15

Personal Branding: Using What You’ve Learned to Land Your Dream Job

Whether you’re happy in your job or searching for your next gig, you need to plant the seeds now for a professional network that can reach potential employers and colleagues who will give you solid job referrals. Building this type of network takes time, and you want it in place before you actually need it.

We have both received calls from people looking for work, wondering if we can help them, know of any openings in their field, and introduce them to other people they should talk to. We’re always willing to help as much as we can, but it can sometimes be difficult to be helpful on short notice.

Erik once received a call from a friend a few days after the friend—we'll call him Bob—was laid off from his old position.

“I’m reaching out to the people in my network to find a new job,” said Bob.

“Who does that involve?” asked Erik.

“The people I used to work with,” said Bob. The problem was he came from a fairly closed company—no outside networking, no outside meetings. In short, the only people Bob knew were just as professionally isolated as he was. And the only job opening they knew of was Bob’s old one.

But if you don’t have a job at this moment, you still have time to network. (We were just trying to scare the hell out of the people who already have a job and are wasting time watching reality TV night after night.) Building your network to find potential employers and job referrals can take a few months, and if you’re wondering about your next paycheck, this can be an especially scary time.

So you need to start building your network because 1) you might get lucky and find something right away and 2) you want to have the network in place so when you’re looking for another job, you don’t have a long and expensive ramp-up time.

If we haven’t said it enough, we’ll say it again: Building your personal brand is all about building relationships. You need to build and maintain those relationships over weeks, months, and years, both online and offline. Use social media to build your brand and expand your network to help with your job search when the time comes.

Our friend Jack¹ has benefitted from having a strong social media presence and landed a couple of jobs that way. The director of global Internet marketing at a Fortune 100 corporation once hired him for a social media position after reading his blog. He wrote regularly about how social media humanizes a brand and builds community with its customers. The corporation just happened to be launching a social media initiative at the same time, and the director liked what Jack wrote.

During the job interview, the director told Jack that he was impressed with his blog and thought Jack had the knowledge to help him launch the company’s global social media initiative.

Jack’s blog basically positioned him as the thought leader for leading the corporation’s new initiative. He got the interview because someone within the company had been reading his blog and passed the information to the global Internet marketing director.

The only time he presented a résumé was during the interview, when he and the director discussed other points of his professional background. Jack got the job and worked there for over a year.

This is what the previous 14 chapters have led up to. This is where your personal branding efforts will ultimately pay off. Using these tools, you will have a better chance of finding and landing the job you want in the industry you enjoy.

This is why you need to treat social media as a networking tool, not just a way to play Words with Friends on your phone or organize pub crawls with your college buddies. You need to be your own marketer and create your own buzz. If you can create enough buzz about yourself, employers will start to imagine what you can do for them.

Using Your Network to Find a Job

Jack’s story about being contacted by a marketing director is not that unusual. In Jack’s case, the two were connected on a few different social networks for more than a year. They were well aware of each other, had followed each other’s progress, and kept up with each other before the job opened up. Jack first connected with the marketing communications director before he landed at the Internet marketing company.

Even though Jack didn’t get the job, the fact that he made it that far into the company’s hiring process says a lot about the online connections he made. It wasn’t a position he sought; rather, he just happened to be connected to the right person at the right time.

Since we wrote the first edition of this book, this has become much more commonplace. We’ve heard more and more stories from our readers about how they made that first job-related connection on social media, rather than on the major job boards or by sending a résumé. They followed the steps in these pages, and landed an interview, a contract, or even a full-time job.

We’ve talked before about the serendipity of social media: the idea that you will meet the right person with the right opportunity at the right time. Of course, this doesn’t just magically happen. You must be present and participate for a long time before that right person with the right opportunity comes along. Just like the athlete who spends countless hours practicing her sport, you need to spend countless hours developing your personal brand. Those hours will eventually pay off by connecting with, not the first person, not the tenth person, not even the hundredth person, but with the person who is your thousandth connection.

And you can’t rush these things. So, no cheating.

Twitter: Connections in 140 Characters

This is when it’s okay to talk about yourself more than a little. (See Chapter 5, “Twitter: Sharing in the Conversation.”) If you’re job hunting, feel free to tell your Twitter friends. In fact, tell your entire network on social media. Ask them to keep an eye open for any position that matches your skills and experience. Direct them to your LinkedIn profile, your blog, and your online portfolio (if you have one). A lot of friends and industry colleagues will know about job openings that may not hit the job boards or even be widely known within the hiring company yet.

Tweet a variation of this message more than once or twice a week, and ask people to send you a direct message if they have anything. Ask them to retweet your request.

LinkedIn: Professional Connections

While we were working on the new edition of this book, Erik was asked by a freelance writer to introduce her through LinkedIn to a hiring manager at a publishing house. Interestingly, Erik didn’t even know the person he was supposed to introduce the writer to. But he did know someone who knew the hiring manager.

