Guerrilla Job Hunting

The Key to Networking

I was reminded the other day of a comment I made at a  speech I delivered following the Tech-Wreck crash in 2000, "the key to networking is to find people you can network with." Fortunately, for those of us who are terminally shy the Internet has made it possible to network from our computer keyboard and avoid those awkward mixers most people associate with networking events. There are many of online networking sites now to facilitate networking. All of the sites are based on the “six degrees of separation” principle which recognizes the actor Kevin Bacon as the center of humanity. Each site has slight variations on how you build and grow your network.  The following are the leading sites for job hunters who want to e-network their way to success.

Linkedin.com From a head-hunter’s standpoint, LinkedIn has it all. From a job-hunter’s standpoint LinkedIn represents an opportunity of a lifetime to establish a powerful network of influential colleagues and friends, Linkedin.com {www.linkedin.com} is my favorite. You can open a linked in account for free. It works by first requiring you to set up your on-line profile and then invite your friends to join your network. After people join they ask their friends and colleagues to join. For job-hunters this is a treasure trove of leads.  For recruiters it's one of the 1st places we all start searches.  Like ZoomInfo, if you can't be found on LinkedIn

 

you probably don't exist ... or at least you've got an up hill battle trying to be recognized.

Classmates - The grand daddy online community-based networking is Classmates. Using Classmates is closer to traditional networking because it’s based on your alumni. At Classmates you can join a network of people you went to school with [high school, college or university] as well as military, industry or company alumni. The challenge with using it to source contacts is that you need to search by state. On the other hand if you want to reach out to people you went to school with to reconnect then Classmates is the way to go.

Here are two other online networking sites which all have unique benefits too numerous to mention here. You should choose at least two on-line networking sites and be as aggressive [staying within the rules of the site] and as creative with it as you can.

Ryze – is a classic. Easy to use and robust. It’s for connecting online and in person because it likely has a real life networking component in your town. The best of both worlds really.

Spoke - great tool for connecting with the Fortune 1000 in particular and sales people of all types. Sales people by-the-way are great resources for job hunters – they’re natural helpful and often talkative. They boast over 30 million people and 900,000 companies.

Your network will grow as quickly as you can recruit members who can then recruit other members. Your ability to eNetwork your way to a new job grows exponentially as your network develops. For all the latest on social networking you should follow what else? The Social Networking Web Log.- which just happens to be loaded with insider tips on reaching inside the companies you want.

Compliments of David E Perry and Kevin Donlin. For more creative job search tactics, go to the Guerrilla Marketing for job hunters blog and download the free audio CD.

FAST COMPANY: 10 Ways To Craft Your Resume For Ultra-Short Attention Spans | Fast Company

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via www.fastcompany.com

Nice to finally make it into FAST COMPANY - if only for the lingerie;-)

eXtreme Resume Makeovers

Stand Up and Stand Out I get a lot of flack for some of my ideas but between you and I --- frankly you know you're doing something right when people start copying you're work. My eXtreme 1-page resume make overs are a good example. I'll save you the boring details but suffice it to say the average resume is a boring collection of pulp fiction. Here's a typical resume Download john_walton_before.pdf and here's the same resume reduced to one page Download john_walton_after.pdf with the salient features up front. Which would you be more inclined to look at and read if you where an employer - especially if it was sent unsolicited and you had no clearly defined open position? The answer is the "After" one. And that's the ONLY right answer. If you're the type who likes to copy or extrapolate you'll find 25 more examples here but I warn you they're not free. Having said that - what's your time worth? if you make $50k per year it's $25 per hour. If your experience with unemployment fits the norm then every extra day you look for your next gig costs you $200. The average job search is 180 days [BTW it's not when you have a plan and understand how to communicate your Value] Well I don't know about you but I have a lot of things i could do with $25k --- that little sports car i've been wanting for example. At $25 per hour that's how much you save buying the booklet. Personally I'd rather have a template to copy from I mean... improve upon... any way.

Compliments of David E Perry and Kevin Donlin. For more creative job search tactics, go to the Guerrilla Marketing for job hunters blog and download the free audio CD.

Why your traditional resume isn’t working for you

Non-Guerrillas do the following when they are looking for a job: -write a resume that details their responsibilities, -ask their friends and neighbors if they know of any job openings, -respond to newspaper ads, and -a few of the tech savvy ones will reply to job board postings. That’s it. That’s not enough anymore because that’s the bare minimum everyone else does too. Non-Guerrillas can count on the competition for the few advertised or known jobs to be fierce. Good luck to them. Your resume is a marketing tool. Does it include a statement about your background that’s so powerful that it transforms the reader’s initial scan into a lengthy read and then into a call to you? It has to. When you send off your resume, whether you’re replying to a specific opportunity or trying to uncover a hidden need, your resume needs to be read if you want to be considered. Many people are under the false perception that just because they’ve gone through all the trouble and agony of producing a resume, someone is actually going to read it and care. The fact of the matter is that you have somewhere between 6 - 10 seconds to impress a reader enough to get them to read the entire document. If they to they will likely take no more than 30 seconds. Since resume writing is not perceived as an enjoyable task, people will often try to produce one version they can use for every possible situation. They keep it nice and generic and stuff it with gobs and gobs of “responsible for[s]”. Unfortunately, these resumes are usually the ones that end up in employers’ wastebaskets. Writing an all-purpose resume is like writing an all-purpose marriage proposal: you’re going to have to kiss a lot of frogs … Your resume is your personal emissary. It should provide a positive first impression and an honest summary of your skills and attributes. It should always be typed or computer printed and meticulously prepared with no spelling or grammatical errors. It must convince the reader that you are reliable, responsible, and ready to successfully handle the responsibilities of the job. When your resume moves to the top of the pile, the reader will give it a brief look—perhaps for 10 to 15 seconds - for anything that piques their interest. Does your resume include a statement about your background that’s so powerful that it transforms their initial scan into a lengthy read? This is your one chance to make an impression. ARE YOU MAXIMIZING IT? Resumes, like every document, have a distinct purpose. Your success, as both a job seeker and resume writer depends on how effectively you tailor your message to each situation. If the job is worth going after, pursue it with a resume that has been carefully produced with a specific job in mind. Length is not an issue. Content is. People will read any length of resume IF the content is of interest to them, and that’s the secret. A resume can serve you in a variety of ways, but it’s primarily used in making the following types of contacts with prospective employers:

