The following is reprinted with permission from Cracking The Hidden Job Market: How to Find Opportunity in Any Economy
. Copyright © 2011 by Donald Asher, Ten Speed Press, an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group, Berkeley, CA. I LOVED this book and the publishers were kind enough to allow me to share this with you.
See a Job Search on the Horizon?
Before you go out and contact everyone you know, ask yourself if you first need to dust off your network. “You have to make friends before you need friends,” is an old saying. Do you have lots of acquaintances and friends of friends whom you have not contacted in years? Have you ignored emails from distant connections because you were “too busy” with your own work? You may need to dust off your network before you start asking for job-search assistance. If you’re not in an emergency situation, not in the middle of an active and urgent job search, then you might want to spend considerable energy on this. If you think you might find yourself on the job market in the next six months, you should have the foresight to start by dusting off your network.
First, build a list of people who could be particularly useful in your search, and find a reason to contact each and every one of them before you ask for job assistance. Old employers, old colleagues, old faculty members, all of them would love to hear from you for some collegial, social reason before you ask for career help. Here are some ideas.
Raise your online profile. First, raise your profile on LinkedIn, Facebook, or any industry news feeds (with comment feature) to which you subscribe. Make comments on blogs and after news posts. For example, most of the query postings I see on social net sites are easy to answer. The poster is either a newbie, who doesn’t know something that most people in a profession do know or, often, they’re a bit lazy and are asking something that even they could find out by a little searching. The first thing you need to do to raise your profile as a knowledgeable person is to work up quick, thoughtful, and useful responses to these queries. You don’t want to be caught doing this, but . . . you can even salt a few softballs by having a friend or two ask questions that you have expert answers to. Then, when you hit your social network with a query, people will view you as one of the good guys, one of the contributors, and they’ll be much more inclined to put out some effort on your behalf.
You can practice networking, connecting, interviewing, and presenting yourself on Meetup.com and Eventbrite.com. These enable thought leaders and consultants to show off their knowledge and gather communities of practice. These media allow you to organize real-world and virtual events on a daily basis. At a Meetup event it’s easy to talk shop and learn from others. You’re able to accomplish three missions: Hone your interview skills by discussing what you do best. Connect with people in your field or industry and get industry insider news and tips. And learn about different industry trends so you can talk about them intelligently in later interviews.
Commenting on blogs or answering listserv queries is often as easy as looking at books on your bookshelf for a reference or two, or going to amazon.com or barnesandnoble.com and finding some recent releases from a reputable publisher, or just running a search and digging through some Web pages to build some good links to mention in your response. It’s easy for someone who has expertise in his field to come off as thoughtful and knowledgeable with a few minutes’ preparation.
Get people to recommend you on LinkedIn. Savvy HR managers will not be overly influenced by gushing recommendations on LinkedIn, but it does show that you at least have friends who think highly of you. If you can get direct bosses to recommend you, that will be noted. Every time you post a recommendation, all your contacts are notified of the update.
Also, when you update your own profile in any way on LinkedIn and other social networks, all your contacts get a notification that you have done so. This, alone, puts your name in their brains. Finally, write some articles, start a blog of your own, comment on other people’s blogs, and so on. Again, you should troll for industry-related blogs and add your comments to give you a good online footprint as a knowledgeable and active professional. This gets your name out there.
Use YouTube to present yourself as an expert. Create a how-to vignette that is related to your professional life. Stick to business, and keep it short. Unless you are remarkably funny, your talents with cookie recipes or training dogs will not help you get a job in an office. Three minutes on “Five tips on doing business in the Czech Republic,” or four minutes on “How to answer the telephone in a C-level office,” or two minutes on “Improving nosocomial outcomes in a long-term care ward” can establish your bona fides as an expert.
