The known fact is that 30% of jobs go internally and are never advertised outside of the company.
People often ask how they can get to these jobs before they are even advertised.
Apart from networking with current employees to get into the company, there is something else, that confident individuals who believe in their own value proposition, can do.
You can do propositioning.
No matter how bad the economy gets or how few jobs there are compared to applicants, there are still 3 million jobs being advertised in U.S. and many more jobs are even being created by job seekers themselves. The fact is you have many, many options.
If you are thinking that there is a 10% unemployment rate, then I would remind you that there is a 90% employment rate. Glass is more than half full - it is 90% full.
Below you will find a list of worthwhile advice from years of experience working with creative and motivated individuals who just refused to give up and turned every stone to find the job. You will find these enormously useful and hopefully very valuable in finding you the job you are looking for.
Change how you search for a job
Your ideal job opportunity may not be advertised in the newspaper or be offered on a job site. Even more, it may not even exist or have a job description with a set of roles and responsibilities. You can spend some of your job search focus on identifying, developing and landing a job that doesn’t currently exist.
The undisputed fact is ... leading companies and organizations agree that human capital is their most valued asset and they will pay to find more individuals that can help grow their business and strengthen their organization.
Instead of searching for advertised jobs, or searching for positions in job listings - you should go directly to companies that you want to work for.
If you are confident that you have a lot to offer and can bring value to any organization that you work for, then you should present your value proposition directly to the hiring managers or business managers, sales managers, or departmental managers directly and let them see how valuable you are and how much you can contribute to their organization.
Companies have hiring plans and limits but I can think of no company that can see recruiting an individual would dramatically help their organization and bring valuable resources to their operations and yet refuse to hire an individual. Business is about exploring opportunities and you are capable and confident, you are seen by your next employers as great opportunity to explore for their business.
Go straight to the decision maker
Often for non-advertised jobs, human resources department is not the best people to go to and they are often very busy specially during these times. They have on average about 1000 people that apply for a job and they have to review, sort, and decide on each and every resume they receive. Do recognize that they are very busy.
I suggest you call the company and talk to salespeople and try to get to know the structire of the company. If you can afford the company's products or services (say they are small price for a monthly service of $20 or they sell a product for $30) as this give you an option to get to talk to people inside the company - for instance the technical support staff or the customer services department. From there you can find out the name of department head and hiring manager and so forth.
You may also be able to find some of these key decision makers right from the company's Web site, for instance VP of Marketing, Chief Information Officer, Chief Technical Officer. If their Web site provides their email address or the mean to contact them through the company Website, you can send them a message - and make it a good ice breaker.
Now you can start talking to someone inside that may be in a position to listen to you and arrange for you to meet the hiring manager directly.
Let them 'visualize' why they should hire you
This is an art itself but with a bit of practice it is very much within everybody's capabilities. Once you identify the right person and have coorespondece via email a few times or even a simple thank you call for them to hear you voice, you will want to arrange a face to face meeting.
Decision makers in companies (or even elsewhere) have challenges in their organization on a daily basis which they need to find answers for and resolve quickly and sensibly. To meet with a key manager in company you need to convince them that you understand one of their challenges and that you have a solution to help them with that particular problem.
Then you just go yourself a meeting to explore the solution that may not have been on this individual’s mind. By engaging a departmental manager's current challenges and offering a specific solution and allowing him to visualize why he should hire you a major requirement of a requirement has been achieved - the NEED. Now be engaging and offer a compelling value proposition why only you can deliver the required result since you offered the solution and recognized the problem and had the ability to find your way to the right individual.
Only you can create your next job and it is done more often that you can imagine.
Andrew Hills is a head hunter for a leading IT company in Silicon Valley. He can be reached via our contact page, writer ID 10472.
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Monday 21st of May 2012 at 12:44 am
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