-respond to a job opening; -create unsolicited demand for your skills; -to cut and paste from to fill out an on–line application form; -supplement [not replace] a company’s standard job application; -before interviews to rehearse; -during interviews to draw the interviewer’s attention to a particular accomplishment; -after an interview to tailor a thank you letter; -as an aid for your references so they’ll remember what you did, especially if you were one of many on a large team; -during telephone interviews as a reminder because, after all, the interviewer has a copy; and -to prompt a recipient for the purposes of networking.

A Guerrilla’s resume screams, “here’s what’s in it for you”. A Guerrilla builds resumes that are relevant to a specific reader. They target them to a specific group if not an exact individual. Their resumes are always focused. They are never general. They are results-based never wishy-washy. They are accomplishment focused not responsibility laden. GUERRILLA RESUMES ARE MULTI-DIMENSIONAL, MULTI-PURPOSE DOCUMENTS. THEY’RE

-your introduction to a prospective employer; -the first impression recruiters will have of you; -the key to positioning your seniority; and -a bargaining chip for your salary negotiations.

In other words, it is a significant document in the advancement of your career. You should create SIX eye-popping, attention-grabbing resumes. Each of which has its own use.

Compliments of David E Perry and Kevin Donlin. For more creative job search tactics, go to the Guerrilla Marketing for job hunters blog and download the free audio CD.

A trojanhorse strategy for job hunters.

Everyone's face lights up when they see one of those little envelopes  that are peculiar to "thank you" note cards - those tiny little 4 x 4 white envelopes with barely enough room to write a name and address on  the front and a return address on the back.

 

Fold your resume and cover letter together carefully until they fit  inside and then mail.

• Don't use labels, address each one by hand
• Use this technique around any holiday - Christmas, New Year's,  Fourth of July, etc.
• Use a small size tasteful stamp.
• If you feel you can afford it, use a stamp with your picture on it.  In Canada you can put any picture you wish on a stamp. Details of their Picture Postage program can be found here: http://www.canadapost.ca
• To really get noticed, use a stamp with their logo on it and send  them the rest.

Compliments of David E Perry and Kevin Donlin. For more creative job search tactics, go to the Guerrilla Marketing for job hunters blog and download the free audio CD.

Marketing and your resume

I subscribe to several e-newsletters. One perennial favorite is Dan Kennedy's. Dan is a professional marketer like my co-author Jay Levinson. His latest newsletter contained the following quote which is applicable to job hunters:

"The spider looks for a merchant who doesn't advertise so he can spin a web across his door and lead a life of undisturbed peace!" The two main reasons businesses of any kind fail are: 1. They don't market and advertise. Sadly most new business owners spend their money and their time on everything other than marketing. 2. They don't market the business effectively. You can spend a ton of cashola on marketing and not get any results if you are not following a proven direct marketing system. Take a look outside your door and make sure that there isn't a spider getting ready to spin his web.

So how about you job hunter? Are you spending your money and time focusing on the right things? Is your list of prospects honed to a razor sharp edge? Is it a list of your top 10 employers or top 100? My experience is that a list of 10 employers is doable. A list of 100 is too large for any but the most zealous to maintain focus and clarity. But even before your list, are your marketing materials all they can be? Is your value statement clear? Are you using a different resume for each opportunity or is it a one-size-fits-all generic piece of pulp? Do you have an eXtreme resume to open doors and a general one to leave behind? Does your resume make you stand out? Is it an invitation to dance or an obituary? Is your marketing message too diffuse to be of value? Or does the reader instantly understand the value you bring? Most marketing and advertising misses the mark.... all you have to do is check the "junk mail" delivered to your home today to realize this is fact. So, Guerrilla job hunters fail because they lack focus and proper marketing materials. These are easy things to fix. So as we enter into the Christmas job hunting rush I suggest you hone your focus down to a handful of companies you can demonstrate real value to and then tell them how you're going to do it. It's nearly Xmas. Go put your dream job under your tree.

Compliments of David E Perry and Kevin Donlin. For more creative job search tactics, go to the Guerrilla Marketing for job hunters blog and download the free audio CD.

Q: How can you tell a sincere job posting from a fluffed up job posting?

A: It’s more than 25 words long. A sincere ad will as much try to screen people out as in. For example minimum requirements often means exactly that. If you don’t know the difference between thermal underwear and a thermal coupler – you shouldn’t apply – chances are your transferable skills won’t be enough. Sometimes it really is rocket science.

Compliments of David E Perry and Kevin Donlin. For more creative job search tactics, go to the Guerrilla Marketing for job hunters blog and download the free audio CD.