Big Book of Job-Hunting Hacks

• Your name and the contact information you want potential employers to use. (Do not use your work phone or e-mail address, or your partyanimal@yahoo.com address!)

• The job title you want—or, if more practical, a general industry or profession. You want the card recipient to quickly understand what you’re looking for when they come across your card days later.

• Three to six bullet points on the back that list your strengths

• If you have a website with additional information or an online portfolio, include your URL.

• Space for writing a personalized note

The better you plan your networking, the better it will work for you. Take time to determine what types of people may best help you in your search, and where you might find them. For example, if you’re looking for people who can help you get your foot in the door with an IT career, what groups or associations might they belong to? What meetings might healthcare administrators attend? When is the next national conference related to your industry coming to town? Do your research before you choose a local networking venue!

Before you attend your first formal networking event, work your own network. Contact the following people in your life to let them know you’re looking for a job, what type of job you want, and how they might help you:

• Extended family members

• Friends

• Neighbors

• Former work colleagues

• Former classmates

• Fellow members of your church, clubs, civic organizations, etc.

• Everyone else you know

You might feel uncomfortable approaching people you haven’t spoken to in a long time, or who may not seem appropriate to contact. But once you get over your initial apprehension, you’ll find that businesspeople find networking a perfectly natural thing.

FOR INSTANCE . . .

“When I first decided to go freelance, I had only a few clients lined up. So I fearlessly listed all the people I knew who might hire me—then proceeded to call only the ‘easy’ ones. Within a year, I got phone calls from two of the people on my list who I had not had the nerve to call for work. Each one had heard through the grapevine that I was a freelancer and had a project to offer! If I had only called those managers right away, I might have gotten even more work.”

—Jane Jerrard, freelance writer, Chicago, Illinois

USE THE STRENGTH OF WEAK TIES

Ask your social network to spread the word of your job search to their networks. According to sociologist Mark Granovetter, author of “The Strength of Weak Ties,” the people who are most helpful to us are those we don’t know well. Granovetter’s theory posits that in marketing or politics, the weak ties enable reaching audiences that are not accessible via strong ties. Granovetter told Forbes magazine that “informal contacts” account for almost 75 percent of all successful job searches.

In other words, if your brother can’t help you get a job, it’s more likely that his buddy—or his buddy’s buddy—might be able to.

How do you find local networking opportunities? Ask a librarian, check a directory, or surf the web—or ideally, do all three. Your best bet is to find associations or networking groups affiliated with the career you’re looking for. Join local chapters or groups, or just attend their meetings. There may be a fee for joining and/or one for attending, but if you choose the groups carefully, these are wise investments.

If you join an association, make your membership pay off by getting involved. Volunteer to work on the newsletter, meeting programs, board of directors, or other areas. This will increase your visibility and expand your network within the group.

ONLINE RESOURCES FOR FINDING F2F NETWORKING

Browse the many groups included in the websites Meetup.com and LinkedIn to find local groups of like-minded professionals who meet in person:

• At www.meetup.com, you can enter your town and area of interest to find groups that meet regularly in-person. Whether your interest is “web development” or “skiing,” the groups you find exist solely to help you meet and network with like-minded people in your area!

• www.linkedin.com also offers a multitude of groups, only some of which meet in person. Click on “groups” at the top of any LinkedIn page, then “Groups Directory.” When you search the groups, select “Networking Groups” and type in the category and keywords that fit your job search.

BEST IN SHOW—ASSOCIATION LOCATORS

Websites

Weddle’s Association Directory, www.weddles.com/associations/index.cfm.

A free online listing of thousands of associations around the world by profession and industry with live links to each association’s website.

Ip12’s Resources by Subject, “Associations,” www.ipl.org/IPLBrowse/GetSubject?vid=13&cid=7

Books

Directory of National Trade and Professional Associations. (Bethesda, MD: Columbia Books, 2007).