By reviewing Erik’s connections, the freelancer had seen that he was connected to the hiring manager by two degrees. In other words, there was one person between Erik and the hiring manager.

So, she sent Erik a “Get Introduced” request, which not only had a message to the hiring manager, but a message to Erik asking him to make the connection. He forwarded that on to the person he was connected with, who then forwarded it on to the hiring manager. The connection was made, and the writer sent her résumé. The freelancer worked the system in the best way possible: by leveraging her existing network.

One of the great things about LinkedIn is that you can see who knows whom, who is connected, and what they do for their employer. You can make the decision about who to connect with.

The Art of the LinkedIn Connection

Making a connection on LinkedIn is an important part of the job search process. For one thing, you don’t want to constantly pepper your entire network about whether they know of any job openings. It’s okay to ask every week or two, but bugging them day after day is bad form and will get you unconnected and ignored as fast as any spammer. (See Chapter 4, “LinkedIn: Networking on Steroids” to learn more about how LinkedIn connections are formed.) Figure 15.1 shows how many connections you have on your LinkedIn page.

Figure 15.1 LinkedIn shows you how you’re connected to someone else in your network. This is Kyle's profile, as seen through Erik’s account. We have 1,143 connections in common. The second degree connections on the right are the people who are connected to Kyle, but not to Erik.

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@edeckers:  Man, we sure know a lot of people.
@kyleplacy: Tell me about it. Do you know how many Christmas cards
            I sent out last year?
@edeckers:  One less than you think you did. I never got one.
@kyleplacy: What? I can't hear you! I'm going through a tunnel.
            <**signal dropped**>
@edeckers:  Nice try. We're on Twitter.

Asking your networking contacts for a connection is a tricky process. For one thing, you may ask your best friend to connect you with one of his contacts (someone you don’t actually know), but addressing him like you would in any other email may not be appropriate. Figure 15.2 is a good example of what not to say to your friend in an introduction request.

Figure 15.2 This is an example of what not to write in an introductory email. It doesn’t matter if your connection is your best friend. The person you want to connect to is not your friend.

The person you’re ultimately connecting to will see this note to your contact, so it needs to be as professionally written as your cover note to your final connection. This means spelling, grammar, and punctuation must be perfect. If necessary, write your note in a word processing document, edit it a couple times, and then sit on it for 24 hours. Edit it one more time, and then send it. Do this for both notes.

Your friend may have a few errors in his note to your connection, but you can’t afford that luxury.

If you need to, send a separate email to your contact telling him what you’re about to do. See if he can recommend any strategies for dealing with your final connection.

Should You Connect Directly or Ask for a Connection?

Isn’t it easier to contact someone directly rather than ask someone to ask someone to connect you? Sure it is. But it’s not always more effective.

It’s one thing to connect with someone because you’re both in the same LinkedIn group, belong to the same social network, or even are part of the same trade association. You can always send a personal note that tells the other person how you’re connected.

But what if that other person has no idea who you are? It’s not always a great idea to try to connect with someone you have absolutely no connection with. It may be perceived as annoying, intrusive, or some cheap way to connect because you’re trying to look for a job. (Sure, that’s what you are doing, but you just don’t want it to look that blatant.)

This is why asking someone for that introduction is a better step to take; you’re asking a trusted acquaintance to vouch for you. By forwarding a connection request, an acquaintance is, in essence, saying, “I know this person. This is someone I think you should get to know, because it will be a mutually beneficial connection.” (Reread the section on making an email introduction in Chapter 12, “How to Network: Hello, My Name Is…”)

Use LinkedIn and Facebook to Get Inside Info

The best way to understand a company’s culture is to talk to current and former employees. Search for a company name on LinkedIn, and look for people who work or used to work at that company. Try to pick the ones who are closest to you in terms of degrees of connectedness.

Connect directly through the usual process by asking for introductions or by joining an industry group and then connecting that way (again, see Chapter 4, “LinkedIn: Networking on Steroids”), and explain that you’re looking for insight into that employer. After you connect, ask some basic questions about life at the company, their areas of responsibility, the sorts of issues they regularly face at work, and a typical day at the company.

This strategy can be a bit risky if you do it the wrong way or ask the wrong questions. Make it clear that you’re not looking for gossip or secrets, but you want to know some day-in-the-life type information. Ask things like what you can expect if you work there, what the work climate is like, and what the hot button issues are that you might mention during an interview.

Don’t try to find out insider information or dig up dirt on your potential boss. Your new contact may have a long-standing friendship with this person, and your nosiness can get back to them in a few seconds.

Of course, if your contact happens to drop a little gossip about the person who might ultimately be your boss, or why they left, don’t ignore it. Everyone has a bad boss now and again, and if your information gathering reveals the person you’re trying to work for is a tyrannical egomaniac who could reduce Genghis Khan to tears, it’s better you find out now than two weeks into your new job.

