INTRO TO JOB HUNTING

        Experience tells me that people hate job hunting. Most would rather have a root canal—without the Novocain—than look for a job. The anxiety and frustration that most experience is enough to keep many in a job that they detest.

        Job hunting doesn’t have to be like that. It’s impossible to eliminate all of the anxiety and frustration of a job search, but I’ll show you techniques and strategies that will transform the job search into a process that is frequently enjoyable and always challenging.

        This book will enable you to join the ranks of the top 5% of all job seekers. You’ll be doing things your competitors do, but you’ll do them better. You’ll also do things which they should be doing, but don’t. You’ll do all the big things right, and you’ll do the little things right. Because you’ll track down job openings the competition doesn’t even know about, you’ll face less competition for those positions. You’ll expend a lot of energy to obtain each interview, but you’ll make the most of each opportunity and truly sell yourself. You’ll get the kinds of offers you deserve. Commit yourself to this: do whatever is necessary to have the assurance that if a job you’d be interested in opens up, that you’ll find out about it. You may not get it, but the more interviews you obtain, the sooner you’ll be on your next job. Of course it is impossible to discover every job you might want, but you should do all of the things necessary that very few will fall between the cracks.

        Why is job hunting so hard, and why do people dread it so? For some reason, most people assume that the government or someone has created a job hunting system that helps job seekers and employers find each other quickly and efficiently. Unfortunately, there is no such system. Instead what we have are techniques, including mailing resumes, answering want ads, and using employment agencies, which work well for some, but poorly for many.

The Hidden Job Market

        The best way to look for jobs is to access what has come to be called the hidden job market. First identified by Bernard Haldane in the 1950s, the hidden job market simply describes the fact that 70% of all job openings are never advertised in newspapers or on the Internet, or listed with employment agencies, headhunters, college placement offices, or state employment services. In addition, in some competitive fields like advertising and public relations, less than 5% of jobs are advertised or listed. This fact surprises many people and explains why traditional job finding strategies work so poorly for most people. I will show you how to find a job using the Systematic Job Search techniques. The Systematic Job Search is composed of strategies and techniques developed by pioneers in the field, including Bernard Haldane, John Crystal, and Richard Bolles. I have adapted, refined, and organized these strategies and techniques in order to make them easy for you to apply to your job search.

Human Nature & The Hidden Job Market

        To understand the hidden job market you have to understand that it exists because of human nature. Employers like known entities. That’s why so many jobs are filled internally. That’s also why job hunters who succeed in meeting hiring managers prior to an opening, ultimately get hired for jobs that the public doesn’t even know exist. I will help you understand the variety of ways in which human nature affects the hidden job market. You’ll then use this understanding to conduct a job search that is much more focused, efficient, and rewarding than the old system used by the majority of job seekers. Yes, the old system is easy. It’s easy because it takes so little time and effort to mail off dozens of resumes and call an employment agency once a week. It’s easy, but it doesn’t work well.

        The principles of human nature explain how most people really get hired. Relatively few job openings are ever advertised since advertising a position is generally a last resort. In fact, a major government study established that the vast majority of employers do not advertise a single position in any given year. When a position opens up, the supervisor immediately begins considering people he or she knows, including people who took the initiative to meet the manager weeks or months earlier. If no one comes to mind, the supervisor may ask people in the department to refer friends or contacts. If that doesn’t work, the manager may contact business associates for referrals. Finally, the supervisor may choose to advertise or list the opening with an employment agency. But most jobs are filled before that need arises.

        Many companies search first in their own ranks to fill a position. Because it’s not uncommon for this process to take a month, if you call or get referred by someone at just the right time, you may become the only outsider to be interviewed.

        I don’t advocate that you ignore the traditional job hunting techniques. Instead, I’ll show you when to use those techniques and how to use them more effectively. Then I’ll take you beyond those techniques and show you how to use the hidden job market to your benefit. That’s what the Systematic Job Search is all about.

The Importance Of Attitude

        To conduct a successful job search you need the right attitude. The right attitude is one that says, “If it’s going to be, it’s up to me.” No one can do it better than you. No one cares as much about your career as you. While you will receive a tremendous amount of help from other people, you are the one who must put in the many hours it will take to get the job you really want. Although you don’t know just how or when it will happen, your efforts will set in motion a chain of events which will result in your next job. You will call just the right person, or you will be referred to someone who knows the right someone, or your resume will cross the right desk at just the right time. It is a never ending delight to me to look back at a successful job search to see how a person’s efforts made everything possible. It could be that the person made a hundred phone calls and met 40 potential employers, but only one was the right one. Had the job seeker’s efforts been less intense, perhaps the chain of events would not have happened. Perhaps it would have taken another two months for the right combination of events to occur.

        Believing that if it’s going to be, it’s up to me, does not preclude faith, prayer, and trusting God. If you trust God, you will find that doors are opened and doors are closed for you. You won’t like it when doors are closed, but if you truly trust God, you will realize that there is a better job out there waiting for you. You will grieve over your loss briefly and then go on. Over the years I’ve seen doors open up sooner for those who were willing to work harder and smarter.

Willingness To Do Things You Do Not Enjoy Doing

        Another attitude you need to develop is the willingness to do things which you do not enjoy doing. Albert Gray, a wealthy businessman in the early 1900s, was often sought out to give a talk he called The Common Denominator of Success. In this talk he described his search to discover the critical factor of why some people are more successful than others. He examined whether successful people worked harder, had more education, or were smarter than those who were less successful. He rejected those and many other explanations before he discovered the answer. He acknowledged the value of hard work, education, and intelligence, but rejected them because none of them qualified as the “critical” factor for success. He concluded that people were successful because they were willing to do the things less successful people were unwilling to do. That was the critical factor—the willingness. He further stated that people who succeeded did not enjoy doing these things any more than the people who were less successful. The successful people seemed to possess a vision which motivated them and gave them a willingness to do things others would not do.

        In all endeavors, especially a job search, there are undesirable tasks which only some people are willing to do. I’m going to ask you to do some things which you probably would like to avoid. In fact, virtually every job seeker tries to avoid these things. I will not ask you to like to do these things. I will merely ask that you be willing to do them. These include calling employers by phone and asking for brief appointments, sending thank-you notes to everyone who has helped you, and saying positive things about yourself during interviews. Doing these things will make the difference between a short or a long job search and between a great job and a mediocre job.

        In addition to a good attitude, you need awareness. You need to realize that it is not simply the best-qualified people who get hired, but the ones who know how to get hired. This book will help you develop that awareness.