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I have a friend who has an MBA from Harvard Business School. We spent some time talking about how he could best find another job, went through his career history, and he realized that most of the jobs he’s had have come from working the Harvard Business School alumni network. My advice to him was simple: he should spend most of his job hunting time working the Harvard MBA network. I suggested to another friend that he join Linked In, a free business networking site that recruiters are also able to search. He is very senior and has a very desirable background, and actually got a call from two retained search firms within a week (however, many others will list themselves on Linked In and never hear from a recruiter). Assuming that you don’t have a Harvard MBA or a picture-perfect background, there is a general course of action that works the best. Here’s what I would do if I was looking for a job: 1. Determine your career path and your goals. No reason to plunge into something without a proper target. So first, figure out what it is you want to do. Click here to go to our Career Planning section. 2. Buy Rites of Passage at $100,000+, which is easily the best job hunting book, and read it cover to cover. Click here to learn more about Rites of Passage. 3. Networking. Develop that long list of all the people you know who could be a resource to you. Click here for more on Networking Tactics. 4. Quick and easy stuff. The next three steps are a series of things that you should do early on and then move on. I list them as early steps because they’re not a lot of effort. They are also not likely to be produce much in the way of results for you, so you shouldn’t spend much time on them.
If you’ve spent more than about one day on these four steps, you’ve spent too much time. Move on to more productive stuff. If I was looking for a job, I would concentrate my efforts on networking and direct mail. I have gotten job offers by using all of the methods listed here, but networking and direct mail are always the most effective. A lot of people eschew direct mail, but of those people who use all of the methods outlined here intensively, probably 30% to 40% will get their new job via direct mail. 5. Networking, part II. Research companies that you would really like to go to work for, and figure out how you can get introduced to key people at these companies. I'm not talking about having recruiters make these introductions for you; I'm talking about getting your contacts to introduce you. 6. Join Linked In (Networking, part III). Linked In is a business networking site that provides membership free of charge. You can contact members for job referrals, and recruiters may find you there as well. Using Linked In requires a level of expertise and a lot of work, but it is worth the time. Click here for more information on Linked In. You may also want to consider joining ExecuNet, which has a strong networking component among its other executive-level job hunting services. 7. Direct Mail. Research companies that you’d like to go to work for but can’t figure out how to get someone to connect you with them, and mail your resume to them. Click here to learn more about Direct Mail. 8. Work the telephone. I know this is no fun, but the only way you’re going to be successful in a job search is if you get on the phone, talk to people that you know, talk to people that you don’t know, talk to people you’ve mailed to, and leave lots of messages. Mail and email (beware of trying to do too much via email – people get way too many of these, and they’re so easy to delete) without any follow up will only take you so far. Click here for more on how to do effective telephone follow up. |
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