Creating a Résumé

Your résumé is basically a synopsis of your career, your best qualities, and your successes. It’s evidence of your overall awesomeness, and it gives companies a reason to bring you in for an interview.

That’s worth repeating: A résumé is not supposed to get you a job; it’s supposed to get you an interview.

We’d love to say that you could have Jack’s luck and connect with people online…

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@edeckers:    Actually, we are saying that. That's the point of
              the whole book.
@kyleplacy:   I know. I just didn't want the legal department
              jumping all over us with their disclaimers.
@LegalBeagle: Whereas many, but not all, of your claims might
              possibly be taken as guarantees of performance,
              we have concerns that some, but not all
              rec– ***CHARACTER LIMIT REACHED***

…but that doesn’t happen to everybody. It happens often enough that this is a strategy worth pursuing, but it needs to be one part of a job search campaign, not the entire campaign. You need a résumé.

Should I Write a Paper Résumé?

Short answer: “Well…”

Longer answer: “Yes, but….”

Best answer: “If you have to.”

Our friend and social media guru Doug Karr says he hasn’t used a paper résumé in years. He steers potential clients toward his LinkedIn profile, and if they don’t know how to use it or still insist on a paper résumé because “that’s the way we’ve always done it,” he doesn’t want to work with them.

Of course, Doug is in the rather enviable position of being “kind of a big deal.” He co-wrote Corporate Blogging for Dummies, he’s a highly sought-after speaker on blogging and marketing technology, and has become one of the leading marketing technology voices in the industry.

Doug’s attitude may be a little unusual because much of the corporate world is still locked into using electronic résumés that can be easily uploaded into a company’s candidate management software. But when will LinkedIn become the standard operating procedure for more and more companies? How long will it be before companies start allowing resume websites like about.me?

We’re longing for the day this will happen—that corporate America will join the rest of us here in the 21st century and find a new, better, more efficient way to screen candidates. Until then, right or wrong, like it or not, you should develop a traditional résumé and be prepared to give it to anyone who asks. At least until you become a big shot and can afford to refuse to work for anyone who doesn’t want to check your LinkedIn profile.

How Does Social Media Fit in Your Résumé?

Everyone uses social media so much these days that people now ask whether they should include it among their skills, at least for nonsocial media positions. Another, more important question is if you have skills, knowledge, and experience in social media that can be demonstrated.

It comes down to this: If you know enough about social media to teach an entire day-long seminar on the subject, you can list it. If you spent an entire day creating a Double Rainbow/Over the Rainbow mashup video, keep that to yourself. Table 15.1 shows some other do’s and don’ts for mentioning social media on your résumé.

Table 15.1 When to Include Social Media Skills on Your Résumé

Do Include	Don’t Include	Exception
You spend several hours a week creating a video reality series.	You post videos of your dog dancing to Ray Charles songs.	Your dancing dog videos have 2 million hits a month and you’re in negotiations for a TV series.
You blog about Facebook marketing.	You made $1 billion in gold coins playing Pirate Clan on Facebook.	You made $1 billion in real coins creating Pirate Clan for Facebook.
You helped a restaurant create a Swarm marketing campaign.	You’re the mayor of your favorite coffee shop, and you get a free muffin every Monday.	Your army of Swarm followers has increased revenue for your favorite coffee shop by 200 percent.

Six Tips for Listing Social Media on Your Résumé

Social media is part of daily life now, so it’s often okay to include a couple of networks, especially LinkedIn and your blog:

1. Make sure you can demonstrate your success on past campaigns: Use analytics to show the results of past social media campaigns. Mention your best ones on the résumé, but come to interviews prepared to discuss numbers. Have printouts of results and summaries. Use tools like Google Analytics and a spreadsheet to show your successes.

2. Only list the social networks that you use in a professional manner: “Started the Cougar Moms Who Love Twilight Facebook Page” is probably not suitable for a résumé. Keep things like Facebook and Snapchat off yours, unless you have a professional business page with a design portfolio or hundreds of thousands of Snapchat connections. Keep your Facebook profile free of incriminating photos and content, even if it’s not on your résumé. (Hiring managers will probably search for it to learn more about you, so be prepared.)

3. Make sure your personal networks are clean and devoid of any inappropriate photos or comments: Don’t worry too much about what your friends have done or said; employers won’t hold that against you. Just make sure your own house is in order. You can also delete negative comments if you think it’s necessary.

4. Stick with three or four social networks: Don’t list every network you belong to, but use the ones that you think a hiring manager might be part of. Twitter and LinkedIn are the two big ones, but if you belong to an industry network, list it. Avoid esoteric networks if they’re not related to the job or industry you’re applying for.

5. Shorten URLs using ow.ly or another URL shortener, if you have long URLs: Use URLs whenever appropriate to point hiring managers to important information. This can include blogs, articles, galleries and portfolios, and LinkedIn URLs.

