Job Search | Harvey Careers

Why You Need a Targeted Job Search

The idea of pinpointing and then refining your target market of employers is an overwhelming concept for most. A bigger universe intuitively seems more likely to result in employer interest. “If I send out my resume to as many employers as I can,” the mentality goes, “surely some of them will be interested in me.” But the opposite is true: The more you funnel the universe of employers into a laser-focused, precise, narrow segment of those who would love to hire you, the more successful you’ll be.

To understand the importance of target marketing in your job search, let’s first define a target market: “A specific group of consumers at which a company aims its products and services,” says Entrepreneur.com.

Adapted for a job-seeker, that would be: “A specific group of employers at which a job-seeker aims his or her talents and services.”

Here’s what a target market is not (even though some marketers of products and services mistakenly define their target markets this way): “Anyone interested in my products or services.”

Here’s how the marketing process works for those marketers who define their target market as “anyone interested in my products or services:”

The marketer creates advertising or promotional material and then disseminates it to those perceived as “anyone interested in my products or services.”

This process may have a familiar ring to job-seekers because it is essentially the way most of them conduct their job searches:

The job-seekers create advertising or promotional material – in the form of a resume and usually a cover letter – and disseminates it to those perceived as “anyone interested in ‘me as a product and the services I offer,’” typically employers who have posted vacancies on job boards or advertised openings in other media.

Smart marketers know that both of these approaches are backward. If you want to sell a product, you don’t create the product first and then go to stores hoping people buy it. You’d first do research. You would find out who would use the product, what customers are looking for in this kind of product, how this product would help them, how you’d get it to market, and what the packaging looks like. Once you understand that, you would perfect the product and go to market.

Just as no universal products appeal to all consumers, no universal job-seeker appeals to all employers. Neither jobs nor employers are one-size-fits-all. Savvy job-seekers survey the universe of employers to determine how to break the market down into a more manageable subset of employers that will be keenly attracted to what the job-seeker has to offer.

The proven strategy of target marketing enables the marketer or job-seeker to reach the customers/employers whose needs are most likely to be filled by the entity being marketed. That’s a big reason to use target marketing in the job search – but just a few of the other reasons include:

It’s more efficient. Yes, target marketing requires a big investment in front-end research. But that investment pays off when the job-seeker is productively going on interviews instead of sitting on his or her posterior by the computer uploading resumes to employers who might be interested and waiting for hiring managers to call.
It targets the portion of the job market most likely to hire. A huge number of jobs aren’t advertised. Employers hold back on publicizing vacancies for all kinds of reasons, but if you can get in on the pipeline of an unpublicized opening, you’ll have a huge advantage over the vast hordes responding to job postings.
Through target marketing, you’ll be a better fit and happier with the employer at which you land than if you took your chances with answering ads. Since you’ve carefully vetted each employer in your target market, you know you’re a good match and you fit the organizational culture. The outplacement firm Lee Hecht Harrison notes that 70 percent of its clients get new jobs through target-market methods, a figure consistent with other studies.

These steps of identifying and narrowing the market are part of a process that also includes approaching employers, developing and proposing solutions to them, handling their objections, closing the sale, and following up.

If you need help with your job search, consider coaching with us.

Give us a call at 386-749-3111
Send us an email at beverly@harveycareers.com
Schedule a call with Beverly at www.harveycareers.com/schedule

3 Ways to Tap into a Pipeline Job

Now that you have the skinny on the unpublicized job market, let’s look at how you can break into it. When job-seekers search for new jobs, one of the most important elements of a successful search is developing job leads. How can you find a consistent source for open jobs in your career field? The answer, of course, is that you cannot. No one consistent source exists. There are, however, several methods that all job-seekers should consider using in uncovering the largest number of job leads.

While other ways of unearthing unadvertised jobs exist, the key to mining the unpublicized job market is deploying strategies that break you, the candidate, into the middle of the hiring process – before positions are publicly known. Even better for you as a job-seeker, if you can make a strong case for your fit with an unadvertised position, you’ll face much less competition from other job- seekers, immediately improving the chances that you’ll get a job interview.