Encyclopedia of Associations. (Farmington Hills, MI: Thomson Gale, 2005).

What librarian Vlk calls “the infamous networking support group” offers terrific networking opportunities as well as an ego boost. “That word support is key,” says Vlk. “You need someone to talk to about your job search, and you need reinforcement that you’re not alone and it’s not your fault.”

How does a job support group work? Here is an example of the groups run by Bob Podgorski, coordinator of the St. Hubert Job and Networking Ministry, which offers nondenominational job groups throughout the northwest suburbs of Chicago. Podgorski says, “Group networking typically involves being in a group of anywhere from six or seven people to thirty or forty people. Each individual provides an elevator speech—a two-minute overview of her skills, abilities, achievements and job desires—followed by a request for assistance from the group. Typically, contacts are sought, or help with identifying companies in key industries, or even suggestions of alternate industries where the person might apply their skills and background.

A résumé or handbill is passed around to the group so that everyone has your basic information and contact information. A handbill is preferred—this is a concise, to-the-point, one-page document that provides a section that lists target companies.

The real benefit of the group is the strength of weak ties theory: “People know people who know people,” Podgorski points out. “A support group broadens your visibility to the point where you get the broadest distribution possible.”

FOR INSTANCE . . .

Maybe a hairdresser in your job support group knows a woman who’s married to a senior bank officer at the branch where you are looking for an opportunity. “Telling people in a group what you’re looking for is your best chance of reaching a company—sometimes before positions are advertised,” says Podgorski.

Job support groups work best when you target industries, occupations, and key company contacts that you’d like. You need to ask for help as precisely as possible in order to get the best help. Including a job title helps. It’s a concise way for people to quickly understand what you want.

“Association meetings and industry networking events aren’t necessarily (or likely to be) focused on job search,” says Podgorski. “Job-search support groups are. Their entire goal is to get individuals to find jobs.”

Another great way to target your networking is through volunteer work. While any community or civic volunteering will increase the number of people you meet, consider zeroing in on either gaining valuable professional experience, or demonstrating your skills:

• Looking for a marketing position? Offer to write news releases, promote fundraising events, and create a marketing plan for the local charity you’re interested in.

• Aiming for a career transition to retail sales? Offer to man the counter at your local food pantry.

• Not sure of your career path? Volunteer for a community or national charity and meet professionals from all walks of life. Find out what they do for a living, what it’s like, and whether it would be a good fit for you.

You can add new skills or strengthen others through the right volunteer position:

Volunteering is also a great way to plug gaps in your work history. If you can point to some professional work you’ve done in the year you’ve been unemployed, it looks good!

1. Craft—and practice—a one- or two-minute introduction of yourself and what you do or would like to do (your elevator pitch). This might be different for different networking opportunities.

2. Have a couple of conversation points ready—perhaps on the latest news within the industry. When in doubt, ask the other person about herself.

3. Set one specific goal before each event. Examples:

1. Keep plenty of your business cards on hand (literally—you can put your hand on one without fumbling in your purse or briefcase), along with a pen.

2. Work the room. No matter how shy or uncomfortable you may feel, approach people and introduce yourself.

3. Find the “movers and shakers.” Use your powers of observation, the goodwill of the meeting’s organizer or greeter, and ask questions of others you approach to find the people at the event who are most likely to help you—whether you think they are the officers of the association, employees of certain companies you are prospecting, or “big names” in the industry.

4. Be efficient with your time and with others’. This includes coming prepared to politely disengage yourself from unproductive conversations.

5. Don’t ask anyone to hire you. Instead, ask for their help and advice with your search.

6. Hand out your business card to everyone you meet and ask for theirs. If you discuss anything you’d like to follow up on, jot down a note to yourself on their card.

1. Whom did you meet? Look through the business cards you collected and add any notes you might have missed while the event is still fresh in your mind.

2. Go to your LinkedIn profile and invite the most promising contacts you made to join your network. (See “online networking”, p. 61.)

