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A guidance system is a device or group of devices used to navigate a ship, aircraft, missile, rocket, satellite, or other craft. Typically, this refers to a system that navigates without direct or continuous human control. Systems that are intended to have a high degree of human interaction are usually referred to as a navigation system. —Wikipedia The system in this book is proven to get more interviews and more offers faster than traditional job search systems. It is a leading edge, state of the art navigation system. The real life, nuts-and-bolts, tried-and-true techniques are aimed straight at the hiring manager to work better than sending resumes or applying on line. Skip the Resume – Get the Job! takes you eighty percent of the way to a great new job. The other twenty percent is made up of your motivation and commitment. There is a job out there that is just right for you. It is waiting for you to find it. Don't just say, "Hmm, that book was interesting…” Engage and do it! Are your goals worth it? Then go for it! Good luck and happy hunting! —Thomas Alva Edison Swinging and missing is all part of the game! Pete Rose once said that he'd "walk through hell in a gasoline suit to keep playing baseball." Nicknamed "Charlie Hustle" by Whitey Ford, Rose is the career leader in hits (4,256), singles (3,215), at-bats (14,053) and games played (3,562). He is second all-time in doubles, fourth in runs, and collected at least 100 hits in his first 23 seasons, a record. He had more than 200 hits in a season 10 times, also a record, led the league in hits in seven seasons, and is the most prolific switch-hitter in history. "When you play this game twenty years, go to bat ten-thousand times, and get three-thousand hits, do you know what that means? You've gone zero for seven-thousand. My father taught me that the only way you can make good at anything is to practice, and then practice some more." —Pete Rose These pro-active job hunting tactics are so direct and compelling that you may find yourself using them exclusively when you need to create interviews quickly without using a resume. With a little practice, you can't miss! · Job hunting is more difficult than ever. The Internet has made finding a job a more challenging and time-consuming process. The days of responding to a newspaper ad with a cover letter and resume are gone forever. New job hunting rules have emerged. · Most people fail to maximize their search. They only browse a few job boards and apply to jobs they see online. There are several other ways to get hired. · It's hard to break through to the hiring manager, who is a busy person. Getting a hiring manager to even look at your resume can be an issue. To attract attention, job seekers' messages should be creative and unique. · Job hunting is marketing. Branding yourself as one who adds value to any employer should be your goal. Anything else in your background is irrelevant. · Your competition is stiff. The only way to rise above other applicants is to be different. Unfortunately, many job seekers seem to forget this part. What can a person do to overcome these obstacles? Responding to the newspaper classifieds and scouring the Internet for job openings are traditional job search methods that are time consuming and usually unproductive. Although a qualified applicant might get lucky through these traditional venues, the chances of getting an interview are historically “ pretty slim”. A straight forward and powerful approach that can result in a face-to-face interview is to make direct contact with the hiring manager. Since the hiring manager has the final say in who gets hired, why take detours? Forget human resources or sending resumes. Both can slow you down. Direct marketing is a premium form of advertising that can deliver impressive results. In ancient times a carpenter or laborer would show up at a neighbor’s house offering to build a table or clear a field. If the owner said no thank you, then the laborer would go to the next door and the next door until someone needed his/her skills. Perhaps those early entrepreneurs asked the right questions and made quick notes about future opportunities that could lead to another paycheck! There are so many electronic venues today that transmit data/resumes to employers around the world! Millions of resumes are being sent to thousands of companies. HR departments and company administrators are overwhelmed with resumes, cover letters, emails, transcripts and correspondence from job seekers. Frustrated job seekers are disenchanted with services on the World Wide Web. Many users say the posting boards and company web sites often have out-of-date listings and that inquiries are seldom acknowledged by potential employers. In fact, many users are finding that job hunts conducted solely online rarely produce jobs. This is a phenomenon made worse in economic downturns. As the number of resumes continues to increase online, your chances of being singled out for an interview diminishes. Only a very, very lucky few get an interview after sending a resume online. HR departments typically find, select and put forward only the very best first handful of resumes that fit the job description. The boss schedules the interviews, selects one or two finalists, makes an offer and then gets back to work. It is not easy to eliminate the competition, but the tips in this book can give you an advantage. Knowing about upcoming openings before they are advertised can be a huge advantage for job seekers. The sheer volume of resumes and applicant information hurled at employers is so overwhelming that entire