PART 1
The Real Reasons You’re Not Getting Hired
We’re going to let you in on the employers’ perspective, starting with the six reasons they do and don’t hire. All employer needs and concerns can be grouped into six major areas:
Presentation
Ability
Dependability
Motivation
Attitude
Network
(PADMAN, for easy reference)
These are the six reasons you will get the job, or the very reasons you won’t! They may sound obvious, except that employers think about them differently than most of us do. Thinking like an employer is critical to establish control of your job search, because the employer decides who gets screened out and who gets hired. As you begin to look at your job search from the employer’s perspective, you begin to notice the issues they face every day. In the next two chapters, we’ll teach you to see yourself through their eyes, so you can craft a job search strategy that removes everything holding you back and deliberately highlights your strengths in each area of PADMAN, so you get hired.
Seeing yourself through the employers’ eyes is not the only way to bring their perspective into your job search. You can incorporate proven business methods to get in front of employers (your “customer”) and “sell” your qualifications. Oddly, even very capable businesspeople often rely on the least effective methods when marketing themselves in the job search. We all know that mass mailings have a very low rate of return—it’s called junk mail for a reason. Even personalized or targeted, they’re not nearly as effective as a personal sales pitch from someone who believes in the product—particularly for big-ticket items that cost thousands of dollars a year—like new employees. So what does this mean for your job search? It means that mailing out dozens of résumés and hoping an employer will “buy” you is a long shot. If you tailor your résumé to the job and industry, your chances improve. If you address correspondence directly to the decision maker, you increase your odds even more. But to significantly improve your chances of making a quick sale, use a side door technique we teach to persuade employers to request your résumé. First, let’s take a look at the employer’s perspective of the hiring process so you can use it to your advantage.
002 TAKING A PAGE FROM BUSINESS . . .
Effective marketing campaigns always start with a key message. In job search, it’s your top two or three accomplishments or qualities that you want repeated when your name comes up— He’s the one who had us all laughing. His track record shows he’s a fast study and usually exceeds targets . . . She’s the one with the Harvard MBA who secured over $4 million in funding for the XYZ project. Make it something the employers need but may not find or notice in other applicants. Use this proven technique in all your marketing efforts—résumés, cover letters, spontaneous letters, interviews, and side door meetings. Throughout your job search, repeat it in several different ways so employers remember it.