6. Claim your personalized URL on Facebook and LinkedIn: Although you won’t necessarily post your Facebook URL on your résumé, you should at least try to own it. Do post your LinkedIn URL on your résumé. Personalized URLs generally look like http://www.facebook.com/erikdeckers or http://www.linkedin.com/in/kylelacy.

Do’s and Don’ts of Résumé Building

Writing a résumé is both an art and a science. There are people who devote their professional lives to résumé writing. If you can afford to work with one of them, it could be well worth it. You can also read books and blogs on résumé writing. In the meantime, here are a few do’s and don’ts for you to consider:

• Don’t lie: You’d think we wouldn’t have to say this, but you’d be surprised at the number of people who act like they’ve never heard this at least once in their lives. Do not lie on your résumé! It’s as simple as that. If you lie, you will be caught. Maybe not during the job search; maybe not even during your first year. But you will be caught. And when you are, things will most certainly hit the fan.

In 2001, football coach George O’Leary left his job at Georgia Tech University to become the head football coach for the University of Notre Dame. His tenure there lasted all of 120 hours because he lied about having a Master’s degree and lettering three times in college football; he never played a single game. Five days after he was hired, O’Leary was asked to resign—he was humiliated and derided across the country.

Lucky for O’Leary, he was hired by the Minnesota Vikings the next year. He stayed in football until 2015, when he became a college athletic director. But you won’t be so lucky. Your reputation will be ruined, and you’ll be forced to take a job you hate in a field you detest, all because you lied on your résumé.

• Don’t pad your résumé: Padding is the same thing as lying. If you earned a certification, don’t say you earned a degree. If you were a cashier, don’t make yourself sound like an accountant. If you unloaded trucks, don’t say you were in charge of shipping.

• Don’t worry about fancy paper: Back in the early 1990s, Erik bought an entire ream (500 sheets) of fancy résumé paper, and he printed dozens of résumés and sent them out. Not only did the fancy paper not help him find a job, but he only used 100 sheets and ended up recycling the remaining paper five years later.

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@kyleplacy: I was only 6 years old back then.
@edeckers:  Shut up. Stupid punk kid.

White paper is more than adequate for your résumé. Still, don’t use the cheapest copier paper you can find. Get something with some heft, like 24-pound or 28-pound bright white paper. You only need a few copies to take to your in-person interviews.

Don’t misspell anything: This is probably one of the most important pieces of résumé writing advice, although the fact that your résumé will be tossed because of a single typo also strikes us as one of the dumbest reasons to reject a candidate. Forget the years of hard work you’ve put in at other jobs, the Harvard MBA, the Medal of Honor, or the time you saved the president’s dog from choking on a chicken bone. None of it matters because you accidentally missed the third “s” in “antidisestablishmentarianism.”

Hard as it is to believe, some people are petty and small-minded enough to throw out an application—maybe even from the best person ever for the job—just because of a single typo. (Not that we’re bitter or anything.) Don’t give people that chance. Make sure your résumé is perfect and free of errors. Have a couple friends or even a résumé writing professional look over your résumé to ensure there’s nothing that even the most officious bureaucrat could find wrong with it.

Having said all that, typos and mistakes make you look careless and not that smart. Even one typo can make you look like you don’t care enough to carefully proofread your résumé.

• Do keep it short: Your résumé should be one page. Not two, not three, not five. One. Hiring managers spend an average of six seconds looking at your résumé, regardless of length.² They’re most likely not going to look at a second page, and they certainly won’t look at a third. So, it doesn’t do any good to have a five-page résumé that details all your work accomplishments, including the time you were assistant substitute cashier at the Pick-N-Pay.

Remember, your résumé is supposed to get you an interview. The interview is where you will win the job. Use bullet points to highlight accomplishments, use complete sentences that start with “I,” and avoid listing all your job responsibilities.

List your accomplishments instead. If you’ve been in your field for 20 years, including your internship is not as helpful as explaining how you led a company-wide initiative that saved $5 million.

Of course, if you’re going for a position that requires an eight-page résumé (for example, a college president or corporate CEO), it means you’re looking for the kind of position for which you will deal directly with an executive head hunter or search committee. If that’s the case, your résumé is going to be long because of your accomplishments over the past 15–20 years; still, you shouldn’t include your internship. You definitely need to work with a recruiter and résumé professional in this situation. (And if you get the job, can you hire us?)

• Do show your accomplishments: A six-item bullet list of your job responsibilities at each position is not nearly as impressive as an explanation of how you solved a particular problem, managed a crisis, or helped your company save or make money. A bullet list of your responsibilities is not at all impressive; most people know what that kind of job entails. The goal of your résumé is to show how outstanding you are, not that you can come to work each day and perform your job description.

• Do tailor your résumé for each position: Remember, the résumé should be about how you can solve the company’s problems, not get your own needs filled. Figure out what the company wants to accomplish by filling the position (that is, what “pain point” are you going to solve for them?), and then figure out what qualities the perfect candidate would have to solve that pain.