human resource departments have been built just to receive, sort, track, forward, and store the applicant data. No wonder that applying for a job over the Internet has slowed the entire process to a crawl! As companies grow they must add staff to handle expansion and to replace turnover. Retirees must be replaced and current employees head for greener pastures. Staff is upgraded throughout the year. The process has repeated itself for decades regardless of job market ebbs and flows or whether unemployment figures rise or fall. There will always be jobs out there. Good jobs! The block of granite which was an obstacle in the path of the weak, becomes a steppingstone in the path of the strong. —Thomas Carlyle The Internet is a revolutionary and irreplaceable tool for research. It puts so much information at our fingertips so quickly. Just Google and search! Use the Internet as your primary tool in your job hunt, but remember that the Internet is only a tool to accelerate research. Like hot wax applied to the skis of an Olympian, the Internet increases the speed and accuracy of a job search. The World Wide Web is the greatest research tool and personal assistant for job seekers ever invented! Sharpening alternate skills in the twenty-first century job market is crucial to conducting a successful job hunt. There is little sending resumes and searching job Market yourself directly to the hiring manager to get more interviews. More interviews equal more offers. Marketing your background and job skills directly to the hiring manager is the most effective way to get an interview with an employer. Once you have made contact directly with the hiring authority you not only stand a better chance of getting a face-to-face interview, you will have showcased some of your best skills already. More later. Direct marketing to an employer is nothing new. Job seekers have approached employers directly since the door-to-door or town-to-town job search. Looking for a paycheck or meal was the way of life for workers in early times. Today the average job seeker runs search marathons on the Internet, mail resumes in bulk, solicit friends and relatives or employment agencies or all of the above in the hope of landing a new job. The direct approach eliminates obstacles such as human resources, recruiters, resume screeners, email and electronic failures. It "breaks up" the logjam that slows the hunting. The most important step in any job search is to get a dialogue going between applicant and boss. Without a dialogue or interview nothing else will happen. There can be no offer or start date until you meet the boss. Since your future new boss is the final authority with final say so, then making contact with the boss is the best place to start when you want an interview. Even if you don’t get an interview, at least you will get a straight answer and not be stranded while waiting for a response from human resources about the resume that you sent into the company! Did they get my resume? Is the job still open? Is it a real job? Why haven’t I heard back yet? When is the next job opening? Hiring authorities love, or at least respect, applicants who have the courage to come directly to them when inquiring about a job opportunity. The direct inquiry is a quick and easy way for the manager to fill an opening get back to doing what they do, which is run their business. Human resources or personnel departments have a markedly different focus and function than do the hiring managers. Human resources or personnel recruiters Sending resumes and cover letters will not guarantee you an interview. There are way too many variables working against you. Written correspondence is tentative at best, even when applicants are in short supply. In a labor market where there are too many applicants in supply, the chances of success are often doomed by using the resume approach, which can also lead to the start of the wait, hope and mope syndrome. Corporate human resource departments run ads and sort through the responses until they surface several good resumes. They pass the good resumes on to the hiring manager for final approval and authorization to invite for an interview. No more resumes go forward to the manager unless no one gets hired from the first batch of interviews. Days or weeks can go by before human resources gets around to setting up those interviews. Do you want your resume sitting in the second or third batch? HR people often makes short sighted decisions about who gets in to see the boss and who doesn't based entirely on the looks of a resume. This happens not out of ineptitude, rather because the demands on their time. Written correspondence is risky because of these time delays and quality issues. Your resume may never even reach personnel, let alone the hiring authority. A resume can be lost or deleted due to human error caused by the sheer daily volume of resumes. Avoiding Human Resources can be challenging and fun! The best and most effective way to make contact with the decision maker is to pick up the phone and contact him/her directly. Since an applicant cannot get a job offer until an actually meeting occurs with the future boss, why let human resources or resumes delay the process. While you are waiting for results someone else could be calling and getting an interview. Since getting an interview boils down to making a connection with the decision maker in the hiring process, why not get that connection started as fast as possible? "Oh no! How can I ever pick up the phone and call a complete stranger?" I am acutely aware that not everyone is comfortable talking to strangers on the telephone, let alone initiating