Welcome to spring! Are you ready to greet the new season with a down-and-dirty job search plan? If you’d like to be employed in 90 days, this is the process for you.
But be warned: There’s nothing new here. In terms of spring cleaning, this is a case of “out with the old, in with the older.” This process has worked for decades and will continue to work long past the last tweet or Facebook posting.
We start with a recap on the rules presented in last week’s column:
- Don't think too much or you'll delay action
- Create a schedule emphasizing daily productivity
- Search five days a week
Then there are two steps: Troubleshoot your past search for patterns, and build your action plan, complete with quotas for daily calls.
And that’s where we pick up -- with the call quotas. Brrr. Did a cold breeze just blow through? I wouldn’t be surprised, since dialing for jobs is no one’s favorite activity. But neither is unemployment, so on we go.
To make this project work, you will need: a targeted job goal, a resume positioning you for that goal and a list of 50 places that might use someone in your role -- regardless of whether you’ve seen a posting.
This brings up an essential point: Your success in a hurry-up job search will most likely come from the unadvertised, or “hidden,” job market.
Remember, every job is hidden before it is publicly posted, and many jobs are filled without ever being advertised. Your search needs to focus on those openings, and that is best done through direct contact with employers.
Ready? Start with your list of 50 and choose five where you know someone. Next, call that person and ask for one small favor: Please look at the company directory and help identify the department, and the department manager, that would most likely use your skills. For example, the accounting department is where a bookkeeper would likely work, so the head of that office is the desired contact.
This clarifies why a job target is so important. If that bookkeeper says “I can do any office work,” her contact won’t know which name to provide. A hidden-job-market search relies on a tight job target.
If you’re not already hyperventilating, here’s the next step: Call the person whose name you just learned. Whether you get voice mail or the actual person, the message is the same: “Hello ________. My name is ________, and I’m a bookkeeper with strengths in _______ and __________. I’m calling to see if your department is expecting a need for someone with my skills. I’d like to come in and meet with you this week or next if you have time.”
Now you’re surely passing out, but hang on. I want you to make six of these calls a day. When you don’t have a manager’s name, ask everyone you know or call the company and ask directly.
Divide your daily schedule between finding new companies, finding managers’ names and making the actual calls, as well as tracking the responses, sending resumes when requested, asking for other contacts when you’re turned down and repeating calls to the people whose voice mail you reached.
When you run out of places to call, which happens more quickly for people in declining industries and in rural areas, you may need to consider a Plan B job. But ideally, run your Plan A search for 60 of these 90 days, even if it requires creativity to find six new people every day. If you do that, you will likely have a dozen or more meetings and at least one offer to consider.
What will get in your way? Here are some of the obstacles and solutions I have observed: Losing hope (enlist the help of an upbeat friend); being distracted by Internet games (limit these activities to breaks); other people at home (borrow friends’ homes while they’re gone and repay them by doing housework); not having a printer, phone or computer (just solve this); believing this works for only certain jobs (nope, I’ve seen it work for just about every type and level of job).
If you follow this process, I can’t guarantee that your Plan A job will materialize in 90 days, but I think your Plan B job will. And if not, what will you have lost? It’s time to move forward with your life, even if it’s not in the direction you originally envisioned.
Get started and stay tuned: I’ll come back to this topic in April and again in May to check your progress and provide Plan B advice. Good luck!
Amy Lindgren owns Prototype Career Service, a career consulting firm in St. Paul, Minn. She can be reached at alindgren@prototypecareerservice.com or at 626 Armstrong Ave., St. Paul, MN 55102.
