What Color Is Your Parachute? (33 page)

How To Have a Successful Job Search

Once you have what you need for your job search, the following techniques and suggestions will help you make that search successful.

SEARCH FULL-TIME

If you’re out of school, treat your job search as full-time employment. Spend six hours a day, at least four days a week on your job search. You may wonder, “What could possibly keep me busy six hours a day?” To start with, you could spend those hours filling in your parachute and doing the four steps to a dream job over and over until you get hired. The more time you spend actively looking for a job,
the quicker your job hunt will go. The average job hunter spends only about five hours a week on searching for a job and sees only two employers a week. It’s no surprise, then, that the average job search lasts about seven months.

PROTECT YOUR JOB-SEARCH TIME

Don’t let people impose on your job-search time. If you’re currently unemployed, your family and friends may be tempted to ask you to do chores or errands. Tell them you’ll be glad to help after you finish your job-search activities for the day. Let them know this will be after 3 p.m. If they see that you’re serious about devoting at least six hours a day to your job search, they should begin to honor the time you commit to finding the job that’s right for you. (And maybe you’ll inspire them to find the job that’s right for them too!)

MANY VACANCIES AREN’T ADVERTISED

Remember that most vacancies aren’t advertised anywhere. Research indicates that 75 to 80 percent of open positions are not listed or published. By doing information interviewing and letting people know what type of position you’re looking for, you are likely to find those unadvertised jobs. Of course, you should apply for any advertised vacancy that’s of interest to you. Doing that in addition to continuing with your information interviews and keeping in touch with your network of personal and professional contacts will increase your odds of success.

MAKE LOTS OF PHONE CALLS

When you are in step 4, actively trying to get hired, make at least twenty phone calls every morning. Make calls until you’ve lined up at least two employers who will meet with you each day of the week.

THE ROLE OF LUCK

What is sometimes called “pure dumb luck”—which means having your name in the right place at the right time—plays a crucial role in finding most jobs. But that kind of luck isn’t really luck at all but rather the result of good research and savvy networking. The more you meet and talk with people doing the work that you want to do, and the more you keep your professional and personal networks informed about what you’re looking for, the more likely you are to get “lucky.” For more about the role of luck in your job search, read John Krumboltz and Al Levin’s book,
Luck Is No Accident: Making the Most of Happenstance in Your Life and Career
(Impact Publications, 2004).

Who do you call? Start with the employers where you most want to work. If no offers come, use the Yellow Pages of your local telephone directory (or a directory from the area where you want to work). Call businesses, companies, agencies, or organizations likely to employ people who do the work you want. Ask for the manager who hires for the job you want.

What do you say? Create a twenty- to thirty-second pitch. State your name, the work you seek, two or three of your best skills, any machinery or equipment you can operate, or the computer programs you know. Have additional relevant information about your ability to do the job and your prior work experience that you can add in ten- to twenty-second intervals when appropriate in a conversation. You can add the name of your former employer if you have one and you think it will make a good impression.

What do you want? Ask for a fifteen-minute appointment to talk further about your potential as an employee. If somebody will see you, go and sell yourself! If there aren’t any openings but somebody will see you anyway, go. Use the time to learn more about the business and the state of the industry, as well as to gain practice selling yourself. If there aren’t any vacancies and the person doesn’t want to see you, ask whether he or she knows someone who might be interested in your skills. Half the people who use this method get hired in four weeks, and 85 percent have a job in ten weeks.

PRACTICE YOUR PITCH

Write out your pitch and practice it until you can say it slowly and smoothly. Have two or more people listen to it and tell you what they think. Will your pitch get employers interested in seeing you? Here’s a good example:

My name is Shannon O’Neal. I’m looking for warehouse work. I’m very good at driving a forklift, entering shipments into computer programs, and tracking them. I can also receive shipments and figure out how to store them so that they can be easily retrieved in the future. My specialty is preparing shipments so that the driver can make deliveries in an organized and logical manner. I’d like to come in and talk with you about my value as an employee.

TARGET SMALL ORGANIZATIONS

Although we hear about large corporations a lot, it’s actually small businesses that employ the majority (75 percent) of U.S. workers. Begin your job search with organizations that have twenty-five employees or less. If the work you want to do isn’t available at such a small company, find the smallest company at which it is.
It’s usually easier to find people who hire for small organizations and easier to get in to see them. Also, small companies can often make faster hiring decisions. Although small businesses prefer to hire people with experience, sometimes their budget doesn’t go past entry level. This can work in your favor.

BE PREPARED TO GIVE REFERENCES

If you’re looking for a job for the first time, find three or four adults who aren’t relatives who are willing to give you positive references. Employers want to know about your reliability and personality. Have you volunteered at your church or for another nonprofit group? Do you belong to a club or community group? Is there a teacher you like or one in whose class you have worked particularly hard? All of these people have seen you at work (even if it hasn’t been paid work) and can comment on their knowledge of you as a student or
volunteer worker.

Talk to the people who might provide references for you. Tell them that you’re looking for your first paying job, and ask them whether they feel they know you or have seen enough of your efforts to give a positive reference. Some will be willing to write you a reference. Others may prefer to give a reference by phone. Try to get at least two or three lined up so that you can provide references quickly if you’re asked to do so.

If you have no work or volunteer experience, join a group that interests you. Don’t just participate; volunteer to help put together events or meetings. Get to know the group’s leaders well enough that they will have a positive opinion of you.

CONSIDER VOLUNTEER WORK

You can do volunteer work while you search for a job, gaining valuable work experience and references in the process. At school, you could volunteer for a leadership program or club. Teachers may be looking for a student assistant; a peer-advising project or tutoring program may need student volunteers. In your community, you might offer to help with child care at your church, volunteer at a nonprofit, or even find a local business that would be willing to let you volunteer. You can volunteer
to be an extra pair of hands or to use and improve your job skills. See whether the organization or agency for which you want to work uses volunteers. If it does, find out how you can do a volunteer internship there. This is a great way to check out an organization from the inside—and also to get references from people in the organization itself. To let your supervisor get to know you, plan on volunteering at least once a week for six to eight weeks.

In the difficult economic conditions that continue as this edition goes to press, knowing how to get the best job you can in any job market is a survival skill. Learn how to do this in good times and bad. Sometimes, pursuing your dream job must take a back seat to pursuing a paycheck. Look at jobs that interest you in some way, even though they’re mainly for a paycheck or “just for now.” You’ll be able to sell yourself better because you like the work.

HOW TO HAVE A SUCCESSFUL JOB SEARCH

• Search full-time.

• Protect your job-search time.

• Remember, many vacancies aren’t advertised.

• Make lots of phone calls.

• Practice your pitch.

• Target small organizations.

• Be prepared to give references.

• Consider volunteer work.

• Don’t count on resumes to get you a job.

• Take care of yourself.