Networking

The No. 1 reason networking is so important and effective is that, as we’ve seen, so many jobs are not made public – through advertising or other means. One of the best ways a job-seeker can find out about these jobs is through word-of-mouth. Networking is a highly effective way for job-seekers to hear word-of-mouth news of unadvertised vacancies. These vacancies may eventually be publicized, but most jobs start out hidden, and only the decision-maker knows.

More job leads are developed/discovered through networking than any other method. Networking involves using the vast numbers of people that you know – your family, friends, neighbors, colleagues, customers, vendors, associates, and others – as information sources for job leads.

Networking is simply about building and maintaining relationships with the people around us. The more people we know – and the more people the folks we know are connected with – the more powerful our network. Remember to not only maintain your current network, but strive to regularly add new contacts – especially those who work for prospective future employers.

When you’re ready to seek that next job, the simple way of uncovering unpublicized job opportunities and leads is by asking people in your network what advice they might offer for someone seeking the type of job you’re looking for. Keys to success include knowing exactly the type of job you seek and asking your network contacts not for a job, but rather for information, advice, and referrals that may lead to a job. These conversations may reveal information about pipeline jobs.

Pipeline Jobs

As we saw in Part 1 of this series, a pipeline job is a vacancy that an employer is in the process of creating but is not yet official. Once the job is official, the hiring manager may ask around within the organization for referrals of qualified candidates before making the vacancy public.

As we noted in the Part 1, many hiring managers prefer getting internal referrals because once they publicize the job, they know they will be bombarded with resumes, many from unqualified candidates. They will then have to process those resumes. Referrals from known and trusted employees are always preferable.

Once the hiring manager starts asking for internal referrals – and especially when he or she posts the position to the public – competition will increase exponentially.

Many employers have highly developed employee-referral programs and reward workers for suggesting a hire. Social media has fast-tracked the employee-referral process and vastly increased its reach.

3 Ways to Disrupt the Pipeline

1. Referral Cover Letter: Once you have a network contact who has told you about a pipeline job, one effective way to approach the hiring manager is with a referral cover letter. The referral cover letter is an extremely effective type of cover letter that springs from networking efforts. The referral letter uses a name-dropping tactic as early as possible in the letter to attract the reader’s attention and prompt an interview. The opening sentence for a sample referral follows:Dear Mr. Fouche,Nancy Jones of Green & Associates Advertising suggested I contact you regarding possible public-relations opportunities in your firm.
2. Informational interview: This technique can be effective even if the job for you hasn’t even entered the pipeline. Research the needs of targeted employers. Especially conduct research into recent news stories about the organization (Is the company expanding to new markets? Introducing a new product? It will likely need to hire). Another way is by networking with organization insiders and asking them about company needs and challenges. But the best way is through informational interviewing, a sub-set of networking in which you conduct brief interviews with people inside targeted organizations and ask what keeps them up at night.Informational interviewing is exactly what it sounds like – interviewing designed to yield the information you need to choose a career path, learn how to break in, and find out if you have what it takes to succeed. It’s a highly focused conversation with someone in your career field who can provide you with key information, such as the issues and needs a given employer is facing. While an informational interview is not a job interview, the information gleaned can be used later in your approach to an employer. Armed with knowledge about problems and needs within an organization, you can propose ways that you can meet those needs and solve those problems.
3. Creating Your Own Job based on Employer Needs: This technique may enable you to get a pipeline job before it even enters the pipeline is trying to create a job for yourself – where one currently doesn’t exist – based on a deeper exploration of the employer’s needs or problems. With this technique, the job-seeker identifies the employer’s needs and/or problems and proposes that the employer create a job that the job-seeker will then fill and meet the needs or solve the problems.

Finally, realize that sometimes a referral doesn’t pay off immediately or directly but lays the groundwork for a future opportunity. Keep following up on pipeline jobs.

If you need help tapping into those pipeline jobs, consider coaching with us.

Give us a call at 386-749-3111
Send us an email at beverly@harveycareers.com
Schedule a call with Beverly at www.harveycareers.com/schedule

*This article may be republished with written permission. If you are interested in posting this article on your blog, please email me at Beverly@HarveyCareers.com. I will respond within 2 business days with my required signature and credits.

