The Networking Light Switch

It was an interesting and exciting week in the job search front. Three people that I have gotten to know while helping out with job search groups landed new jobs this week. Also, I met a new person who is just launching her job search. All four have something in common: their networking efforts.

The first three individuals were well into their job search when I first met them a few months. They were making new connections through networking. As I met them individually I asked them all the same question: “Who are you networking with? Be specific with the names, levels and companies.” I was looking to see if they were networking in the right levels based on the types of jobs they were looking for. With these three, they all seemed to be penetrating the right networking circles. In fact, based on how aggressive they were with their networking efforts, I felt it was just a matter of time before opportunities presented themselves to them, and they would be getting interviews and eventually a job offer. They had flipped on the networking light switch. They got it. They understood that focused, structured networking was going to be the key to them landing their next job. Sure enough, just like the fall weather in Western Oregon, when it rains it pours. All three moved into the interview process with not only the company they got offers with, but were also in serious interview discussions with other companies as well.

The fourth individual was just starting her job search. She had been out for about a month and had networked with a few people. As we talked I began to ask her questions about her job search process and networking efforts. Okay, I am sure my probing questions probably felt more like an inquisition than a casual coffee chat. I was asking questions like:

• Who are you networking with?
• What are your networking goals?
• How many networking meetings do you have lined up for next week?
• What trade or professional associations meetings and events are you attending?
• Are you following up with the people you meet at the professional association meetings to set up face-to-face meetings?
• Are you networking with mostly people who are currently working or with others that are seeking work as well?
• Are moving past your first generation of networking connections?
  

After my rapid fire round of 20 questions, I turned the spotlight off, took off the bad cop hat and put on the good cop hat and we discussed her job search plans. I shared my ideas and suggestions about setting networking goals of have at least five face-to-face meetings a week and one professional association event a week. We talked about how most people will be glad to meet with you if you ask. I shared that most people will connect you to others if you ask. As she tried to soak it all in she finally paused for a moment and then said to me: “This isn’t going to be easy is it.” At that point, I knew that she had seen that networking light switch on the wall. The question that she will have to ask herself now is, will she choose to flip it on.

Is the Traditional Resume Dead?

Is the paper resume and its MS Word version dead? That is the question I am asking myself after being introduced to the site VisualCV.com.

This past week Joshua Waldman, a social media expert with Career Enlightenment, made a presentation to the job search group I facilitate regarding leveraging social media sites to find a job faster. In Joshua’s presentation, he introduced the group to the site VisualCV.com and explained how to capitalize on this new technology with other sites like LinkedIn or Twitter. VisualCV is a dynamic site that allows you to post documents, videos, links and logos to reinforce your experience and skills that are found on your resume. For example, you could post the PowerPoint marketing presentation to VisualCV to reinforce your marketing project accomplishment that you have listed in the resume.

You can create customized versions of your VisualCV to send to particular companies or positions and make them private so that only the appropriate people can view their respective customized version. You can link your VisualCV to your LinkedIn profile. You can respond to a Twitter job posting instantly with your VisualCV. Imagine having a conversation with a networking connection and passing your VisualCV via your iPhone to him or her right there.

Since a picture is a thousand words, I encourage you to check out Joshua's VisualCV site as an example.

While the old MS Word version may not be dead just yet, in the near future it will be time to consider listing it on the Federal Endangered Species Act.

A Recruiter's Story of the Job Search Process

Sometimes it is interesting to hear the experiences of others who are moving through the job search process, through their own words. I came across this story by an agency recruiter that was laid off. Here is a guy who helps other companies find their talent every day, and now he is on the side trying to convince companies that he is the right talent for them.

Check out his story A Story From The Job-Search Trenches. He covers all the elements of his job search process. His words speak for themselves.

A Good Chuckle in the Dog Days of Summer

We are coming into those dog days of summer and every now and then we need a good laugh to lighten things up during these long hot days. This article from CNN.com/CareerBuilder.com titled: 43 Weird Things Said In Job Interviews came across my computer at the right time and made me chuckle.

