Smart Ways to Land Your Next Gig
The good news: You've found a good job in a
company that's built to last. The bad news: Lots of others are jockeying
for the same position. Here are strategies to help you stand apart while
everyone else is standing around.
It's a
Wednesday night late in May at New York hot spot Hush, and the place is
jumping. Not because of the uneven "dot-comedy" performances
taking place in the back room, or the band playing the top-10 layoff
songs ( People's Choice Award: "It's
the End of the World As We Know It,"
by R.E.M. ), or even the $3 beer specials.
The
place is rocking because somewhere, hidden amid the strobe lights and
booming bass, there are jobs to be had. It's the monthly pink-slip
party, and clutches of people wearing neon-pink bracelets are swarming
around the few folks wearing green ones. The green braceleteers are
recruiters or people with a job to offer, and the pink-wearing ones need
jobs. As you might imagine, pinks far outnumber greens these days. And
judging from the aggressive bumping and jostling of the job seekers as
they gather around the recruiters, they've ripped off their rose-colored
shades and are here to do business.
Yep,
it's a jungle out there -- but there are still good jobs available. And
if you've finally identified your dream job at a company with staying
power, what do you have to do to stand out in a throng of pink-bracelet
wearers? We consulted with recruiters, successful job-getters, and
career specialists, and culled their suggestions to come up with the
top-10 ways to help you land the gig you want.
1.
You create the network.
Most
successful job seekers land their dream jobs through contacts that
they've previously made and assiduously kept up. Susan McPherson,
regional vice president at Vocus Inc., a public relations management
software company, got her last several jobs through contacts and says
that she doesn't understand why people don't go the extra mile to stay
in touch -- particularly when they're not looking for a job.
"The main thing is not burning bridges," she says. After she
left PR Newswire in 1997 after 8 years with the company, she made it a
point to stop by the local PRN staffer's office for a meeting or a quick
lunch whenever she traveled on business for her new job. She also
clipped relevant newspaper articles and sent them to people in her
network who might be interested. All that networking paid off: When she
heard about the job at Vocus, she quickly realized that the company had
a potential partnership with PR Newswire -- and her former contacts
spoke highly of her. "It's all part of how you remain
successful," she says.
But what
if you've just learned of a great job at a company where you don't know
a soul? You're just not going about it in the right way, says Beverly
Kaye, founder and CEO of Career Systems International, a talent
retention and development company and coauthor of the book Love 'Em
or Lose 'Em: Getting Good People to Stay ( Berrett-Koehler, 1999 ).
"People who say, 'Gosh, I don't know anyone' are not thinking about
the six degrees of separation." Once you've identified a contact
who knows somebody at the company, ask him what it's like to work there
and for names of people in the department you're targeting. Talk to as
many people as possible. The result? The more people you get buzzing
about you by the time you go in for the interview, the more it will seem
like destiny that you work there.
When Amy
Lambo lost her job at workingwoman.com, the first thing she did was buy
a three-ring binder to plan out her network strategy. "I started
taking notes about people I might call. I called key people who I knew
respected my work or friends who I knew would lend advice or help
out." One of those calls led her to a job opening at John Wiley
& Sons, where she now works as a Web producer.
2.
Stay out of the trash can.
Dave Opton, founder and CEO of ExecuNet, an online career-management network
devoted to people earning more than $100,000, says that, on average,
people spend a total of 15 to 20 seconds on every résumé and
cover letter that they see. If they're staring at a stack of 300 of résumés
and cover letters, it's likely to be even less. Their primary goal at
that point is to eliminate as many as possible as quickly as possible.
That means you've got very, very little time in which to avoid the
garbage bin. The best way to do that, says Opton, is having a clean,
two-page, chronologically organized résumé with plenty of white space
and a short, to-the-point cover letter. You should include some of what
Opton calls "scope data" -- important quantifiable data and
discrete facts that tell the person doing the hiring how you can make
his company better. But don't yammer on too long: Too much clutter is
exhausting for someone who's halfway through the stack. "The
biggest mistake job seekers make is writing a too-long cover
letter," says Opton. "The goal of a cover letter is for
potential employers to put your résumé into Pile B."
3.
Don't blow it before you get started.
Sad but
true fact: Many people interviewing today still don't act or look
presentable, says Opton. Does that mean wear a suit? It might -- but the
onus is on you, the job seeker, to find out the dress code at a company
and to dress and act accordingly. "You need to look the part,"
says Opton. "Figure out whom you're going to see, and determine the
style most important to that person." That is particularly
important if you're going from a dotcom to a larger company, says
Allison Hemming, president of the Hired Guns, an interim consulting
firm, and hostess of the pink-slip parties. "We were interviewing
the other day, and a dude took his shoe off and scratched his
toes," she says, disgusted.
A more
dignified demeanor is back in style, and that goes for other aspects of
your public face as well. Being whimsical is not going to score you
points anymore -- so remove that personal rendition of the
"Star-Spangled Banner" from your voice mail, and forget about
standing outside the office wearing a sandwich board advertising
yourself. In more sober times, sending balloon gifts to a prospective
employer simply won't cut it. "Cutesy just isn't working,"
says Kaye. "It might get you noticed, but it may not be the kind of
notice you want."
4.
Be the aspirin.
In this
tightfisted environment, any company that is willing to spend money to
hire someone must need something pretty badly. The question for the job
seeker: What is that itch, and how can I scratch it? "If the
company has a headache," says Opton, "you want to be the
aspirin. Look for ways to present solutions in every contact you have
with the company, from the cover letter to the phone call to the
interview itself. When asked how you'd handle a particular situation,
ask for an opportunity to return at another time and make a presentation
on your solution, says Hemming. "Prove that you can do the job. Do
the assignment and then come back to the company. It's as if you're
already working there."