3. Organize your contacts. Ideally, you should do this electronically so that your growing database of job-search contacts is searchable. You can use Microsoft Outlook or create an Excel spreadsheet. Include the person’s contact information, title and company, where and when you met him (every time if ongoing), and any notes about his background or expertise that might aid your search.

4. Follow up if you said you would—or even if you didn’t, in the case of the most valuable contacts you made.

5. Review the networking that you did, and what you’d like to do differently the next time you go out.

FOR INSTANCE . . .

Say you land an interview at the Promising Company. The name sounds familiar, so you search your electronic database of networking contacts to find the Promising manager you met a couple of months ago. You can leverage this connection a number of ways: contact her before your interview to reconnect, ask for her overview of the workplace; consider asking her to put in a good word for you—she may reap a finder’s fee for doing so; and bring up her name during your interview to demonstrate your connection to the Promising Company.

1. If you agreed to follow up with someone you met, call or e-mail the person within a day or two, while your encounter is still fresh in her mind.

2. Suggest a prescheduled phone call or an in-person meeting as an opportunity to discuss your goals. If she is amenable to a one-on-one meeting, suggest having coffee near her office or home, and pick up the tab.

3. Again, don’t ask for a job—ask for advice, industry information, leads, etc. Sample questions:

• LinkedIn: The undisputed champion of online networking for professionals

• Facebook: This highly personal site can be used to your advantage

• Meetup.com: This networking site can help you organize or join groups in your community.

• Online discussion forums on sites for appropriate professional associations, including “affinity groups” such as the American Assembly for Men in Nursing and the California Association of Black Lawyers

• The website for your alumni association

• Twitter

Most, if not all, sites will require you to sign up with some personal information and create a user name and password for future use. Remember to keep track of these names and passwords so that you can get back into a site once you’ve registered!

BEST IN SHOW—ONLINE NETWORKING

Crompton, Diane, and Ellen Sautter. Find a Job Through Social Networking: Use LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, Blogs and More to Advance Your Career. (Indianapolis, IN: JIST Works, 2010).

Jacoway, Kristen. I’m in a Job Search—Now What???: Using LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter as Part of Your Job Search Strategy. (Cupertino, CA: Happy About, 2010).

Vermeiren, Jan. How to Really Use LinkedIn. (Charleston, SC: Book-Surge Publishing, 2009).

websites/online articles:

“LinkedIn Tricks for Networkers, Job Hunters and Hirers” by Lisa Cullen for Time.com. http://workin-progress.blogs.time.com/2007/06/07/
linkedin_tricks_for_networkers/.

“Top 10 Social Media Dos and Don’ts: How (and How Not) to Use Social Media to Job Search” by Alison Doyle for About.com. http://jobsearch.about.com/od/onlinecareernetworking/
tp/socialmediajobsearch.htm.

“Ten ways to use LinkedIn” by Guy Kawasaki (blog post). http://blog.guykawasaki.com/
2007/01/ten_ways_to_use.html#axzz0nAh7w5bx.

“Blog Basics: How a Blog Can Boost Your Career” by Cara Scharf for Wetfeet.com. www.wetfeet.com/Experienced-Hire/Getting-hired/Articles/Blog-Basics—How-a-Blog-Can-Boost-Your-Career.aspx.

LinkedIn is a job seeker’s dream. It exists solely for business professionals to network with one another and provides a wealth of information (sometimes available only for actual wealth) for those researching hiring managers and organizations.

With LinkedIn, you create a personal profile, then link to other people on the site to create your own network. You can only view complete profiles of (or send a message or “InMail” to) those you are personally connected to—but you can see basic identifying information for anyone on the site.

1. Visit www.linkedin.com.

2. Take plenty of time to carefully craft your profile. This will serve as an online résumé, an introduction, and an identifier.

3. Use as many keywords as you can in your profile—it is searchable by other LinkedIn users, including recruiters and hiring managers!