The article reminded me about my own experiences as an HR professional. In my 20+ years in human resources and thousands of interviews that I have conducted over that span, I have heard some pretty bizarre responses to some very ordinary questions. Just when I thought I had heard everything over the countless number of interviews, a new interviewee will throw a response out that will make me think, did I just hear him correctly? Did he really say that out loud in this interview? I look back on them now and get a little chuckle thinking about the off-the-wall answers I have heard.

As an interviewee, I am sure I have made my fair share of dumb remarks along the way but fortunately I don’t recognize any of my responses in the answers shared in this CNN article.

Pour yourself a tall glass of lemonade and enjoy the CNN/CareerBuilder article. It will be a good little break during these long dog days of summer.

Effective Goal Setting in the Job Search Process

We just crossed the halfway point of 2009 and it made me think, what would I be doing if I was an HR leader with a company? It would be midyear goal review time. I would be sending out that reminder (okay, I am sure it was perceived more like a nag) to business leaders, managers, and my own staff that is it time to review the status of your goals and objectives for the year. Are employees on track? Do they have any issues or barriers? What help is needed to accomplish them? I would stress to managers the importance of discussing the progress of the goals with their employees, and having their employees share their progress with the rest of their team. Just like in business, goal setting in the job search process is critical for a successful job search. Setting targets and proper alignment will keep you focused and help you achieve the end goal: landing that right job.

I recently met with a friend that is seeking employment. She had been testing the waters for about three months in the freelance world, but has found that she wasn’t as happy working outside the structure of a traditional workplace. She likes getting up each day with the purpose of going to a company and being around a team of other creative professionals. While she said she was going to continue to do freelance work as a source of income, she had determined that she was going to seek a regular job in her creative field with a company. She shared with me that she was struggling with setting a consistent daily schedule for herself but was taking the necessary steps to become more focused in her job search. She explained that she has recently aligned herself with another friend who is out looking as well. They now meet every other Monday at 8 AM to review their progress. Since they know each other very well and are in the similar creative field they know that they can’t bluff each other on what they did or didn’t do the prior two weeks. She had decided to expand her networking efforts and joined some groups in her field to attend their networking functions. She also was contacting some creative agencies that place professionals like her on temporary assignments. It is very common in her field for temporary assignments to become permanent. And lastly, she had determined that she would go to the coast for a couple of days with her friends and recharge herself for her new focus of finding a job with a company.

Whether she had realized it or not my friend had just completed a goal setting session for her job search plan. She had all the elements needed for effective goal setting.

• Set the goal with the end target in mind. She had decided to seek regular full time work instead trying to stay as a freelancer.

• Establish tactics or actions to enable you to achieve the main goal. My friend set plans to join groups and meet with creative agencies.

• Align your goals in step with your life goals, annual goals, monthly goals, and weekly goals. My friend wanted to set a firm schedule to give herself the permission to do other things during the summer besides just looking for a job. She was also reading a book titled 10-10-10: A Life-Transforming Idea, by Suzy Welch, about making priorities and balancing your life.

• Keep your goals manageable. Don’t over commit yourself. She knew that she needed to set a regular daily schedule with regular tasks and appropriate blocks of time just like she would in a typical workplace.

• Write your goals down and post them in a place where you can see them! I didn’t see her goals and plans but knowing the type of person she is, I am confident she has them written down and posted near her computer. Share your goals with someone else. Ask for their support. My friend found a search buddy to share and help hold her accountable.

• Regularly review your goals, adjust and update. She adjusted her goals along the way with the decision to switch from freelancing to a regular position.

• Celebrate achievements and completions. Going to the beach for a couple of days was a celebration for her. She had accomplished several action steps over the past couple of weeks and was rewarding herself with some needed R&R.

Use goal setting in your job search process just like you did at work. It will have the same positive effects in your search as it does at work. It will have the added benefit of keeping your goal setting skills sharp for when you get back into the workplace.