5.
Keep a cheat sheet.
Matthew
Kelleher is a veteran of several dotcom efforts, including itraffic,
Barnesandnoble.com, and Watchworld.com. Now he's the marketing manager
at Chelsea Interactive, an affiliate of Chelsea Property Group. He's had
a lot of jobs in an unstable environment. So to be prepared for
interviews, he keeps a master résumé on file, listing every worthy
accomplishment of his entire professional career, from negotiating a
deal with Apple to beating a sales projection by 63%. He adds every
accomplishment to the master list, so when it's time to find a new job,
he can simply cut and paste the most relevant parts into a slimmed down
résumé, and can develop very specific talking points for the
interview. "Imagine a photographer or artist who has a
portfolio," he says. "What you actually show is one thing, but
keep track of all your stuff." Kelleher's master résumé has some
25 bullets for each job, and he can easily tailor a résumé without
having to finesse what he did three years ago all over again.
6.
Be prepared -- but don't overdo it.
In tough
times, anyone who goes into an interview unprepared is dead in the
water. Everyone knows that you have to research the company thoroughly
before you land the interview and go in with guns blazing. You need to
be armed with ready examples of what you learned in certain situations,
how you demonstrated leadership, and the like. "In the new job
market, you have to interview like an investor," says Nat Antman,
an analyst at Reciprocal Inc., a digital distribution services company.
"If you had a few million dollars, would you back the company
you're interviewing? When I interviewed, I read everything that I could
find on the company and spoke to people who were involved with it,
including investors and employees. The work paid off two-fold. First, my
interviewers were damned impressed that I was so diligent, and second, I
landed a job with a company that is very well positioned."
But
don't go too far, says Kaye. If you come out sounding too coached,
you're in big trouble. "Sometimes, interviewees sound like they've
written a script," she says. "People do the perfect case that
shows a whole list of attributes but is over-rehearsed." If you
feel yourself falling into that trap, says Kaye, it's okay to take a
breather. "If I feel like I'm rattling, I might stop and say,
'Look, I may be overprepared. Let's step back for a second.' "
Employers will appreciate your self-awareness, and they'll still be
impressed by your preparation. But then you can remember to be yourself.
7.
Celebrate your blunders.
It's not
exactly intuitive and it won't come easily, but talking about your
screwups may get you the job you want, says Colleen Aylward, president
of recruiting firm Devon James Associates. "People are more
interested in your mistakes," she says. "They want your asset
value to help avoid screwups." Aylward tells the story of one woman
who had trouble getting hired because she'd worked for a string of
flops. "We grilled and grilled and grilled her on what was wrong
with those companies." The candidate ultimately rewrote the first
paragraph of her résumé to say something like, "I took on the
challenge of a company in total disarray, met challenges head on, and so
on. I learned this from that, saw this downturn, made a mistake doing
this." The woman got three job offers.
Humor
helps too, says Lambo. During her job hunt, she regaled interviewers
with the story of how her alumni magazine featured an article about her
career success the very same month that she lost her job. "Everyone
appreciates that kind of a story -- you get a little bit of recognition,
and then you get smacked down. I used to work on Dilbert books, so I
told people that it was kind of a Dilbert time in my life."
8.
Follow up smart.
The
interview seems to have gone well. Now it's time for you to stand out a
little bit -- by following up better and smarter than the hordes
scrambling for the same job. Start by contacting all the people you've
spoken with at the company, whether they interviewed you or not.
"Send thank-you notes to everyone," says Hemming, "and
highlight things you referenced in the meeting." Also, don't forget
the human-resources people, even if you got your interview through
networking. "HR people can kill your hiring process. Turn them into
your allies," says Hemming.
And
while email is a socially acceptable way to follow up and the
conventional response to an interview, you don't have to follow suit.
You might send an email quickly, just to keep your name fresh in the
employer's mind, and then send a real thank-you note. "Sending a
regular letter captures attention. When's the last time you got a
handwritten letter? If it's something addressed to you personally, you
open it," says Hemming.
9.
Coach your references.
You're
about to get the offer. Now they want to check your references. If you
don't have at least three at the ready, you're sunk, says Hemming.
"You have to know where your references can be found. You need to
follow up with them before the call and brief them on the hot points for
that particular employer," she says.
McPherson
makes it a practice to stay in touch with her references -- even going
so far as to clip a story on how to find the best ginger cookies in New
York for a cookie-loving reference. She can't understand why people
don't do that more often. If you don't brief your references, you may
end up with an unfocused or vague recommendation that doesn't do much
for your chances. It's best to have references from different companies,
so they can speak to different skill sets at different organizations.
10.
Keep the job.
You've
got the job. Now make sure you keep it. If you don't make yourself a
critical part of the organization within the first 60 days, you could be
vulnerable if the economy turns again. "It's important that you
adapt to the job and that the job adapts to your strengths," says
Antman. "I've been working here for about five months, and frankly,
I feel as if I've been interviewing every week." Soon after Antman
arrived at Reciprocal, he was moved from sales to business development
after the company laid off 29% of the staff. "I had a new boss and
had to reinvent the job. I asked myself, 'Who am I, and what am I doing
here? How can I contribute, and what can I take over?' The job market is
too slippery these days to depend on your work to speak for
itself."
Jennifer
Reingold (jreingold@fastcompany.com)
is a Fast Company senior writer.