Nabbing a Job While It’s Still in the Pipeline

Have you ever conducted a job-search and thought to yourself that there must be more job openings than those found through online job searches? Guess what? You’re right! If you are simply searching online, you are missing out on as many as four times the job leads – job leads that go unposted publicly.

A significant reason for not publicizing an opening is that the job is still in the pipeline. The late career-marketing coach Mark Hovind asserted that most jobs start out hidden, known only to the decision-maker. The employer recognizes a need and decides to create a job, but the vacancy, for various reasons, is not official. Perhaps the skills needed for the job haven’t been identified. Maybe the job description hasn’t been developed. Possibly the budget to fund the position hasn’t yet been worked out. Whatever the reason, the opening isn’t ready for prime time and can’t yet be publicized.

The hiring process is a long and winding road – as long as 12-18 months – that begins when a hiring manager requests a new position or when a current employee leaves his or her current position. The first step is getting approval to fund (or continue funding) the position and approving the recruitment plan. What happens next is a multi-stage process that eventually leads to a public job posting if all other measures are unsuccessful.

During the initial time of the request the manager starts asking around among his or her trusted employees for referrals. After all, if you were the manager, wouldn’t you rather hire someone known and recommended to you via a colleague than an anonymous candidate submitting a resume?

Once funding has been approved, the next step is an internal job posting, again with the intent of finding an internal candidate to promote and usually publicized internally for about 7-10 days. At this stage, hiring managers may also contact their network and inquire about possible external candidates (referrals).

This stage is especially crucial for a candidate who wants to get in on an opportunity early. Only after failing to find someone to fill the need through referrals will the manager write a job description and begin to advertise the job.

The implication for the job-seeker is that a strong, thriving network can alert you to pipeline jobs. The goal is to reach hiring managers before they opt to publicize the opening. If you are constantly adding contacts to your network, and telling members of your network what you’re looking for, sooner or later, you will likely encounter a network contact who responds with, “Oh, my company is planning to hire someone like you, but the job hasn’t been posted yet.” When that happens, you can ask your contact to refer you to the hiring manager, perhaps even deliver your resume personally to him or her.

The beauty of this scenario is that if you make contact with the hiring manager while the job is still in the pipeline, you will have virtually no competition. Once the hiring manager starts asking for internal referrals – and especially when he or she posts the position to the public – competition will increase exponentially.

If you need help finding those pipeline jobs, consider coaching with us.

Give us a call at 386-749-3111
Send us an email at beverly@harveycareers.com
Schedule a call with Beverly at www.harveycareers.com/schedule

Why You Must Develop a Target Market of Employers for Your Job Search

As a job seeker, you are probably tempted to cast a wide net and apply for as many diverse positions as possible. But you’ll be wasting your time if you do. You will be much better off if you can identify and narrow your target market.

The idea of pinpointing and then refining your target market of employers is a scary prospect for most job seekers. A bigger universe intuitively seems more likely to result in employer interest. “If I send out my resume to as many employers as I can,” the mentality goes, “surely some of them will be interested in me.” But the opposite is true: The more you funnel the universe of employers into a laser-focused, precise, narrow segment of those who would love to hire you, the more successful you’ll be.

To understand the importance of target marketing in your job search, let’s first define a target market:

“A specific group of consumers at which a company aims its products and services,” says Entrepreneur.com.

Adapted for a job seeker, that would be: “A specific group of employers at which a job- seeker aims his or her talents and services.”

Here’s what a target market is not (even though some marketers of products and services mistakenly define their target markets this way): “Anyone interested in my products or services.”

Here’s how the marketing process works for those marketers who define their target market as “anyone interested in my products or services:” The marketer creates advertising or promotional material and then disseminates it to those perceived as “anyone interested in my products or services.”

This process may have a familiar ring to job seekers because it is essentially the way most of them conduct their job searches. The job-seeker creates advertising or promotional material – in the form of a resume and usually a cover letter – and disseminates it to those perceived as “anyone interested in ‘me as a product and the services I offer,’” typically employers who have posted vacancies on job boards or advertised openings in other media.