How Did You Find Your Past Jobs? It Probably Wasn’t Through The Front Door

This past week I facilitated a two-day job search techniques workshop that focused on penetrating the so-called “hidden job market”. We had 30 very active participants in the workshop that on average have been out looking for about five months.

I opened the workshop with an exercise asking the participants to review how they learned about their past five jobs, starting with their most recent position and then working backwards. The worksheet asked them to tally their responses by the following categories: Friends/Family, Co-workers, Managers, Staffing Agencies, Others, and Online Posting/Advertising. The participants consolidated their data together with the others at their respective table and then each table recorded their data on the master flipchart to reveal the entire class’s results. Drum roll please: 73% of the jobs were found through friends/family, co-workers, managers, staffing agencies, or some other connection. Only 27% of the jobs were found through advertised postings– the front door.

We have all heard that roughly about 10 to 15% of all jobs are ever advertised. That means that the other 85% to 90% of the jobs are filled through other methods, the hidden job market. The hidden job market is the jobs that are found through friends, family, co-workers, managers, connections, and networking and to a smaller percentage, through recruiters. The Department of Labor provided results that revealed that only 5% of jobs were filled through advertised posting. 48% were found through referrals, 24% were found the direct networking, and 23% were through agencies.

When I happen to get into a job search discussion about job postings and networking with people that I meet, I regularly ask them the same question that I asked the workshop participants, how did they learned about their past jobs? Inevitably, they pause and say that it was a friend, co-worker or some other type of connection that introduced them to the job opportunity. Typically they will say that 4 out 5 of their past positions were found that way. It surprises them after they say that, because they never really have thought about it from that perspective. One job seeker that I recently spoke with indicated that she hadn’t really searched for a job in the past because she always just put the word out to her friends and they always connected her to her next job. I pointed out that she was actually job searching, and that she was leveraging her network of friends as connections.

I asked the workshop participants a follow up question: Where are you currently spending the majority of your job search time looking for work? Is it searching job boards and responding to ads or is it out networking and trying to make new connections? Most participants nodded and raised their hands to the first option, searching job boards and responding to ads. They were spending a disproportionate, and typically the vast majority, of their time on the smallest slice of the pie.

As I shared with the workshop participants, I recommend that you spend less time trying to get through the front door of the company (applying for jobs that are advertised) and focus the majority of your time on getting through the back door, side door, patio door, hidden door, trap door, cellar door or any other crack or opening that you might find. That is how they found their past jobs and will likely be how they find their next job. The same will be true for you as well.

Job Search Silver Bullets

We have all heard and likely used the term silver bullet. I have always related the silver bullet term to the old Lon Chaney Jr. werewolf movies. You know the situation where they had to use the special bullets to bring down the werewolf. We refer to silver bullets in business when we have an important situation and the circumstances require us to use special actions to address it. In the job search process, job seekers may come across a few silver bullets as well. Job search silver bullets are some networking connections that become advocates for you and can lead you to connections and jobs that you might not otherwise have had accessed. Some silver bullet connections may be individuals you already know or some other individuals that you meet while out networking.

I have met a few of these people over the years and they have opened doors for me that I likely wouldn’t have opened otherwise. What is amazing to me about this is that sometimes they are strangers to me before the introduction but for one reason or other the relationship grows and they become an advocate for me. I remain close to these individuals and consider them good friends. I know other job seekers who have experienced similar relationships.

One such advocate, a strategic leadership consultant, led me to my prior job as VP of HR. I didn’t know this individual before being introduced to him six years ago and I didn’t really realize how well connected he was. Even today I am still encountering the depth of this individual’s connections. I was fortunate to get to work with him at my last company and we were able see each other’s styles, methods and strengths in the workplace. We stay in regular touch and I keep him updated on what is happening with my current exploration. I have sought his advice and he has continued to connect me to others. He was and still is one of my silver bullets.