4. Next, invite everyone you know to join your network: former and current work colleagues, bosses, friends, classmates, family, neighbors, etc. But focus on those who might be in a position to help you search: well-connected people, or anyone who has anything to do with your industry.

5. To find contacts you know, search through provided lists of company employees and university graduates. Also try browsing the connections of those you connect to, to see if you can find mutual acquaintances. Note that ethically, you can only connect to people you already know, even if you only met that person once.

6. When you invite someone to join your LinkedIn network, always include a personal note, no matter how brief.

7. Once your profile is complete and your personal network is up and growing, seek recommendations from some of your connections. Consider which of your acquaintances are most beneficial to your job hunt, then send each a brief but polite message through LinkedIn requesting a personal recommendation about specific skills, knowledge, and/or strengths. All recommendations will show up on your profile for visitors to see. An added benefit: if your former manager writes you a recommendation, all of his connections will be notified, drawing their attention to you!

8. Update your profile regularly or post your latest accomplishment, activity, or thought. Those you are connected with will be notified of your new status, keeping you front-of-mind.

“LinkedIn is not the easiest thing to learn, but it includes a page that offers free tutorials on how to use it.”

Barb Vlk, business librarian at Arlington Heights Public Library (Illinois)

Check with your local library to see if it offers workshops or tutorials on using LinkedIn or other social media for job hunting.

As you build your LinkedIn connections, you will be able to see second- and third-level connections. That is, the people to whom your connections are connected and the people to whom those connections are connected. You can see at a glance the strength of weak ties when you see that your former work colleague is connected to a hiring manager at the company you want to work for.

LinkedIn does include a job-search area (see Chapter 3), but the true value of this site for a job seeker lies in the wealth of organizational and employee information available, and the possibility of reaching out to connections of connections. In fact, each job posting includes an option to “find people in your network at [company].” You can ask your common connection for an introduction to that inside connection, or you can “upgrade” your LinkedIn account, meaning you’ll pay a monthly fee for the ability to send a specific number of InMails to secondary connections. Such upgrades start at $24.95 a month for three InMail messages to “strangers” and a certain number of peeks at profiles.

FOR INSTANCE . . .

Congratulations! Your online job search landed you a coveted interview with Premium Corporation, a large company based in your city. Here are three ways to use the power of LinkedIn to prep for your interview:

1. Do you have any connections there? LinkedIn’s search capability allows you to search by company. Type in “Premium Corporation” to find a list of all employees (past and present) on LinkedIn. The search results page will tell you right up front (literally) if you have any connections there, and if your connections have any connections there.

2. Get the basic dope. If you’re searching for details on a larger company, that company page will reveal some basic information, including an overview statement, number of employees, revenue, and “recent activity” showing employee promotions, departures, and more.

3. Scope out the person or people you’ll be meeting. If you have a name and/or job title of your interviewee, search them out. You won’t be able to see complete profiles (unless you pay to upgrade your account), but you may be able to figure out chain of command and verify the job title and spelling of their names.

Facebook (www.facebook.com) is used primarily for personal, not professional, information sharing and networking. However, you can—and should—incorporate it in your online networking plan to a certain extent. Here’s how:

Posting on your Facebook “wall” is an efficient way to let everyone you’ve connected with know that you’re looking for work. You can do this frankly, which gets the message across:

“Amy Anderson is . . . looking for an entry-level job as a receptionist. If you know of anything, please call or e-mail me!”

Or you can be more subtle—a good tactic if you plan to post gentle reminders throughout your job search:

“Amy Anderson is . . . prepping for a phone interview for a part-time receptionist gig. Keep your fingers crossed for me.”

Use Facebook’s search function to find specific organizations. Many businesses and associations now have their own pages, which can include a gold mine of information including insights into corporate culture, the very most recent happenings, and even specific job postings!

“We just had a corporate recruiter do a program on Facebook. Now, they’re not looking at people’s Facebook pages, but they are posting jobs on their own page. LinkedIn has job listings too—and employers will go to LinkedIn to look at your information.”