Smart marketers know that both of these approaches are backward. Here’s how consultant Vicki Brackett characterizes this backwards approach in Meridith Levinson’s article on CIO.com:

“If we were going to sell an energy drink, we wouldn’t create the energy drink and then go to stores hoping they’ll buy it. We’d first do research. We’d find out who would drink the energy drink, what they’re looking for in an energy drink, how it would help them, how we’d get it to market, and what the packaging looks like. Once we understand that, we perfect the beverage and go to market.”

Just as no universal product appeals to all consumers, no universal job seeker appeals to all employers.

Neither jobs nor employers are one-size-fits-all. Savvy job seekers survey the universe of employers to determine how to break the market down into a more manageable subset of employers who will be keenly attracted to what the job seeker has to offer.

The proven strategy of target marketing enables the marketer or job seeker to reach the customers/employers whose needs are most likely to be filled by the entity being marketed. That’s a big reason to use target marketing in the job search – but just a few of the other reasons include:

It’s more efficient. Yes, target marketing requires a big investment in front-end research. But that investment pays off when the job seeker is productively going on interviews instead of sitting on his or her posterior by the computer uploading resumes to employers who might be interested – and then waiting for hiring managers to call.

It targets the portion of the job market most likely to hire. Huge numbers of jobs aren’t advertised. Employers hold back on publicizing vacancies for all kinds of reasons, but if you can get in on the pipeline of an unpublicized opening, you’ll have a huge advantage over the vast hordes responding to job postings and want ads.

Through target marketing, you’ll be a better fit and happier with the employer at which you land than if you took your chances with answering ads. Since you’ve carefully vetted each employer in your target market, you know you’re a good match, and you fit the organizational culture. The outplacement firm Lee Hecht Harrison notes that 70 percent of its clients get new jobs through target-market methods, a figure consistent with other studies.

A targeted job search is clearly the way to go.

If you need help in developing a target market of potential employers, schedule a call using this link http://www.harveycareers.com/discussion,
or email beverly@harveycareers.com or call 386-749-3111.

Developing a Targeted Mailing List

There are two basic schools of thought on direct mail aimed at locating a new position, commonly referred to as mass mailings and targeted direct mailings. The former relies on the premise that if enough letters and résumés are mailed, something will inevitably get attention, and that will result in an interview, or hopefully, multiple interviews, at different companies. Targeted mailings, on the other hand, are smaller mailings focused on a select audience, the market most likely to be seeking a candidate with your qualifications. The numbers may be smaller, but the results have proven to be more effective.

Opting to use this strategy requires research and strategy. The last thing you want to do is spend a lot of time, money, and effort on a campaign that lacks focus – and results. This is why it is vital that your targeted search involves the following:

Defining your ideal company
Creating a list of potential target companies
Prioritizing your list of target companies
Researching the companies thoroughly using Hoover’s database or other business resources
Networking with the decision makers
Presenting yourself as a solution to a major problem the interviewing company is having

Finding the right database targeted to companies and industries of your choosing will help you create your target company list. On average, direct mail campaigns get better results if the database mailing list is carefully selected using NAICS, SIC, or Hoovers codes, company size (revenues, employees), and geographic location.

Should you choose to conduct your own direct mail campaign, there are many sources aimed at locating recruiters and companies.

Putting Together Your Mailing List

There are a number of resources available to help you build a personalized list based on your target job search such as Hoovers, ReferenceUSA.com, and InfoUSA. These fee-based services are quite popular among executive job seekers. However, if you are on a tight budget, you may want to consider free options. Visiting websites like www.forbes.com/lists and Inc. Magazine provide insight into Fortune 500 companies, top performing companies, and the most profitable companies in all industries. Job seekers willing to take the time to dig a little deeper and conduct thorough research will find that creating a mailing list isn’t as daunting a task as it may seem.

This brief article is an excerpt from, Landing An Executive Position.

