JOB SEEKING IS OBVIOUS – I DON’T NEED A PLAN

Look at online careers discussions and you’ll see a range of comments. Some people warmly welcome all tips and ideas, some respond that job hunting is simple common sense. Others are hostile, cynically stating that any positive-minded advice is too disconnected from the misery of the real economy to be valid. This reveals an important paradox in the world of career thinking, outlined in The Interview Expert, which described the irony that the world is full of people who say that interview preparation is all obvious, yet, even in a recession, employers complain that a large proportion of candidates are badly prepared for interview.

A similar paradox applies here. Job seeking looks easy. After all, how hard is it to send out CVs and application forms? Isn’t it just a question of applying for jobs and keeping at it until somebody says ‘yes’? Writing your CV, too, seems a straightforward task of cataloguing and filtering information. It’s not rocket science, right? Yet, when I conducted CV research amongst employers asking them what they found most irritating, the most common answer was that job applications are not tailored in any way to the role, even to the simple extent of providing evidence which matches the employer’s most visible requirements.

Taking time out now to review where a plan might take you can make a big difference. It can make the difference between an acceptable job and the kind of job that puts a spring in your step on a Monday morning. Practically, it can shorten your job hunt time.

There are barriers that get in the way of an effective job hunt. Some are external and forced upon us by the marketplace. The most important barriers, however, are the limitations we place on our own thinking. These limitations keep us stuck in one unreflective mode of behaviour, repeating mistakes in the hope that simple repetition will win the day.

These limitations are powerful enough to allow us to avoid reality. For example, even though candidates know that conversations with other people shorten job hunting times, they still hide behind their computer screens. They use LinkedIn as a reason to avoid human contact, not a means to encourage it. They pretend that social interaction in the job hunting process is instinctive extravert behaviour, not a learned technique that can be adopted by nearly everyone. By insisting that job hunting is logical, simple and hardly worth thinking about, they don’t think about it at all.

We apply limits in other, subtle, ways. Candidates who find it difficult to secure interviews or job offers tweak and poke at their evidence like someone tinkering with a complex piece of machinery without any idea of the functions of various cables and switches. They often believe they need to transform everything. They restructure their CV several times and send out random messages, and when they continue to get poor results they start to believe that the market is too tough, too impenetrable, too arbitrary for any approach to work. The irony is that candidates in this position often only need to change a few small things to tip the odds in their favour.

Job seeking might look easy, and there’s a lot of bland advice out there that makes it seem so. However, when you stand back and look at the activity, it’s about communication, persuasion and influence. It’s about convincing people you don’t know very well to do something risky. It’s less like filing a patent request, more like successfully launching a new product. Less like applying for a postal vote and much more like winning votes in an election when you’re the outsider candidate.

If you are still unsure, just check out the difference it might make to think and act slightly differently. Talk to people who have found jobs. Give special attention to those who were unemployed for a number of months. Ask them how they achieved their final result. Then ask two questions: (1) ‘what activities worked best?’ and (2) ‘what would you do differently next time around?’ You’ll often hear the answer ‘I realise now I didn’t use my time well at the beginning of my job hunt’ or ‘I wish I had realised earlier on how important it is to see people face to face’. You’ll hear people regret the fact that they rushed to the market with a vague and slightly wounded message. Or they will say ‘I see now I had my head in the wrong place.’ They were swayed by arbitrary results achieved through indifferent applications for jobs they didn’t really want. They will talk about time wasted online, saying ‘I wish I hadn’t used a scattergun approach and had focused on just two or three types of jobs’.

We would rather avoid thinking about how we do things while job hunting, and just get on with it, pretending that it’s as simple as making an online purchase or applying for a loan. Any task which is about influencing and convincing others will always take more than five minutes to learn. Effective job hunting means thinking about how you will use your time most effectively, and knowing when it’s too early (or too late) for some strategies. More than anything else, it’s all about drawing on the collective knowledge of people who have travelled the path before you. If you insist on reinventing the wheel, it could be some time before you fall across the idea of a circle.