—Barb Vlk, business librarian at Arlington Heights Public Library (Illinois)

Meetup.com describes itself as “the world’s largest network of local groups.” Members in more than two thousand different groups meet face-to-face every single day, all over the world. Some groups are based on hobbies, interests, even finding dates—and many are based on professional networking. Sign up for one or more appropriate Meetup groups and go to a meeting—it’s a perfectly natural way to meet new people in your profession.

You can also use a specific group’s Meetup.com page as a discussion forum, to connect with other group members, ask questions, etc.

SAMPLE MEETUP GROUPS

Transitioning Professionals of Albuquerque

North Pittsburgh Professional Women’s Network

Marketing Methods for Business Owners

Chicago Health Care Professionals Social Group

ONLINE DISCUSSION FORUMS

The number of online discussion forums devoted to specific topics is limitless—more are being formed every day, as people seek out new ways to connect and share information. To find specific forums best suited to help you network for a job, consider finding forums about job searches in general, the business world, and your target industry or profession.

Job-Search Forums

• Monster.com

• About.com Job Search Discussion Forum

• Simply Hired (www.forums.simplyhired.com)

General Business Forums

• Fast Company’s Company of Friends (Fastcompany.com/cof)

• Yahoo! Groups

• Vault.com discussions

Industry-Specific Forums

Search on your industry (or profession) and “discussion forum” or “chat room.”

IT’S NOT NETWORKING IF YOU DON’T COMMENT!

Simply joining a Meetup group or your alumni association is not networking. Your real networking occurs when you add a comment or start a discussion in a forum, reach out to selected individuals and ask questions or offer advice, and generally showcase your professional know-how and experience.

Use these forums to post questions, share your own knowledge, or start an insightful discussion. This is a good way to introduce yourself as a member of the industry or profession and can even serve as a real introduction to an in-person meeting.

If you want to cover all your bases with networking online, try using Twitter (twitter.com) and/or creating your own blog. The catch with both is that they can be time-consuming while the payoff is uncertain; the effectiveness of your communication depends on who is reading your posts.

Twitter is ideal for broadcasting short calls for help with your job search, giving updates, and more. It’s free, you have to sign up (of course), and each tweet is limited to 140 characters, ensuring brevity. As with LinkedIn, you should look for business contacts to connect with (or “follow,” in Twitter-speak). The more people you sign up to follow, the more followers you are likely to attract.

TWITTER DOs AND DON’Ts

DO start tweeting about business topics—load your tweets with keywords that might be searched on. You can post about the state of the industry, the latest business news, how you just mastered a new skill, etc.

DON’T post about your job search incessantly. No one wants to read that.

DO tweet when you need an immediate answer to a question: “Does anyone have a contact at Major Marketing?” “How do I dress for an interview with a graphic design firm?”

DON’T ask for a job.

DO offer your own tips, links, and entertainment—no one will follow you if all you do is ask for help!

In addition to tweeting your job search, you can search Twitter for posts on “job search,” “résumé,” “interviewing,” etc., to find links to articles, advice, or just general news. There are even some random job postings on Twitter: to find them, search for “#job.”

You can also create a blog and write regular posts that demonstrate your expertise, skills, and insight in your chosen career field. It’s unlikely that hiring managers or recruiters will find you through your blog, but it could serve as a valuable supplement to your résumé and cover letter in getting your foot in the door.

Keep in mind as you’re searching the web for networking opportunities, posting comments on discussion forums, and entering today’s post for your LinkedIn profile, Facebook page, and Twitter that you should limit the amount of time you spend in online networking. It’s easy to devote hours of every day to your job search, but you’ll do best if you set a time limit for yourself to avoid getting sucked into an afternoon of browsing. If necessary, set the alarm on your cell phone—or your kitchen timer—to allot a specific, reasonable amount of time to networking in one sitting.