For further help:
Give Beverly Harvey a call at 386-749-3111
Send us an email at beverly@harveycareers.com
Schedule a call with Beverly at www.harveycareers.com/schedule

How to Leverage Blogs in Your Job Search

One of the more productive tools to make high-level executive contacts has turned out to be blogging. Many savvy job seekers are now including blogs as part of their research and networking strategy to find executive positions. Likewise, recruiters are using blogs to network with candidates and build a talent pipeline, while executive search firms are using blogs to identify and research candidates. Blogging has many useful applications that enable executive job seekers to:

Research a company and determine the corporate culture.
Network and make contact with a blogger in your target company.
Research a company’s services and products and technological developments to assess how solid your target company is in the marketplace and how well positioned it is for growth.
Increase your visibility on headhunters’ radar screens by keeping your credentials fresh in the minds of search professionals who are searching for talented executives.
Build a personal online brand and become a high-profile performer in your industry.
Position yourself as a valuable resource with a record of solid, provable accomplishments that attract career-building opportunities.

Blogging is particularly attractive to executive job seekers who have few top-level contacts with whom they can network, affording them an opportunity to open conversations with decision makers in target companies.

Establishing a blog is a relatively straightforward process that even non-technical professionals will find manageable. As a job seeker, you can approach blogging from one of the following two perspectives:

Post comments on established blogs.
Create your own blog that offers valuable information to your target audience, thereby establishing you as a thought leader.

Either approach will promote your brand and position you as a thought leader in your field.

This brief article is an excerpt from, Landing An Executive Position.

Targeted Research Gives Executive Job Seekers an Advantage over their Competition

What is the most effective executive job hunting strategy in today’s demanding market? The answer may surprise you. With so many job seekers searching for the proverbial needle in the haystack when it comes to finding the perfect position, targeted research offers a direct path to landing that attractive executive position at a company that offers the opportunity for professional growth and development. Just as employers need to screen potential employees, executive job seekers need to screen prospective employers to make sure the goals of the company match the goals of the executive. This is best done through targeted research.

When you research target companies, consider the following characteristics of the company:

Is the company private or public? Is it for-profit or a not-for-profit?
What is the company’s industry classification?
What is the company’s vision, strategy, and mission?
What is the company’s culture? Is it a fast-paced environment or does it operate at a leisurely pace?
What is the stage of growth? Is the company a start-up, a sustaining business, or is it in decline?
Does the company grow through expansion of the current service or product lines, through acquisition, or by developing partnerships with other companies?
Is it in hyper growth or steady year-after-year growth?
Is it business-to-business, business-to-consumer, or business-to-government?
Is the company an industry leader, an emerging company, a pioneering company, or a traditional company?
It a green company, a socially conscious company, or does it ignore such considerations?
Does the pay scale and available benefits meet your needs?
What is the commuting distance?

As you can see there is much to consider about targeted companies. Directed research is the hallmark of an effective targeted marketing campaign. Above all, it’s an opportunity to learn about target companies and discover major problems that you can solve. Although this is the nitty-gritty of the executive job search, it is important to take your time with the research process as it will give you an advantage over your competitors. A candidate who knows the interviewing company’s problems and how to resolve them is the job candidate who lands the job. It’s that simple.

So, how do you find these answers? Check out Landing an Executive Position – Proven Job Search Strategies that Win Offers for a list of websites that offer valuable company information as well as a list of strategies that include purchasing company mailing lists, using Google news alerts, and corresponding with industry recruiters to gather as much targeted research as possible about companies you are interested in pursuing.

This brief article is an excerpt from Landing An Executive Position.

Why Pursue The Hidden Job Market

Are you ready for a shocking statistic? A review of the Department of Labor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics report states that the majority of all jobs are hidden or unadvertised. The actual percentage changes month to month but has been interpreted by some experts to be as high as 80 percent. This would indicate that only 20 percent of jobs are posted.

The hidden job market refers to unadvertised positions. They’re normally found only through networking with your contacts until you locate decision makers either contemplating hiring an executive, or companies with an existing opening they prefer to fill through personal contacts rather than through the traditional routes of hiring recruiters or running ads in trade papers and online.

This underground market is extensive, but it’s difficult to put a number on it because the positions are not advertised, not filled through recruiters, nor posted on job boards online. And most of those positions are for executives.