• Do use action words and active voice: Action words are things like “organized,” “launched,” or “managed.” Phrases like “was responsible for” are weak and real yawners. Writing with authority and commitment shows drive and energy. Similarly, use the active voice, rather than the passive voice. Not only is the passive voice too wordy, it’s boring.

• Do get creative, when appropriate: If you’re in the creative field, a creative résumé is expected. If you’re in a conservative field, like banking or insurance, too much creativity is frowned upon. Feel free to let the creative juices flow if you think it will go over well. If you think it will cost you an interview, don’t risk it.

Don’t Rely on the Job Boards

If you’re searching for a job, don’t put all of your faith, time, and energy into the job boards, like CareerBuilder.com, Monster.com, and Indeed.com. Instead, you should spend most of your time following the steps we’ve discussed in the previous 14 chapters, as well as on informational interviews.

At the beginning of 2017, 6 million jobs—blue collar, white collar, manufacturing, technical, governmental, and so forth—were waiting to be filled,³ the highest since the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics began tracking this information in 2000.

Although the numbers seem to vary depending on who you talk to, job boards can hold anywhere from just five percent to 25 percent of all new jobs. No one seems to have a definitive answer.

On the other hand, we’ve read that 70 percent⁴ to 80⁵ or 85⁶ percent of all new jobs are landed through networking. One in 16 candidates hired come through referrals, while just one in 152 candidates hired come from a company’s job postings or the other big job boards.⁷

We’ve heard from people who were laid off who said, “My new job is to look for a job.” In essence, they’re going to spend eight hours a day cruising all the big job boards, applying to every job they qualify for (and even some they’re not), and they’re going to do that until they’re successful.

This is such a dreary way to search for a job, and it’s going to push you into depression within a few weeks or push you out of the job search. Even though one in 152 company jobs get filled on job boards, that doesn’t mean your odds are one in 152.

Instead, you’re going to face hundreds of rejections, going weeks and weeks without hearing anything back, and eventually get so discouraged, you start watching daytime television and get emotionally invested in some of the worst shows ever. You also get so desperate for any kind of job, your anxiety will blare through so loud and clear during your first phone interview that you’ll never get a second interview.

Back in 2005, Erik spent months and months cruising the job boards and applied to at least 300 different jobs. He finally lucked out and found one an hour from his house, but only after nine months of searching. And he experienced a lot of feelings of rejection and anxiety.

We’re not saying you should ignore the big job boards completely. Just don’t spend more than five percent of your time on them. Many companies post job vacancies just in the hopes of gathering a lot of candidate information, but they never fill the job. Others will automatically reject your résumé if you don’t have the right number of keywords. Many of them are rigged to discriminate against older job seekers.⁸ Go read the section on starting your own company in a few pages instead.

Otherwise, if you’re going to spend eight hours a day on anything, spend it going to networking events and having one-on-one meetings with people (re-read Chapter 12, “How to Network: Hello, My Name Is…”), or starting your own company and focusing on that. Anything beats eight hours of rejections. If you do have to do an online job search, check out the careers sections of the companies you want to work for.

Try the Company Job Boards

For every job posted, an HR department can receive a couple hundred applications through the job boards. Remember, the average time spent perusing a résumé is six seconds, so yours isn’t going to get much of a look. If 200–300 résumés come in through a job board for a single opening, and many of them aren’t even remotely qualified, it’s easy to see why applicant tracking software is popular.

Career sections of a website are a good idea for a company because they keep HR from being flooded with not-quite-qualified candidates. Companies are more likely to get applicants who are truly interested in the company through their Career links. After all, if you take the time to fill out an application, you should have more interest than the average job seeker who clicks “Apply to This Job” buttons like a telegraph operator.

If you want to keep track of what your target companies offer, you can try these steps:

• Use Indeed.com, a Google-like job board search engine, to save searches into an RSS feed.

• Follow people in your industry who are connected and will tell everyone about the openings in their industry or community. Create a private list for them on Twitter and keep track of them on TweetDeck. Some Twitterers do nothing but post jobs in their community, so it’s a good idea to follow them.

• Follow job opening blogs. We’ve known people who had blogs about different job openings in the various agencies, firms, and large companies around their hometown. One such blogger featured people looking for jobs, listing their skills, experiences, and a brief explanation of why they should be hired.

• Don’t forget your own industry newsletter. For example, several marketing newsletters and websites—Mashable.com, AMA.org (American Marketing Association), and MarketingProfs.com—aggregate marketing jobs around North America. Again, these are jobs that don’t always appear on the big job boards, so you can be sure that not everyone is going to be finding and submitting an application.

Use LinkedIn to Bypass Job Boards

Although we’ve said not to rely on the job boards to find openings, the corporate boards are useful for discovering jobs that will never make it to the big boards. Even if you don’t apply for those corporate jobs, they can still help guide your job search campaign.