A job hunting plan is a framework, not a straightjacket. It needs to be flexible to your needs and adaptable enough to cope with the ups and downs the marketplace delivers. If there are parts of the framework presented by this book that you reject, rewrite or adapt to suit your needs, so much the better, but don’t write off the experience of others.

Just as everyone has their own style when making new connections in life, job hunters have a variety of ways of doing things. Some never stray from their computer screen, waiting for something to come along. Those at the other end of the scale are natural extroverts so really good at ‘getting out there’ establishing relationships and broadcasting their availability. As this book will show, most job hunters are somewhere in the middle. People tend to use the same strategies, even the same CV and interview language, as everyone else. Most people adopt largely passive behaviours. They have occasional bursts of activity followed by quieter times when they lick their wounds, go offline and remember an urgent need to redesign the garden or put their CD collection in alphabetical order – distraction is a great way of avoiding a good job hunt.

YOU’RE GOING TO TELL ME THE SECRET IS NETWORKING, AREN’T YOU?

At this stage in reading the book you’re looking for payoff. Is there a secret here? If there is, it’s one that unfolds with commitment and experiment, not through punch lines.

And no, networking is not the secret. There are other vital elements. Knowing what you’re looking for is vital, and so is getting your best message across quickly and efficiently. Yet if there is one activity that matters most in job seeking, it’s connecting with people.

As this book will show you, this isn’t about brash self-promotion or working the room with your business card. It’s much simpler. You will renew relationships with people you already know. You’ll find people who will inform, advise and keep your levels of optimism healthy. But your priority is new relationships with those people out there you haven’t met yet who can open all kinds of doors. A good job hunting plan is going to extend the range of people you know.

Relationships matter for all kinds of core work activities such as selling, managing, influencing – so why shouldn’t they matter most for job seeking? There is a difficulty, of course, as outlined by the comedian who said that ‘the problem with beginning dating is that you have to do those two awkward things – you know, talking and listening’.

THINK BEFORE YOU PLAN

Many of us are attracted by careers where other people make decisions for us. Professions such as law, medicine and accountancy offer well-defined pathways. Careers within large organisations appear to offer stability and a well-defined path. Because of this we’re very good at being passive in our careers – it’s attractive, because you put yourself in someone else’s hands, waiting for your boss, HR or a headhunter to recognise your value and tap you on the shoulder. This is a bit like waiting for the object of your desire to make the first move on a date, so you don’t have to take the risk of being rejected.

This passive behaviour will have a strong influence on your job search. Registering on job boards or with agencies appeals because you hand the problem over to someone else. Job seeking using your computer is tempting, if only because you can get going quickly without having to wait for people to return your call, or risking that slippery business of building relationships. Staring at your computer screen also has another appeal – it looks like work.

However, the reality is that passive behaviour rarely delivers results. Waiting around for your brilliant career to start is not a very effective way to succeed. So, take one very important first step before committing to your Job Hunting Plan. You need to decide from the outset not to be locked into passive behaviour. Instead, decide to take an active role in your future, opening doors as well as allowing them to be opened for you. Above all else, keep asking questions – you’re more likely to have a breakthrough chatting with the person next to you at the supermarket checkout than by spending all day registering on job boards.

Of course you will need to use the standard electronic tools, and use them thoughtfully and frequently enough to maintain your visibility, but keep in mind that job connections start by being human connections.

Even applying for advertised jobs is relatively passive. This idea surprises people who busy themselves sending off dozens of applications each week. However, relying exclusively on this channel is like limiting yourself to buying only products that appear in shop windows and never going in to see the wide range of goods available inside the shop.

Being passive isn’t just about sitting at home doing nothing and waiting for the phone to ring. It’s also about putting most of your job hunting time into things that don’t work very well. This kind of activity is easy, and feels safe. Yet you may be applying for jobs where you will be showing employers how good you are at doing things which are not easy, and how prepared you are to take calculated risks. If you’re active, imaginative and persistent when looking for a job, an employer can see that that’s how you will operate when you’re in a job.