The number of positions available through the hidden job market has been increasing recently. A few of the reasons why such positions may not be posted and thus classified as hidden include:

People resign, retire, pass away, are fired for illegal or immoral behavior, or may be deemed inadequate and flagged for replacement.
Staff reductions have left many human resource (HR) departments operating with minimum staff.
In an effort to cut costs, many companies that regularly contract with executive search firms have decided to eliminate this expense.
Employed executives may have submitted their resignations but agreed to stay on until replacements arrive.
Company decision makers may be formulating new positions, but have not yet developed job descriptions, skill requirements

There are many reasons companies prefer not to advertise job openings. For instance a need for secrecy, the high cost of using recruiters, and not wanting to get swamped with résumés and applications (overloading the human resources function). But that doesn’t mean that it isn’t worth trying to uncover these seemingly ellusive jobs. It takes a lot of networking and research, but there’s very little, if any, competition for these opportunities.

This brief article is an excerpt from, Landing An Executive Position.

Is Your Job Search Strategy Producing The Results You Want?

A focused job search includes extreme clarity, a concentrated effort, persistence, and out-of-the-box thinking. It also includes a system and methodology including upfront analysis and planning, research and investigation, a due diligence process, organization of multiple concurrent activities, and precise execution.

In Bryan Golden’s, nationally syndicated weekly newspaper column, Dare to Live Without Limits, his March 4, 2009 column in The Resident is entitled “Concentrated Effort Brings Success.” He writes, “It’s true, success does take effort. But it also takes as much, if not more, effort to continuously struggle without being on a path to success. Living takes effort. However, you have the power to formulate any strategy you want for expending your effort. You can scatter your efforts so nothing is accomplished. Or you can concentrate your effort into a powerful force.”

Here is an analogy Golden provides to make his case: “What happens when spilled jet fuel on a runway is ignited? It burns, creates a lot of heat, but doesn’t get you anywhere. But burn it in a jet engine and you then have the means to get to a specific destination.

“Why are there different results? When fuel burns on the runway, its effort is dispersed and nothing is accomplished. When it burns in a jet engine, the effort is concentrated and the effort is concentrated and directed in one direction. Only in the engine will the fuel’s effort get you anywhere.”

Only in the engine will the fuel’s effort get you anywhere.

“It’s true, success does take effort. But it also takes as much, if not more, effort to continuously struggle without being on a path to success.”

The same can be said for job search.

Focus your job search efforts. The intensity you build with focus will help you carry the day.
Decide on the type of job you want. Create a job description for your ideal or dream job. Be precise and include the challenges, responsibilities, team environment, and culture.
Decide what type of company interests you. Would you prefer to work for a company funded by private equity or venture capital? Would you prefer to work for a large public company or small privately held company? A forward thinking, fast paced company or a time-honored, deliberate company? A regulated or non-regulated company?
Research your ideal job. Talk to executives who have held the position in which you are interested. Do a target-gap analysis of the skills, knowledge, and abilities you’ll need for your ideal position. Decide how you’ll overcome the gaps.
Perform an analysis of your existing network. Develop a strategy for expanding your network so you can connect with the people who can help you.
Study your target companies. Talk to people who currently work for your target companies, as well as those who previously worked for the companies.
Study your target industry. Conduct research to find out where the industry is headed, how the industry is faring in this economic downturn, and what challenges and barriers the industry faces.
Create a customized version of your marketing materials (résumé, accomplishment stories, positioning statement, cover letter, and other materials) that you can use for your target job. Use these customized versions as your leave behind marketing pieces. In other words, materials you can leave with people you have spoken with regarding your target job. By way of an example, consider meetings you’ve had with sales professionals. Most likely they provided customized documentation and left a brochure and other marketing materials for your review and consideration. Follow this strategy and you’ll find your job search efforts more rewarding.

The bottom line: Job search is all about networking and getting internal contacts at target companies to recommend you.

Looking For Work? Keep It Up Through the Holidays

…Large companies often have “use it or lose it” hiring budgets they need to spend by the end of their fiscal year, which for many firms coincides with the calendar year. “We’ve had facilities [such as hospitals] call us and say, ‘We have $100,000 to spend for recruitment and if we don’t use it this year, we don’t get it next year,'” explains Sean Milius, CEO of Management Recruiters of Colorado, a health-care focused affiliate of MRINetwork. Money might go toward signing bonuses and relocation packages, Mr. Milius says. Read the full article by WSJ’s Lauren Weber here…