I had a conversation with a friend the other day. He’d just gone through a quick and efficient job search. I asked him what helped and hurt him while he was in the job market.
Networking: 8 for 9
My friend has a list of good contacts that is a mile long on LinkedIn. In the first week he contacted the people he thought could help him the most and told them exactly what he was looking for. He found out about 9 positions that fit him and landed interviews at 8 of them. That’s 89% conversion rate (solid lead to interview)!
Of course, like I said, my friend has a long list of people on LinkedIn (many of which are willing and able to help him), he’s comfortable with each contact, and has worked hard for each of them in the past.
Skill set and Needs
My friend’s skill set is one that is in high demand right now and his experience with those skills has been successful.
Work Ethic
My friend works very hard. He’s a fast mover and likes to have a lot going on. He doesn’t waste time on things that don’t pay off or on leads that aren’t going to be fruitful. He’s always worked hard at everything he does, that’s how he was raised and how he does things. His job search was nothing different.
Mentality/Motivation
Everyone has a different motivation. My friend shared with me that his mentality was that it was not OK to have no job. It’s simply not acceptable in his mind to have no job. Mentality plays as much a part as other components, but convincing oneself that being out of work for any period of time is unacceptable can a good motivational tool.
Bandwidth
In the articles here and here I related a job search to project management. My friend handles projects well and has big bandwidth as far as getting things done and handling small tasks quickly. For him a job search was natural and nothing more than a project that had a deadline.
Noise
One of the things my friend shared was that responses from job boards were so irrelevant and unhelpful that he considered them noise, and took his resume off those boards once he realized it. The calls from recruiters were so low quality that they were distractions for him.
I want to be clear, this is not the case with everyone or with every job board. They can be good resources. Delegating your job search to them, however, is generally not effective.
Remember, my friend had a lot of contacts in this area in his field that could (and did) help him.
I appreciate this information as I will use this approach in my job search ‘project’ that I’m officially starting today. I certainly believe that ‘networking’ is an on-going activity that shouldn’t be tied to a job search, only.
Mack, Absolutely! Too often do we “get busy” with our lives and forget the importance of maintaining and growing our networks. Like anything else, it takes effort to build a large, strong, and vibrant network, but it pays for itself when you need it most!
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