Another individual that I got to know through my prior company has become a silver bullet as well. He connected me to the CFO of a company that was looking for a VP of HR. The job was never posted anywhere. Although I didn’t get the job after going all the way to the end of the selection process, I would have never heard of the job if it hadn’t been for him. Another time he called the CEO of one of his clients to get my resume pulled past the piles of other resumes that had come through the posting. He also introduced me to another connection that led me to winning a consulting project.

Recently I met a new connection for lunch, a fellow HR professional high up in the HR food chain of a local company. He has been helping others in the job search process and I thought it would be good to meet to compare notes. After the lunch was over, I began to reflect on the conversation. I realized that he had given out some cues that I missed during the conversation. He was giving me prompts and openings to share key elements of my professional background and I missed them. Darn, a missed opportunity. I thought more about the conversation and how I missed those cues. I realized I hadn’t prepared for the meeting as I normally would. I didn’t do my homework before the meeting. He was introduced to me through a friend and I treated it more as a casual meeting than an opportunity. During our meeting I learned that he is well connected and someone that could open doors, possibly high up doors. Maybe he could have even become a silver bullet for me. We agreed to stay connected but I felt I left him with a first impression that may not have been as strong as it could have been had I prepared.

The lesson I learned in the meeting was that you never know when you might meet someone that may become an advocate for you. Prepare for each new network connection as if you are meeting your next silver bullet.

Working the Network Event

I attended a professional evening network event for a trade association this past week. You know the kind where there are drinks, appetizers, and 100 people crammed into a backroom somewhere. I have to admit I am a bit out of my element at these types of functions especially when it has been a while since I have attended one.

Those of you that know me well know that I am a bit more reserved and normally on the quiet side. I am in awe of those that do these events well and make it look easy. That is not me. I have to work hard at it. I psych myself up for these settings and prepare to do some schmoozing. Just like when I play sports, I take a deep breath before stepping on to the playing field.

This event happened to be on the mezzanine level of the Bridgeport Brewery. As I entered the room I immediately saw an HR acquaintance that I hadn’t seen in a few months. Bingo, a friendly face to start the evening. As got into the conversation, I had to remind myself of a few key principles for these networking events.

#1 – Remember the end goal: You are there to make quality connections with as many new people as possible and reconnect with acquaintances that you see infrequently. It is a networking event. Not a social time between you and just one other person.

#2 –Get a lay of the land: Check out the flow of the room. Where are the drinks and food? Look and see where people are clustered. Do you recognize anyone? Are people mostly sitting or standing?

#3 – Don’t get caught up with just one person: Getting stalled with one person can be easy to do. It can be with someone you know or even someone you just met. Sometimes it is comfortable to hang around that one person but you need to remember the #1 end goal. Keep moving to meet new people.

#4 – Look to exchange business cards: Have your cards handy and easy to give out. One time I ran out of cards because I didn’t grab a new supply before heading out for an event. You have a few minutes with one or two people and you want to leave that conversation with the ability to follow up later. If you don’t offer your card and ask for theirs, you won’t be able to reconnect with them later.

#5 - Keep one hand free at all times: If you have a drink in one hand and a plate of appetizers in the other it is hard to shake someone else’s hand or exchange business cards. I remember spilling my plate or drink more than once trying to free my hand to greet someone. Keeping one hand free also takes care of the issue of feeding your face and getting crumbs or more all over your face or clothes.

#6 – Look like you are approachable: Are you smiling? Do you have arms folded? Are you standing back away from the groups? Your body posture, position in the room and whether you are smiling can make a significant difference on whether other people will approach you.

#7 - Follow up with the connections you made: Don’t waste what you have just gained. Be sure to follow up in the next day or two after the event and try to meet them one-on-one.

The Bridgeport Brewery event wrapped up and I took a deep breath as I exited the room. I made it through and was still charged up on adrenalin when I got home. My mouth was still in networking mode and my wife got more of an earful than normal. She just smiled and listened knowing that I am still burning down the nervous energy. I made some good connections at the event and I already have set up meetings this coming week with them.

I admit that I frequently read articles on how to work the room to become more skilled and comfortable doing it. I would like to hear from others that have some good tips. What do you do that works for you when you attend one of these events?