Some Job Search Suggestions

This is one of those articles I have not wanted to write, but I believe it is important. Today there are approximately 27 million Americans who are either unemployed or working less than full time because the hours are just not available. The number is probably higher because unemployed Americans who have just given up and are not actively looking for work by normal government measures are no longer considered unemployed.

Thankfully, it has been almost 25 years since I last went through the job search process. It wasn’t very pleasant or productive back then, but I was blessed and found a job in research & development. I believe I sent out something on the order of 125 resumes, probably had 10 or more interviews at the University of South Carolina where I was attending engineering school, and three “traveling” interviews where I was poked, prodded, and examined on the prospective employer’s home turf.

From what I am reading, everything I ever thought I knew about searching for a job is obsolete. Sending out large numbers of general two page resumes with an individually crafted cover letter is nothing more than a waste of time and money. In fact, I read about one bank executive who lost his job. He sent out something like 1,500 resumes without so much as a nibble. From what I have read, Internet methods are not much more productive, however at least such searches do not kill trees. Something called Zoom Info got a least one good review, evidently people who actually do the hiring use this service.

So what works?

Who you know is more important than what you know.

Surprise, surprise, if your name is Rockefeller or Kennedy you will not need to be reading this article or one like it. Someone will be given the task of finding you an appropriate position in the family business. What is true of the fortunate few also seems to be true for the rest of us. It appears that a recommendation from a mutual friend to a prospective employer is worth more than 100 two page resumes with well crafted cover letters. One of the recommendations I happened upon suggested using your network to “go viral.” Find four or ten friends who are close enough that you could ask them to write letters or make phone calls on your behalf. Let them send out four or ten letters or contacts on your behalf to others who will do them the favor of passing it on, sort of a chain letter job search. I don’t know how well this might work, but a friend who knows someone in an organization where you would like to work is gold.

Cute gets mixed reviews. On a previous job search in the late seventies, I packaged a handwritten cover letter with a professionally printed resume. This was before the days of word processors and laser printers. I used a calligraphy pen and scripted the letters in Chancery Cursive. It worked, again as I recall, I sent out something like 35 resumes to get two traveling interviews and the job I wanted. Generally, delivering resumes as a singing telegram, putting your cover letters on pink stationary and other such nonsense seems to be counterproductive. One cute trick that worked; a job seeker targeted a half a dozen specific individuals, bought a cheap ad from Google that would appear if the prospective employer happened to do a Google search on his own name. Weird, but OK, but how often do people go Google searches on their own names? The aforementioned bank executive gave up the normal process. He packaged his resume with a Starbuck’s coffee mug and mailed it to specific individuals at a limited number of banks where he really wanted a job. He used a mail service, like special delivery, that required recipient’s signature. It worked.

I will close with a list I have used before from Seth Godin, http://sethgodin.typepad.com/, an author, marketing guru, self made internet millionaire, and currently a vice president of Yahoo. Although it was specifically targeted at new college graduates, I believe it is of value to others who seek employment. Here is the list (directly from Seth’s blog) of activities that he believes will turn an unemployed college graduate into the kind of prospective employee corporate recruiters dream about in a year or less.

• Spend twenty hours a week running a project for a non-profit.
• Teach yourself Java, HTML, Flash, PHP and SQL. Not a little, but mastery. [Clarification: I know you can't become a master programmer of all these in a year. I used the word mastery to distinguish it from 'familiarity' which is what you get from one of those Dummies type books. I would hope you could write code that solves problems, works and is reasonably clear, not that you can program well enough to work for Joel Spolsky. Sorry if I ruffled feathers.]
• Volunteer to coach or assistant coach a kids sports team.
• Start, run and grow an online community.
• Give a speech a week to local organizations.
• Write a regular newsletter or blog about an industry you care about.
• Learn a foreign language fluently.
• Write three detailed business plans for projects in the industry you care about.
• Self-publish a book.
• Run a marathon.

Good luck, my prayers are with you.