Two strategies to crack the hidden job market
Focus all your time and effort on the companies you’ve identified as being the Tier 1 buyers of your product - you. Anything else is a waste of your time, energy and money. Target your campaign at those companies where you know you can help solve a problem. Nothing beats a direct approach for speed and accuracy.
Because
of the current recession caused by the sub-prime meltdown, employers have
different hiring
expectations. The direct
approach has replaced networking as the best way to break into the hidden job
market.
The hidden job-market isn’t really hidden. It’s just not in plain sight. It’s referred to as the hidden job-market because of the way jobs are created and filled. Most jobs are created in a company in one of three ways.
1. The company is growing;
2. Someone quits, leaving a vacancy; or
3. Someone is being replaced and the employer doesn’t want the employees to know about it.
When the company is growing, the owner, president, or someone else may know they need to hire but haven’t initiated the process. They may not have had the time. They may not quite have the budget. They may not want to go through the hassle of advertising and interviewing. So while the need is real, the job itself remains hidden inside the hiring manager’s head.
When someone quits, managers will first decide if they can eliminate the job, or combine it with another position. Needing a new person, they will look inside their organization to see whom they can promote into the role. If they can’t find anyone they’ll likely ask their co-workers for referrals. If that doesn’t work, depending on the size of the company they may opt to run an ad through HR, or hire a head-hunter.
Companies will contact a head-hunter when secrecy is required because “loose-lips-sink-ships” and the recruiter can conduct a search without anyone ever knowing.
In all of these cases, the job remains hidden to the outside world for weeks if not months. Hence the term “hidden” job-market.
The only way for you to access the hidden job-market successfully is to reach out to the hiring managers directly before they opt to go the advertising or HR route OR ask their buddies for referrals. The hidden job-market is your private laboratory to test out the best methods for finding your dream job. Now let’s look at two of the Top 10 Strategies Guerrilla Marketing for Job Hunters use to access the hidden job market.
Job Search Strategy # 1 – Targeted Research
One quick way to discover new opportunities is by doing structured search engine queries. And it’s fairly easy to do. Here’s how to do targeted research, step by step:
Step #1
Develop a target list of companies
you want to work for. That list of
companies is your baseline query for your search. Now, here’s how you get the list. Below is an example using Google.com in which
you
want to work in advertising in
New York City
.
1. When
you do targeted research, generally you concentrate on an industry or a
geographic preference (in this case, New
York City
2. You
need to find the names of all the advertising companies in New York
There are easy ways to do this using the Net. Go to Google. www.google.com
and type the following words in the “advanced” option box in Google. The search string shown below instructs
Google to search for a directory of advertising firms in New
York
Your text needs to be
filled in like that in the picture above.
My search returned many hits
including one for AD:TECH “The Event for
Interactive Marketing”. This is a
conference held in New York
Step #2 Find People Who Can Hire You:
Once you have a target list of companies to work with, you need to find out who the people are in those companies that can actually hire you. A good headhunter would pick up the telephone. You might not be so inclined, so here’s another way to accomplish your objective.
Go to each company’s web site and gather the names of the people who can say yes. Those people are the executives not the human resource people – they can only say NO! unless you’re a human resources professional. If you’re lucky, every web site will identify their senior executives, including names, titles, phone numbers, career summaries and sometimes email and photos! Web information should be up-to-the-minute accurate, but I would call the receptionist and confirm it.
For
this example I’m looking for a sales position.
Therefore I’ll seek to locate or research the VP of Sales, VP Sales
& Marketing, VP Marketing or General Manager. You would focus your research
on the functional areas of interest for your search.
If you’re experiencing difficulty finding names on the site, then go back to Google’s advanced search box and type in the company name in the first box and (Vice President Sales Marketing Director)in the third box. By-the-way, you don’t need to place the words in brackets and don’t put in any commas or punctuation.
That
search string will bring you:
♦ All the people who are, or have ever been, VPs OR President OR Directors of Sales and/or Marketing for that company.
♦ The resumes of a whole pile of people from that company whom you may be able to phone to coax information from them.
Once you have the name of the individual who is one rung up the ladder from the job you want, you need to process their name through Google again. This time you put their first and last name in the first box and the company name in the third box.
This will produce a list of press releases, and news articles in which they are mentioned, as well as conferences they’ve attended. Read an article or two and clip something memorable to use in your NarrowCast letter.
When you send them the letter, you’ll be able to say. “I read your article in… about… which prompted me to write.” Very powerful.
Job
Search Strategy #2 – Targeted Networking
Today networking can either be the shortest route to your dream job or a lengthy series of unsatisfying lunches – the difference lies in how you approach it. Let me show you how a Guerrilla job-hunter would network. The easiest way is to learn how to network like a Headhunter. I suggest you download for
FREE chapter 9 of Guerrilla Marketing for Job Hunters. [The down load section is in the lower left hand corner of the page].
Download 12 Days of Christmas Job Hunting
David Perry
Perry-Martel International inc.
Co-author Guerrilla Marketing for Job Hunters