the call. When the phone call is on behalf of our careers, we become fearful of rejection. Fear of rejection is the main reason that many people will not make these phone calls. A resume sent by electronic means (email, fax or video) through surface channels (overnight letter via UPS, FedEx,) or a telegram can make a nice set up for this call, but it is NOT required or needed. The impact of a well-placed phone call is more powerful than any written correspondence and can achieve for you the immediate response or results that you desire. While the above alternatives have helped and perhaps could work for you, they are hit and miss at best. The thing that works every time is the phone call. The worst thing that could happen to you by placing a phone call is that you don’t get an interview. At least you’ll find out why and maybe get some other good leads. Knowing when to call and exactly what to say will get you more interviews than any other method. That’s a fact. This process has a professional code of conduct and standard procedures that work to get interviews. It will seem half-baked to send a resume or cover letter to an employer when you start using these tools. Do not wait; the time will never be "just right." Start where you stand, and work with whatever tools you may have at your command, and better tools will be found as you go along. —Napoleon Hill Simple steps and several sample written scripts for you to use are outlined in chapter 8, along with tips to make it easier for you to set up some interviews with any employer. Be informed and prepared when you make these calls. You will be as you read along. It’s fine and normal to be nervous during the cold call. If you are not nervous when making cold calls to a stranger then you are very unusual and should pat yourself on the back because you are likely to nail a new job faster with these techniques than most people. Even the most accomplished sales reps and speakers get butterflies before an important engagement. Nervousness is a natural human emotion that can be channeled into something good. You will feel your adrenaline giving you more confidence with every call to do things that you thought you could never do. Just remember that no one can physically harm you from these calls and again, the absolute worst thing that can happen is to hear someone say “no”. Using a written script is the key to sounding prepared and intelligent on the telephone. A script can also calm you and help you to stay focused on the task at hand. You likely won’t get flustered or forget what to say either, because the words are right in front of you. Every public speaker that I have heard or known uses a crib sheet when speaking to a group. The script may be nothing more than a 3x5 index card with a few words or ideas on it. It helps speakers remember key points and it also keeps them on track. They keep it with them even when their presentation is memorized and they have given that same presentation dozens or hundreds of times. A great college professor and dynamic speaker in Ohio in the early ‘70’s would tape his notes to the underside of his necktie before teaching class. His students paid little attention to his picking lint from and dusting those ties. The scripts in Chapter 8 are short, to the point, and have one common thread - they are all geared to getting an interview set up. The employer will never know that you are reading from a script once you are practiced. And so what if he does, anyway? You are showing the employer that you have initiative and that you are organized. What employer wouldn’t look for these valuable traits? The sharp companies will recognize Bosses have been around long enough to know about the marketing people call and you won't be the first one to have called a boss directly to get a job. You might be the first one in a long time though and timing could be impeccable! Don’t be as concerned about what you are saying as much as you are proud that you put yourself into the game! When you plan in advance, you will find it is easier to get started and to keep moving forward. Your tasks go faster and smoother when you plan. You’ll feel more powerful and capable. Eventually you will become unstoppable. The biggest mistake that a job seeker can make is to not contact enough prospective employers and to not follow up with the important ones. Plan to do both! Nothing can add more power to your life than concentrating all of your energies on a limited set of targets. —Nido Qubein The first step to a complete and thorough job search is to identify all the possible employers that can use your skills. Locate all the companies that have hired people like you in the past and may now be looking to hire another person like you. Identify these prospects in your local market and then expand out to the regional, national, and international markets through the following research methods. A small amount of time at your local library will yield many resources to achieve this. Be sure to talk to the reference librarian. Job seekers looking for full-time employment in the new millennium have many avenues to follow. Although job hunting on the Internet receives a lot of attention, cold calling a prospective employer is more effective, especially if you follow the roadmap in these pages. Cold calling, or unsolicited job hunting, is a proven and professional method of finding employment. When you consider that eighty percent of the job market is closed, meaning you can’t find out about available job openings unless you dig for them, this method of job hunting takes on a major significance. The first step to calling employers directly is compiling a