As a senior partner in a busy outplacement firm, Lawrence Stuenkel knows just how frustrating and difficult it can be for his clients to find a new job in today’s tight market.
But he also knows how many of his clients make their job search harder than it has to be.
Take, for instance, an engineer he worked with recently. Stuenkel’s client called to speak with a vice president at a company that interested him. The secretary who answered the phone told the engineer that the vice president wasn’t in, but she did offer to give him the official’s cell phone number, surely a gift worth more than gold to a job seeker. But the engineer politely declined this gift, figuring that he would upset the vice president by calling him on his personal phone.
To Stuenkel, a partner in the South Carolina-based outplacement firm Lawrence & Allen, which just opened an office in Lake Forest, the engineer’s story proves just how poorly many people handle their job searches.
Fortunately, career experts have plenty of advice for those people looking for a new job. And their advice holds true whether people are hunting for their first job or their 10th. The secret to finding a good job today lies in taking a balanced approach. This means that job seekers must use all the tools available to them: classified ads, Internet job boards, professional associations, trade publications and search firms.
But these experts agree none of these sources will do much good if job hunters don’t first learn the skill of networking.
To career experts, the secret to speeding a job search doesn’t lie in the newspaper’s classified ads or with the electronic job boards that dot the Internet. They say that the first thing job hunters should do is tell as many people as possible that they are looking for a new job. Of course, everyone knows that this kind of networking is important, but few people actually do it.
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The secret these career experts know is that networking doesn’t have to be a nerve-wracking proposition. For one thing, it doesn’t have to involve calling complete strangers and asking for favors. Joanna Patterson, assistant director of career education at Alverno College in Milwaukee, recommends that job seekers tell everyone they already know, including friends, family members and neighbors that they are looking for a job. The odds are good that someone will know of someone else who either works in the same field or knows someone else who does. These people can then provide a job hunter with important information or, if the job seeker is especially fortunate, news of an opening.
“You never know who has the right connections,” Patterson said. “It could be the mail-delivery person who has a cousin who does exactly what you want to be doing.”
Scott Hajer, senior corporate recruiter for Software Architects, a technology company based in Westchester, goes even further. He says all job hunters should memorize 60-second speeches explaining what kind of job they are looking for and then give the speech to everyone they know.
“There are so many candidates out there now,” he said. “Jobs get filled so much faster than they used to. By doing this, maybe you can hear about an open position before everyone else does, too.”
Networking also becomes easier when job hunters don’t attempt it only when they are looking for a new position. Smart workers network even when they hold a job. They join their professional associations, form relationships with other people who hold similar positions, both inside and out of their company, and keep in touch with former employers and co-workers. By doing this, people already have a list of potentially helpful contacts on which they can draw once they begin a new job search.
“Networking is not calling someone on the phone who you don’t know and asking for something,” said John Worth, director of career counseling at the Darden Graduate School of Business Administration at the University of Virginia. “You need to have a relationship with that source before you have to ask them for help. Otherwise, it’s very awkward and difficult to do.”
Job seekers should also remember that when they ask people for advice or help, they are actually giving them a compliment.
“Most people are flattered if you tell them that you want to learn something from them,” said Vivian Siegel, executive director and chief executive officer of JVS, a Los Angeles-based non-profit agency that offers free career help in offices across the country. “If you ask for 10 minutes of their time, they’ll usually be more than happy to talk with you. If you can do this and get around a company’s human-resources manager, you’ve already gone far.”
Networking, of course, isn’t the only resource job hunters should tap. They should still scour the classifieds and Internet job boards. They should also work with search firms and headhunters if they desire.
And those job hunters who really want to stand out from the crowd can take some simple steps. Andrew Meeks, a partner with the Lisle-based outplacement firm of Oak Consulting, says that job hunters should make a list of companies that interest them and call them to ask about any possible openings, even if they don’t see those firms listed in any help-wanted ads.
“Most people don’t do this,” Meeks said. “Most just rely on the ads in the paper and on job boards. With the market tight, though, people have to do more than that if they want to find a job, especially if they want to find one quickly.”
Hajer, of Software Architects, says that most job hunters prefer to spend their time searching classified ads and Internet job boards because it is less threatening than calling people on the telephone. Many job seekers adopt the practice of “résumé spamming,” sending electronic versions of their résumés to bunches of online job postings, even if they’re not qualified for the positions.
“And what do they get when they do this?” Hajer asked. “Nothing.”
Another way to stand out from the job-seeking masses, says Stuenkel, is to write a letter directly to the company president. Most job seekers would never think to do this, assuming that the president would just toss their letter in the garbage. But while it may be naive to expect the company’s top dog to respond to such a letter, it isn’t unrealistic to hope that the president might pass the letter down to his subordinates. And this can do wonders for a person’s chances of gaining an interview, Stuenkel said.
“Anything coming from the president, you better believe that people tend to pay attention to it,” he said. “I recommend that people do whatever it takes to get noticed.”
Stuenkel also recommends that people involve their spouses in their job searches. Spouses can research potential companies and cruise the Internet for openings, two time-consuming tasks.
Hajer says that job seekers who follow up an interview with a telephone call to the interviewer also set themselves apart.
“I call back everyone who follows up with me,” he said. “The job we have may not be a fit for them, but I may know someone else who’s looking for someone.”
And don’t forget that cliché of the job search, a “thank-you” letter following an interview. Believe it or not, it does make a difference.
“I’ve interviewed dozens of people for a position here,” said Claudia Sinkel, vice president of JVS. “So far, I’ve only gotten one ‘thank-you’ letter. That letter has made that candidate stand out.”
The message seems clear: Today’s job seekers have to work harder than ever to find a job. Just ask Tanya Singer, producer of Yahoo! Careers, one of the Internet’s busiest career-advice sites.
“Right now, we have the biggest group of well-educated, employable people out there looking for jobs,” she said from her Sunnyvale, Calif., office. “People today, because of the competition for jobs, are forced to be extra resourceful.”
There is good news, though. Today’s job seekers also have more resources than ever.
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“People have access to information today through the Internet that even five years ago didn’t exist,” Singer said. “Now you can research companies, positions, salaries. You can have realistic expectations before you even begin your search.”