One strategy is just to do a basic job search on the boards, see which companies are hiring, and then make connections on LinkedIn and Twitter with the hiring managers. Follow the strategy of connecting with them on LinkedIn and other platforms and demonstrating how you are a valuable resource. Have Twitter conversations with them, share blog posts and articles about their industry, and arrange an informational interview if they’re in your city.

Another strategy is to find the companies you want to work for in advance and start connecting with them now, before they’re hiring. Use the job boards, as well as their company’s LinkedIn profile, to find out more about those companies as well as see their employees. Then connect with the people who are most likely to work in the department you want to work for. Make yourself a valuable resource to them. That way, they’ll be more receptive to receiving your résumé and more interested in making sure they include you in their candidate pool.

Skip HR Altogether—Work Your Network

Of course, you can skip HR altogether. Going through standard HR channels can be extremely frustrating. It often seems like HR’s only function is to say “no”; to find the best people for the position and then toss their résumés out; or to completely miss the point of what the hiring manager is actually looking for. It’s not actually that bad, but sometimes the best way to land a new job is by talking directly to the hiring manager. This is where your network comes in handy.

Back in the 1980s and 1990s, Erik’s father-in-law Carmon was the VP of a large multi-national corporation. He was in charge of all the sales staff for the entire company. He said that whenever he asked the HR department for sales candidates, they made sure every candidate met the minimum HR requirements: they could type 45 words per minute and had a college degree. Of course, none of them could sell or spoke a second language.

But because he was also the VP of the company, Carmon could add his own candidates to the process. Although these candidates couldn’t always type and may never have gone to college, they spoke two or three languages, had sold multimillion dollar projects, and usually already had their own extensive network in their territories.

Guess which candidates Carmon hired. Every time.

Our point is, HR doesn’t always get it right, so it’s a good idea to have someone on the inside evangelizing for you. You don’t need to connect with an executive to get that introduction to the company. It can be anyone. But the more people you know within an organization, the better your chances.

Another strategy—one that will help you avoid the masses who are still slogging it out on the job boards and in HR departments—is to follow your chosen companies in the news. Create a Google News Alert and keep an eye out for any mentions of expansion, new programs, new funding, or rounds of venture capital. Also watch out for promotions and departures by the people in the departments you want to work in. (You know they’re going because you connected with them on LinkedIn.)

As you hear about these promotions and departures, start asking your contacts at those companies if they are making plans to add new positions. Make sure you’re already communicating with them, so this isn’t the first they’re hearing from you. Just make it part of your regular conversation.

Also, be sure to blog about the news as you hear it. Retweet articles and give a shout out to your contacts who work for that company so they know you’re talking about them.

Tell Your Friends

Most importantly—and we can’t stress this enough—tell your network that you’re looking for a job. That’s what it’s there for. If you’ve followed along with us through all 15 chapters, or if you skipped straight to this chapter because you’re already using social media, you should already have an outstanding social network filled with people who would love to help you.

So tell them, “Hey everyone! I’m looking for a new job! I’ve been a _______ for the last few years and want to stay in that field.” Be sure to mention that you’re currently freelancing or started a business, if applicable, and that new clients are helpful, but you’re also in the market for a full-time position.

Put it on Twitter, put it on Facebook, change your LinkedIn bio, and post your news anywhere else you need to make sure people see it. This is what your social networks are for! You’ve been building relationships with these people for months and years so you can help them and they can help you!

This is not the time for shame or false modesty. You need a job, you need to pay your rent or mortgage, you need to take care of your family. So tell people what you need. If you have a strong network, you’ll be amazed at the number of people who will offer some sort of help, information, introduction, assistance, or just straight up hire you because you told your online friends, “I need a job!”

But it’s not going to happen if you haven’t been building your networks and forming relationships with people. So if you did skip straight here, go back to Chapter 1 and do everything we told you.

The Informational Interview

Okay, this is the big one! This section right here is worth the price of this book alone. It’s one of the biggest but most productive secrets we’ve seen in action over and over, both in our own lives and the lives of our friends and readers. If you do this, you greatly increase your chance of finding a new job.

Erik had been living in Indianapolis for a year, working as the crisis communication director for the state health department, when he realized he didn’t know anyone in the city other than his co-workers. He wanted to break into the marketing world, but also knew better than to try to beat his head against the fortress walls that seemed to surround it.

He didn’t know anyone to ask for help, so he did something audacious: He emailed the CEO of the city’s largest PR firm. In addition to being the CEO, Bruce Hetrick was also a columnist in Erik’s local business newspaper, and they shared a lot of the same ideas and habits as fellow writers.

Erik introduced himself and asked if Bruce would be available to talk so he could learn about the industry and his new hometown. Erik was surprised to receive a reply a couple of hours later inviting him to Bruce’s office. As they talked, Bruce told Erik how he got his start and what ultimately led him to open his own firm. He mentioned people Erik should talk to, traps to avoid, and what kinds of things he should be looking for and asking about.