list of all companies that interest you. Don't worry if the list is a long one. In fact, the longer the list the better since your odds of success increase with more targets at which to shoot! Gather a list of companies by focusing on a specific geographic area industry. A good list leads to other hidden opportunities. These are some good places to start: Best places to work or live: America's Most Admired Companies—annual review and ranking from the editors of Fortune magazine. Winners were chosen from the 1,000 largest U.S. companies (ranked by revenues) and the 25 largest U.S. subsidiaries of foreign-owned companies, as ranked by executives, directors, and securities analysts. Forbes Best Places—annual review of 200 major metropolitan areas by the editors at Forbes, based on growth in jobs and earned income, plus a measure of activity in critical technologies that foster future growth. The Employee Ownership 100—a list of the largest companies in the U.S. that are over 50% owned by a broad employee ownership plan such as an employee stock ownership plan (ESOP), a stock purchase plan, From The National Center for Employee Ownership. 100 Best Companies to Work For—annual review and ranking from the editors of Fortune magazine. Includes both public and private companies in 20 different fields and 30 states (though the majority also have multiple locations in the U.S. and abroad), with a majority of rankings determined by employee survey results. Employers of Choice 500—a collection of the 500 best companies for job seekers and employees—having a diverse work force, offering excellent benefits, and more, compiled by the folks at BestJobsUSA.com. FindYourSpot.com—a great site for those job seekers considering relocating. By taking a multiple question quiz on your preference to a variety of subjects (such as cost of living, entertainment and culture, crime rates, and so on), you get a collection of cities and towns that match your interests. Free to job seekers. Sperling's BestPlaces.net—where you'll find a wealth of data, statistics, and comparisons about U.S. cities, counties, and foreign countries. Best companies to work for: 50 Best Companies for Latinas to Work for in the U.S.—Latina Style magazine provides a national listing of the top 50 companies providing the best professional opportunities for Latinas and Hispanic working woman. The 50 Best Companies for Minorities—from Fortune magazine, in collaboration with the Council on Economic Priorities (CEP). Rankings of public and private companies are based on 15 quantitative and qualitative categories, from what percentage of new hires are minorities to whether the company ties performance reviews and bonuses to diversity goals. 100 Best Companies for Working Mothers—Working Mother magazine ranks the top 100 companies, stating that the organizations that made the list are today's leaders of that ongoing movement toward better benefits, more family- and female-friendly policies, and a healthier, happier American workforce. Another: Best Companies—from JobStar, a collection of Web listings for best companies, including national lists and lists for Northern and Southern California. The next step is to gather the names of the people who have the power to offer you a job. Consult each company's website or by calling each company’s main number and asking the receptionist (or department assistant) for the name and title of the hiring manager over your field. Don’t let gatekeepers give you the name of the human resources manager (unless that is the department where you are trying to get a job) because your first point of contact should be with the hiring manager in your field. This step is essential! You must get a name and title. Many hiring managers have said they disregard any correspondence from people that don’t know their name and responsibilities. Do you open your junk mail? Be persistent and get the names, Lack of willingness to identify the total potential employer base can cost you the best job. Do it right. Your research is crucial. Try to locate every advertisement that has ever been written by a company looking for your skills. Make a list of all these ads and companies. It doesn’t matter whether the ad is one day or one year old. The idea here is to identify ALL the players that can use your skills and then attack and contact them one at a time. Search your local newspaper classifieds over the Internet and manually at the library. Most major libraries keep back issues on hand for six weeks and then archive them for years on microfilm. Check all the classifieds for the last six weeks. Call the oldest ones first: week six, then five, then four, then three, and so on. A job may not have been filled and your timing could be perfect. If you need more leads, go back a full six months. These leads are great leads! You can apply this technique similarly to old postings on the internet, trade magazines and job fair program guides. Company websites leave old jobs posted. Make a record for future reference of any jobs that you like. If you need to look for a job again one day then these will already be in your old jobs file. Add all of these job postings to your master list of prospective employers. Since companies constantly hire to replace employees due to turnover, promotions, expansion, and retirement don’t you want to be the one who is there as soon as a new opportunity comes up? Don’t believe that companies want to shop around or compare applicants. If a perfect candidate walks through the door that candidate is hired. Time and economies prevent good companies from doing anything else. This doesn’t entitle you to ignore the current