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Choosing the Strategy That’s Best for You
Every job search tool, market, and door has its upside and downside. They can highlight or minimize your strengths as well as your barriers. So choose carefully. Don’t leave your job search to chance. Deliberately plan your strategy.
Having an effective strategy is key to every business endeavor. In most companies, 80 percent of income comes from 20 percent of customers, so to stay in business they pay special attention to that 20 percent. This 80/20 rule1 also applies in a job search. You’ll be more successful if you focus extra effort on a few select employers than if you give moderate effort to many. Look in the Hidden and Open Market to select a handful of companies to focus on. Create a PADMAN Plan for each and find a side door that puts you in front of the person who has the power to hire. Job searching in the Hidden Market will give you access to more than 85 percent of available jobs, including unusual jobs that are seldom found in the Open Market. It allows you to target companies that interest you, rather than settling for what’s offered to the general public, and it lets you demonstrate, as you search, the qualities and skills the employer is looking for. The downside to the Hidden Market is that accessing it requires research, creative thinking, and the confidence to do something different.
In the Open Market, you know where the jobs are, but so do hundreds of other people. However, if you use a side door, you can avoid being part of the clamoring horde of job seekers waiting at the front door to be screened out. The only time we advise using the front door is if you’re staying in the field, have a stable work history that shows upward progression or technical development, offer impressive accomplishments, and have Credible References. In this case, create a PADMAN Plan for the job, and then tailor it for each ad you answer. Use a chronological résumé, register with employment agencies or headhunters that charge the employer rather than you, and scour the Internet, newspapers, and industry publications for job postings. In all other cases, we recommend using side doors.
Side doors allow you to approach decision makers before submitting your résumé or application, or asking for a job. By their very nature, side doors are unique; although we shared a dozen examples earlier, we can’t give you a step-by-step process for them. Side doors are designed to help you stand out. If everyone started using the exact same side door, employers would either add better security (as they’ve done with cold calls over the phone) or start treating it like a front door, complete with traditional screen-out protocol. What we can give you are the four keys needed to open side doors, and examples from successful job seekers. The keys are simple, but all four must be used to open a side door.
1. Get noticed for the right reason. You can’t do what everyone else is doing and expect to get noticed. Be creative, but don’t get noticed for the wrong reasons. Stand out from the crowd by offering a hard-to-find quality, attitude, or skill that the employer wants! We have shared dozens of examples. Here’s another creative approach that worked. A young man camped outside the headquarters of an oil company in cold weather, stating he wouldn’t leave until he was considered for a position. This side door demonstrated his ability to endure hardship, which is valuable when working on oil rigs, and his commitment. Several days later, a rep from the oil company said if he was that determined to work for them they would consider him. Of course, if a hundred people had camped out on the company lawn, a visit from the police would have been more likely than a visit from a hiring manager. And if the man had camped out in front of a law firm, the police surely would have been called because this side door doesn’t emphasize qualities a law firm would value.
2. Get noticed by the right person. Demonstrate your hard-to-find quality, attitude, or skill in front of the person with the power to hire, or someone that person trusts who could be a Credible Reference for you. Only these people can allow you to bypass the screen-out process and get on the short list. Mandy wanted a position in the deli of a large grocery store. They were using online applications to screen people out, but she knew the final decision would be made by the deli manager. So she went in as a customer, asked to see the deli manager, and complimented him on the quality of their products. She began coming in once or twice a week, on the days she knew he worked. She always made a small purchase, and casually said hi. Once, they briefly discussed her love of cooking, and another time she shared how she had “sold” a neighbor on one of the deli’s specialties. After several weeks of demonstrating her friendly personality and love for the store, she mentioned to the manager that she was thinking of going back to work and couldn’t think of any place she’d rather spend her time. She then asked how she could get a job in his department. He asked a few questions, then explained that she must submit an online application, but that he would contact HR.
3. Don’t ask for a job or submit a résumé until after you’ve impressed the decision maker. If you do this too soon, your résumé will be added to the mix with everyone else’s. If Mandy had merely submitted her application, it could easily have been screened out before she got an interview. Had she told the deli manager on their first meeting that she was looking for a job, she would have been reduced from valued customer to “job beggar.” Impress the employer before you talk about employment. If you give it time, employers will often say something like, I wish my staff had your enthusiasm, or You spend so much time here, you should work here. Now hiring you has become the employer’s idea!
4. Be politely persistent. This shows that you want to work for their company, not just get a job. To be effective, side doors often take time. Polite persistence is a hard-to-find quality valued in many jobs, and it also ensures the matter is not dropped. We learned this term from a story Juan told us. He was a natural salesman and wanted to work for one of the country’s top dealerships. After several visits, he confidently asked to speak with the sales manager. He shared his success as a salesman in other industries and said he’d like to move into auto sales. The manager explained that they only hired top performers from other dealerships. Juan thanked him for his time but didn’t give up. For the next week, Juan was the first person on the lot each morning and spent the next nine hours talking with the salespeople when the lot was slow, learning about the vehicles, and chatting with customers. The manager finally called him into his office and said, “If you show half as much polite persistence with my customers as you have with me, I predict you’ll be one of my top salesman. I’ll give you a one-month trial.”
The side doors we have shown throughout the book are not the only doors. Job seekers regularly find new ways to skip the screen-out process and get noticed by the decision maker. So don’t limit yourself, just make sure you use all four keys. If you do, you’ll significantly increase the likelihood of being hired. If you don’t, you could be wasting your time or, worse, have your side door viewed as an unsavory stunt. Remember, getting noticed because you offer something employers truly need will only impress them. Talking to the decision maker (or someone she listens to) will never be a waste of time. Allowing the employer time to figure out that he wants you makes hiring you his idea. And few expensive decisions are made quickly, so polite persistence shows you are serious about joining the team.