This approach has multiple advantages. It helps you prepare for interviews. It gives a positive, professional item if someone does an Internet search on your name. Professionals will stumble across your video, so it has passive advantages. You can also direct people to the video, as an active job-search technique. Finally, it shows that you are able to record and upload a video. Everyone on the market should have some YouTube vignettes that represent his best skills in a quick, tight package. If your interests change, you can pull old versions and post new ones.
Build some recommendation lists on Amazon and Barnes and Noble. If you’re an expert in brand development or wedding planning, build some astute and smart lists of recommended readings for www.amazon.com and www.barnesandnoble.com. Use your real name. You’ll be identified as an expert by people in your field who are looking at these titles. Also, you can write book reviews for any news feeds or special interest group (SIG) newsletters to which you subscribe.
Forward pertinent articles. Think about your friends and their interests, passions, and avocations. Do you have a friend who loves the Dallas Cowboys? Who collects dolls? Who reads Kellerman novels? Then forward to them articles you happen upon that have to do with their professional or personal interests. “Jessica, I saw this article about your CFO being arrested at La Guardia. Thought you’d want to be the first to know!” “Elizabeth—here’s a really cool article I just read about performance-enhancing drugs. Weren’t you into that sort of thing?”
It is actually rare to get anything meaningful in the physical mail, so most people are delighted and intrigued to get stuff via snail mail. Cut articles out of newspapers and magazines and send them to those in your network, with a note. Send postcards to people: “I saw this museum show. It’s awesome. Thinking of you, Dave Rodriguez.” “The beach is great in the winter. Saw that you had 12'' of snow! Ouch!—Jordan.” Revive the tradition of sending holiday cards in the mail. If it’s almost Halloween, that’s always good. There are Fourth of July cards now, and even solstice cards. “Hey, Chandra. Merry Christmas! Hope you have a great holiday! Your old pal, Perry.” “Hey, Chandra. Happy Hanukkah! I couldn’t remember which . . . so I sent you both! Your old pal, Perry.”
Raise Your Profile in Your Associations
If you’re unemployed or fear being on the job market, you need to kick it up a notch in all your professional associations. Start going to every meeting, obviously, but also join some committees or SIGs. Volunteer for some assignments, like a special event team or a steering committee. Be a mentor. My favorite is to work meetings and events as a registration assistant (you get to meet everybody, including VIPs, speakers, and national figures, as well as rank-andfile members), a moderator (you get to meet speakers and panelists, and be seen as a trusted professional), or even an usher (who get roaming privileges to go all over the convention or meeting).
If you have special expertise, find the speaker’s committee and pitch a talk for the next regional or national meeting. Or find the journal editor and offer to write an article on the same or similar topics. This is great exposure! It builds your credentials while it raises your profile. If you write an article or do a talk, it gives you a reason to call all the top experts in your field, and you can enroll them in your network. I once worked with an unemployed, partnerlevel lawyer who was able to give two talks on high-technology law at a meeting, which resulted in several people approaching him with legal work. He ended up abandoning his job search and going into private practice! He found the demand for his topic so great that he didn’t need a job to match his old income.
You can do the same in the social, service, or activist organizations to which you belong. If you’ve not been active lately in your Scrabble, philatelist, or environmental clubs, revive your participation in a noticeable way.
Remember, You Have to Make Friends before You Need Friends
Get more social. Start by reaching back ninety days (or even more) for any emails from distant acquaintances that you blew off. “Hey, my bad! I was just reviewing my emails and noticed that yours got lost in the avalanche. Sorry! So, here’s what I think about what you said . . .” You have to make friends before you need friends, so be a good friend. Start going out to coffee and lunch with people inside and outside your organization. Meet those colleagues for drinks even if that’s not your kind of thing. Collect business cards from people you meet, however briefly. Get out of your office and out of your building. If you spend a lot of time telecommuting, cut back on that. Go to the office. Go to client sites. Get out and circulate. Show face.
If you do this before you ask people for advice, ideas, leads, and referrals, you’re going to get a lot more advice, ideas, leads, and referrals.
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