ads. Of course, you will need a list of all current, hot openings as well. Add them to your list on separate 5x 8 cards. For a little variety, go ahead and mix in calling some of the currently advertised jobs. Make a note on current jobs because your presentation will be slightly different for a hot job. A hot job is a job that is currently being advertised and the selection process may have already started. You want it known that you and your skills are available when an employer is thinking of adding staff or has just decided to add staff. You can create a job for yourself by being there early, during the thinking stage. You can differentiate yourself by being on time for the new opening. There are even good things that come from being too late for a job, as you will see. Now apply this principle to the Internet and use search engines to find all the jobs in your field in a specific geographic territory. Most newspapers in major cities have their own job boards that are packed with local openings. Use them. Research more than the want ads. Your newspaper, business magazine, or trade journal contains more than just want ads to help in your job search. Read carefully and you may find numerous job leads in stories about: · Products or services in great demand, where companies may be looking to expand the workforce to meet demand · Contract awards, where companies just awarded a new contract may need to hire more workers · Companies opening a new plant or facility, which often needs extra workers to fully staff · Mergers and acquisitions, as many people leave their jobs rather than face uncertainty, creating open positions · Employee progressions, because as people are promoted or retire, openings are often created · Special events, such as the Olympics, which create job opportunities More Offline Resources: The Yellow Pages, Business-to-Business Directory, and Chamber of Commerce Directory are good reference tools. These directories list virtually every business in town. You won't find any employment ads running in these directories, but they are a great source of prospects to complement your list. Put a few of these calls on your list every day. You may not need to use all these directories unless you really want to turn over every possible stone. The classifieds and the Internet postings (new and old) should be more than enough to get you to your destination of several interviews. Plenty of interviews are yours for the making from any of these sources. Put your list into a workable format and be ready to start calling. The more comprehensive your list of prospects for potential employment, the greater your chances become for success. Prioritize your list in order of most desirable employers to least desirable. Put the names of the companies, including the city, state, phone number, and any other relevant information, into a workable format. A 3x5 or 5x8 index card for each company and a cardboard file box work very well. Maybe you prefer a spreadsheet. Use what makes you feel comfortable and organized. Take the proper notes on each prospective employer so that you can follow up with the appropriate ones, either now or later. Don’t forget that employers must replace turnover, fill new jobs for growth, upgrade personnel, and fill retirees' jobs all year long. Check back with your most desirable employers. At first it may help to call your prospect list in reverse order of importance. This will let you practice your calls on the least important companies first and on those people that you probably won't call back anyway. If you get an interview, take it. You can always turn a job offer down, but interviewing will let you polish your skills for more desirable jobs. Make a lot of calls. Don’t stop! You bought this book hoping to learn how to quickly secure the job and money that you want. In today’s market, by the time you buy all the career books and spend untold hours reading them, someone else will have landed job you were thinking about. This is a highly directive book. Not much time is spent explaining the why of each task. Instead, it focuses on what to do, how to do it and when to do it. Keep the wheels on this fast track, and cut your search time in half or better to find a more pleasant working situation, develop a more rewarding career, and increase your income. Calling the boss directly on the telephone is the quickest and most effective way to set up an interview. Say good-bye to the resume for now. In the employment agency or headhunter business this is called marketing a candidate and is the highway to riches for the best recruiters. The really good recruiters earn more than most doctors, lawyers and investment bankers and have the best systems available to the employment world. This is one of the systems. When things get slow, as in a tight economy or tight job market, the smart recruiters and job seekers get proactive and make good things happen for themselves by picking up the phone. It is the one thing that always works. Sometimes it works with the first employer that you reach and sometimes it takes dozens of calls. It works even better in a good economy!
The Target
I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work.
Realities about today's job market.
boards and responding to classified ads, at least not in the well-worn ways. Personal effort and touch are the order of the day in the new millennium job search.
screen applicants out, not qualify them in. You will see more on this phenomenon in a few pages.
that you have drive, discipline, creativity, and courage—all to your advantage in making these calls.
Ready!
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