Bruce said he was happy to meet with Erik because this was exactly how he got his own start when he moved to Indianapolis nearly 15 years before. He did informational interview after informational interview, always asking the same questions. After three months, Bruce had three job offers and enough freelance work to keep him busy 40 hours a week, all without applying for a single job.

He ended up running the PR department for a local hospital, which led to him starting his own agency a few years later. Because of what his own informational interviews led to, he always agreed to meet with people who asked for the same thing.

Bruce has since become a good friend to both of us, and we still meet on occasion to discuss writing, PR, and social media. But that initial meeting taught Erik all about the importance of informational interviews and what it can do for networking and personal branding.

If you go on informational interviews, here are five tactics to use.

• Ask how the other person got started: Many people forget this. Dozens of people ask us for the same interviews, but only a few have asked about how we got our starts. We learn through stories, so ask people to tell you theirs. You’ll gain some valuable lessons about what to do and not do. Most people’s lives can serve as morality plays to our own, so learn from them.

• Take careful notes: If nothing else, you look like you’re paying attention. But more importantly, the people you talk to will interrupt their story to say “you need to speak to so-and-so.” Write that name down and anything else they tell you about that person.

• Never mention open positions at their company: Otherwise, that sounds like the only thing you’re looking for, and they’ll feel like you took advantage of them. It may be tempting. You may even be the ideal fit for that position. But don’t do it. If they mention it, just say, “I saw that on your website, but I didn’t want to mention it because I didn’t want you to think that’s why I was here. My goal was to meet with you, not ask for a job.”

• Always ask “Who else should I talk to?” This is the chance to tap into the expert’s network. Ask her for an introduction to another person, as that will make your reaching out to him easier, and he’s more likely to respond to you.

• Stay in touch: Some of these people, just by virtue of being influencers in their fields and the communities, could be powerful mentors and allies. Keep in touch with them, let them know what you’re doing, and get together every few months. If the relationship progresses, make it a monthly thing. Ask them to be a mentor and learn as much as possible from them.

Information interviews work for one simple reason: People love to talk about themselves. If you’re job hunting, and you call someone to talk about opportunities, there’s a very good chance they won’t want to talk to you.

If you’re a freelancer, and you call someone about freelancing for them, they might want to talk to you. Fifty-fifty chance, tops.

But if you call someone and ask them to talk about themselves for an hour, they’re going to all but leap at the chance.

So if you’re looking for a job, try this before you spend much time on the job boards. And share your results with us on Twitter or an email to tell us how you did!

Start Your Own Company

This is the other big secret we like to share. If you ever find yourself laid off, the very first thing to do is start your own company, or declare yourself to be a freelancer, in the very field or role you want to be working in.

If you used to be a marketing copywriter, now you have a copywriting agency or are a freelance copywriter.

If you used to work in HR, you’re now an HR consultant who helps fast-growing companies troubleshoot their hiring practices and creates processes that will help them manage their rapid growth.

If you used to be a corporate accountant, you are now a CPA and bookkeeper helping small businesses or serving as a part-time CFO for slightly larger businesses.

Erik was once asked by an out-of-work CFO for some career advice. Erik suggested he start a CFO practice while he was job searching, and the guy landed four clients in six weeks. Now he owns his own roving CFO business and makes more money than he ever did with his former full-time job.

Even if you never actually land a single client, you need to create this company or list this freelance position. Don’t forget to change your social media bios, especially LinkedIn, to reflect this new role.

Unfortunately, especially during the recession of 2008–2011, plenty of hiring managers looked down their noses at people who couldn’t find jobs. Never mind that there were hiring freezes throughout the country and unemployment was nearing ten percent in some industries.

These people assumed that something must be wrong with a job candidate who hadn’t worked in six months. If that candidate lived in a city of 200,000 people and only a handful of companies ever hired for that person’s particular role, and none of them had any openings, that wasn’t a reflection on that candidate. It was a reflection of the economic climate. But that made no difference to the hiring managers who had forgotten their own good fortune.

Even though such hiring managers could have made a big difference in the life of that out-of-work candidate, and possibly saved him from bankruptcy, they would have rather hired the candidate who already had a job. Many still feel that way.

Even if it was just a freelance job, the working candidate was assumed to be somehow better than the out-of-work candidate, because they were keeping their skills and knowledge fresh.

So, if nothing else, start your own company and put it on your résumé so it appears as if you’ve been working during your layoff period. Set up a free website on WordPress.com and get some business cards printed.

However, with this new business, you have an “in” to companies that others don’t. Remember when we said, “If you’re a freelancer and you call someone about freelancing for them, they might want to talk to you”? Your odds may not be great, but with some cold calling and regular networking, you could find yourself sitting down with the manager who hires freelancers and contractors.

