Job Prospecting: Taking The Bull By The Horns

The only goal in job prospecting is to get your resume hand delivered or emailed to the hiring manger of a job that you really want. It sounds difficult and time consuming, but you have an 85% chance to get an interview, should you succeed. And, succeeding is much easier than you might think.

Or, look at it this way. You'd have to submit your resume to over 100 jobs to get the same result, but you don't get to pick which of those hundred jobs you will be interviewed for. You could spend your time doing the grunt work submitting your resume to job after job after job. Or, use your time productively, expand your network, meet new people, and accomplish one of your defined goals.

First you need to set up your network, or you will end up spinning your wheels and not getting very good results.

Second, find a job you really want by using a meta job search engine, one that allows you to search Monster, CareerBuilder, HotJobs, and 5,000+ more career sites for the job you want. Find one that has bee posted fairly recently.

Now, put your network to work for you.

• Search LinkedIn and find the 1st, 2nd, or 3rd degree contacts who work for that company. The problem here might be choosing among the numerous contacts you find.
• Use your network of recruiters by phone or email enquire one of them knows contacts at the company.
• Finally, use your personal network by phone or email.

The person willing to help you is doing you a HUGE favor, so make the entire process very simple. Create as little work for your contact as possible. By doing so, you up your chance for a successful delivery of your resume and you reinforce a good impression on the person delivering your resume and help them to trust that you are someone that they can recommend. Our experience shows that your resume will be safely delivered if you do the following.

• Your contact will most likely need to use company resources to find the hiring manger. Make sure that you have the job title, job description, and any numbers or other identifiers that can be used to search for and confirm the correct hiring managers.
• Create a Word or PDF formatted copy of your resume and name the file so that it is easy to identify that it is yours. Something like: morrow_jeff_resume.doc, or morrow_resume-marketing-manager.doc. I can't tell you how many clients clients fail to do this and send a file named: resume, or resume-final, or resume.v.25. a vague file name is practically useless and creates a bad first impression.
• Write a note of introduction for your contact to send to the hiring manager. You don't want your contact forwarding your resume with an unimpressive introduction or none at all. The note can go along the lines of: "I came across some in my network who looks like a good fit for your marketing manager position. He's got good experience in Internet marketing, PPC advertising, and copy writing. i'm attaching his resume and contact information." This way you don't come across as an anonymous contact and you've included some key points that are in the job description that fit your experience. Plus the note is non-specific enough that your contact can put their name to it.
• In the body of your email, write a brief note to your contact. Thank the person for helping you and say that you know the person is busy so you've put together everything needed to find the hiring mangers and a suggested note of introduction that can be modified as needed. Include all of your contact information in your email including phone, cell, and email address.
• As a token of thanks, send your contact something to thank them, preferably along with the email.
• If you haven't heard back within 24 to 48 business hours, email your contact to see if they were able to track down the hiring mangers and forward your resume. Offer to provide any further information that contact might need.

That, in a nutshell is the best way to prospect for work. If you use those steps, you will get your resume hand delivered or emailed to a hiring mangers 85% of the time.

Hiring mangers would rather trust an internal colleague from their company to a pile of unknown resumes. If you are a good match for the position, you will get a phone interview, if not an in-person one.

No mater how it turns out, be sure to thank your contact again for the help.

A few last thoughts. Prospect for work one position at a time. In the unlikely event that you can't find someone to help you, then you can send your resume through the normal channels. And while you will most likely get an interview using this method, if you don't, remember, job hunting is still a numbers game, and not a perfect science, don't get discouraged, and start on another position.