many cold calls to companies should you make each day? Instead of calling a certain number per day, try this-make as many calls as it takes each day to actually talk to two or three bosses.
A Good Time to Call
Usually, the best time to contact prospective employers is early in the morning, as early as 8:00 a.m. Another good time to contact bosses is at lunch or right after everyone else has gone home at the end of the work day. Let the phone ring a little longer than you normally would. The boss himself might answer his phone.
Keep Trying
Always follow up on all leads and do not give up until they tell you to get lost. If you are prospecting for a sales job you should hang in there until they threaten to have you arrested for harassment.
Call Back
If you lost out on a job call back in two or three weeks, "Just to see if the person that did get it is working out." Maybe that person didn't work out, or perhaps another job has opened up in the meanwhile. Persistence is the one commodity job seekers can never have enough of. Like so much of life, job hunting is quite often a case of being in the right place at the right time. Some might call it luck; but, in this case, luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity.