If you’re lucky, you’ll get some freelance work, and that can keep you afloat until you find a full-time job again. But if you’re really lucky, the hiring manager will say, “You know what? It’s too complicated to keep hiring you for freelance projects. Just come work for us.” (We’ve known a couple people that happened to, so it’s possible.)

But best of all, you may find that you’re actually good at freelancing and can build a successful business out of the work.

When your freelance business turns into a real company and you’re hiring people for open positions, that hiring manager who looked down her nose at you is going to show up, hat in hand, looking for a job, hoping you can toss her a lifeline. You’re going to sit down and tell her the story about how you got to be where you are and why. And then you’re going to toss her a lifeline, offer her a job, and help her provide for her family, because you’re a good person.

How Can Our Heroes Find a Job Through Networking?

• Allen (influencer) spent 14 years working for an ad agency, amassed a large network with contacts in that world, and is a member of a professional advertising association. Because his aim is to stay in the industry, he needs to spend time cultivating and deepening his online relationships with people he is already connected to and making new contacts with other industry people.

If he’s willing to move, Allen should also expand his network to the cities he would like to move to. Allen needs to connect with people in those cities on LinkedIn and Twitter, and start developing online relationships with them.

• Beth (climber) plans to become the chief marketing officer of an insurance company, but she prefers the one she is in. Still, this doesn’t mean she is guaranteed to stay, especially because she’s willing to switch jobs to move up the career ladder. Beth should focus on connecting with people who are one and two steps above her, as well as industry colleagues outside her company. The people a step above may eventually move up their own ranks or leave the company. If she knows early on about her colleagues leaving (they would tell her before the opening ever hits the internal job listings), she’s in a good position to get her résumé into the hands of that person’s manager, who is two steps above her current position. The same is true with connections in other companies.

• Carla (neophyte) is a former pharmaceutical sales rep who is out of work but trying to find a fundraising or program director position at a nonprofit. Not only should she connect with people who work for nonprofits, she should connect with their board members. These people often know about open positions before they are made public, and Carla can ask them for a direct referral. Although Carla may be a neophyte in terms of industry connections, she has a head start because many corporate pharmaceutical executives sit on boards of nonprofits.

• Darrin (free agent) is an IT professional who leaves his job every two or three years in pursuit of more money. He should communicate with IT workers in other companies via email and Twitter direct messages. These people often know about new positions opening before HR does and can alert Darrin to the fact, as well as pass his résumé on to their managers. The logical thing to do is to work LinkedIn and any industry discussion boards to tell people he’s interested, but this could be a problem if Darrin’s current manager is connected to him as well.

Job Searching Tips in 140 Characters

We asked our Twitter friends for some job searching advice, and these are some of the gems they shared with us.

Don’t wait until you’re thirsty to dig a well. —@CynthiaSchames

@ChrisBrogan is fond of saying, “You live or die by your database.” —@edeckers

Follow companies in the industries where you would like to work. Then engage! Comment, reply, and retweet their posts. —@jlisak

Create a private Twitter list of businesses and influential people. Make intelligent connections with this group. Be subtle. —@LeilanMcNally

For recruiters, you are what you tweet. —@MaryBiever

Audit your social media footprint before a job recruiter does. —@MaryBiever

Learn about the company’s culture by following the company and the staff, if possible, on Twitter. Decide if you fit or not. —@MaryBiever

Let your mail/UPS/FedEx person know you’re job hunting. They may know of unadvertised opportunities. —@PamelaReilly1

Follow hashtags on twitter to find opportunities not advertised on job boards. —@sandrulee

Get active with network groups and set up meetings w/influencers in field of your choosing. —@IndyBethG

Be professional; a feed full of racist/sexist comments isn’t a good thing to show a potential employer. —@McMullen_Greg

Your résumé is your first impression. You have 10 seconds to stand out from the crowd. Be sure the good stuff rises to the top. —@AprilLynneScott

1. Also not his real name, but he’s really our friend. No, really, we have friends!

2. http://business.time.com/2012/04/13/how-to-make-your-resume-last-longer-than-6-seconds/

3. https://www.fastcompany.com/3066700/how-youll-search-for-a-job-in-2017

4. https://money.usnews.com/money/blogs/outside-voices-careers/2014/09/17/dont-believe-these-8-job-search-myths

5. http://www.recruitingblogs.com/profiles/blogs/80-of-today-s-jobs-are-landed-through-networking

6. https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/new-survey-reveals-85-all-jobs-filled-via-networking-lou-adler

7. http://www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2016/10/05/877340/0/en/New-Research-Shows-Only-One-in-100-Candidates-is-Hired-Referred-Candidates-Nearly-10-Times-as-Likely-to-be-Hired-as-Applicants.html?parent=877341

8. https://www.forbes.com/sites/nextavenue/2017/04/10/the-problem-with-job-boards-for-older-job-seekers/#5104d8d72075