043 TAKING A PAGE FROM BUSINESS . . .
Sharing “best practices” is a great way to demonstrate your abilities, establish your expertise, and help others. We invite you to share the side doors that work for you on our Wall of Side Doors at www.the6reasons.com.
Don’t be discouraged if the first side door you try doesn’t result in a job. They are not magic wands, just shortcuts to decision makers. You wouldn’t stop sending résumés just because your first attempt, or even your tenth, didn’t get you a job. Stay positive, creative, and politely persistent.

CHOOSING THE RIGHT TOOLS FOR YOU

We have given you tips for effectively using applications, résumés, cover letters, the phone, the Internet, and walk-ins to get noticed by employers. Here’s a quick explanation of who should and shouldn’t use each tool and why:
Applications highlight strong work history, upward progression, and job-related accomplishments. The downside is that they draw attention to many reasons employers screen out, including gaps in work history, short-term employment, criminal convictions, major illnesses, and lack of education. If you have any of these barriers, don’t complete an application until after you’ve impressed the decision maker with your résumé or by using a side door.
Chronological résumés are preferred by most employers, but are only effective if you are staying in the field and have a strong and stable work history. If not, use a skills résumé. Both formats are significantly more effective if you emphasize accomplishments (Facts) related to your current job target rather than simply listing past responsibilities.
Skills résumés are becoming more acceptable to employers because so many people are changing fields, and they clearly show employers how your transferable skills benefit them. Under two or three major headings, list the skills and accomplishments that qualify you, and be sure employers can easily see in your Experience section where you gained each. This is easy for proof gained on past jobs—simply list the job title, company, location, and dates. For qualifications from less traditional sources, you must look at your “experience” in a new way (and get employers to also). A young woman who cared for her grandfather who had Alzheimer’s listed “Personal Caregiver, Private Home, Los Angeles, CA, 8/2007 to 9/2010.” Create a job title by considering the title of people who are paid to perform the same tasks. For the company, list who you did the tasks for—for example, United Way, Jackson Elementary, St. Mark’s Cathedral. If you’ve done it for several people, list it as a small business—for example, Dan’s Web Design or Natalie’s Catering. The simple heading Experience allows you to list unpaid qualifications. As with any proof, it must be verifiable. The young woman used her grandfather’s doctor as a reference, and Dan and Natalie used “customers.”
Speculative letters are a side door alternative to résumés and applications. Because they don’t comfortably fit in a stack of résumés, they allow you to bypass the traditional screen-out process. Because they are addressed to the decision maker, they assure that the person with hiring power, or at least that person’s gatekeeper, has the opportunity to be impressed. (Résumés sent to the decision maker are regularly redirected, unread, to HR.) The downside of effective speculative letters is that they take time to write and refine. Also, HR may resent being bypassed, though there is little they can do if the decision maker wants you on the short list.
Marketing yourself over the phone can highlight your ambition, confidence, and pleasant voice. Even if phone skills are not part of your job, it’s beneficial to search using the phone because you can contact dozens of employers quickly to determine if they need your skills. The downside is that employers increasingly screen calls, so this approach requires more finesse and effort than you may have the patience for. However, it’s particularly worth the effort if you wish to impress employers with your personality or skills before they meet you in person, due to a visible distraction, like an obvious disability, obesity, or age. This is not an effective tool if you have a speech impediment, strong accent, or hearing impairment, don’t understand English easily, or talk very quickly, slowly, or quietly.
Walking in highlights your presentation, personality, and willingness to take action. It allows employers to see you as a person rather than a piece of paper. If your presentation and personality constitute a hard-to-find selling point, use walk-ins to market yourself for any job. They’re also a quick way to get hired for jobs that require face-to-face customer contact, but only if you match the company’s image and personality. The downside? If meeting you in person highlights a visible barrier or an extreme personality (shy, aggressive, depressed), use another method to approach employers initially.
Using the Internet effectively can show that you have computer skills and keep current, while saving you time and allowing employers to quickly learn a lot about you. It can also minimize a perception that you’re outdated or unwilling to learn. The downside is that you can be quickly screened out if employers encounter negative information, or if you respond slowly, poorly, or inappropriately.
Which tools allow you to highlight strengths that the employer needs? Which minimize your barriers? Use the tools that do both.
In your job search journal, record your progress with each employer. Track the success of each tool, reviewing it for possible screen outs. Try each tool several times, adjusting as needed. Continue to use the tools that produce the results you want. Identify your hard-to-find quality, attitude, or skill, and craft your key message. Then, find ways to incorporate them into your various approaches. Now that you know how to look at your job search through the employer’s eyes, you can develop a strategy that capitalizes on the six reasons you’ll get the job.
044QUICK TIP
For a list of common screen outs found using the various tools and additional tips on how to use our ideas to overcome each, visit our Mini Solutions Bank at www.worknet-international.com.
Our tips, tools, and techniques have taught you how to be strategic and can make you lucky, but “luck” is the crossroads where preparation and opportunity meet. So you must take the time to prepare by:
• Discovering what the employer wants in each area of PADMAN
• Proving you can meet the employer’s needs with Facts, Demonstration, Credible References, and Stories
• Removing your barriers using our six solution tools
Then create opportunities by using side doors. Some people do all of this instinctively, but most of us must be deliberate . . . And that is how people really get hired!