Some activities feel easier than others – filling in application forms is easier than talking to people you don’t know. There are some activities which feel more like work itself – for example, spending most of the day at a computer screen. Some activities are more fun, some more intimidating. However, it’s also clear that some choices are likely to provide a better return on your time.

International career coach Angella Clarke-Jervoise writes:

Before you plan a job search strategy, learn what really makes you tick at work. Review your major successes and think about what you do well and what you enjoy. Explore lessons that have come out of work situations where you weren’t fulfilled or adequately rewarded. Being aware of this helps avoid falling into the trap again – it took me three bad jobs to work this out and I’m a recruiter!

WHAT YOU CAN DO TO SHORTEN YOUR JOB HUNTING TIME

So, as we’ve seen, all too often in job hunting we’re drawn to routine activities which require little brainpower and offer minimal risk. Low risk activity is passive – registering on job boards, submitting your CV electronically with a covering email, filling in online application forms. You can make it look like hard work, but the odds on this kind of activity shortening your job hunt are poor. The higher the risk of the activity, the greater its long-term results.

A plan should really be a plan, not a vague sense of how you’re going to proceed. Let’s begin by focusing on the actions which extend or shorten your job hunt:

ACTIVITIES LIKELY TO KEEP YOUR JOB HUNT EXTENDED

1. Registering exclusively on internet job boards. This will work for some niche technical jobs, but for most it’s a great distraction. It looks and even feels like work, allowing you to tick plenty of activity lists. But the reality is that at best you get a 5% return on your investment of time.
2. Only making online job applications. The problem with many online applications is that you’re often unsure how many others are applying, how long the job has been advertised, or how the information you supply will be interpreted.
3. Submitting all applications by email without a telephone conversation. An email is quickly overlooked or forgotten, and attachments may never be opened. A quick telephone call can alert you to the key elements on an employer’s shopping list, and plant one or two messages about your suitability in the mind of a decision maker.
4. Sending out CVs at random. Employers can quickly see the difference between wild shots, which feel unfocused and expressed in the wrong language, and targeted approaches which know the right buttons to press. Random messages fired at random targets will give you random results. It’s easy to mistake these results for hard evidence of the impression you are making in the jobs market.
5. Registering with agencies before you have got your message straight. Agencies can be very helpful but have limited time and energy for candidates who don’t know what they are looking for, or what they bring to the party.
6. Sending out CVs without adapting them to the job. Unfocused, general-impact CVs shout out the message ‘any job will do!’, but a targeted CV matches what an employer is looking for, sometimes point by point.
7. Closing down relationships after effective meetings. Had a good meeting? Tempted to send your CV as a follow-up? Reading and acting on a CV is a big ask. If someone really wants your CV, send it, but if what you want to do is remind someone of what you’re good at and what’s at the centre of your job hunting target you can do that in 3–4 bullet points. Maintain focus on keeping the relationship going.
8. Having a phone conversation where you could have a face-to-face meeting. Just as a phone call is remembered longer than an email, a warm face-to-face meeting is remembered even longer, particularly if you send a follow-up message including hard evidence of how the conversation helped move you forward.
9. Spotting deal breakers. Gaps in your CV or other problems in your documentation can get you excluded early from any selection process. Learn how to present your evidence in the best light so you leave fewer reasons for your CV to hit the ‘no’ pile.
10. Using up your best contacts too early. People commonly cash in their best contacts far too soon (see Chapter 3). If you use up opportunities to talk to great contacts when your message is unfocused, you waste some great connections.
11. Going off to find yourself. There may be times in life when you do need to travel, volunteer for good causes, return to study or retreat into a quiet space to rediscover who you really are. Do these things because they are the right thing for you, not as a way of delaying the unpleasant process of looking for a job.

ACTIVITIES LIKELY TO SHORTEN YOUR JOB HUNT

1. Start with low-risk conversations with people who are (a) supportive and (b) won’t mind if you come back in a couple of months with a different story.
2. Get started. Don’t delay Level 1 conversations until you have a perfect script – they’re meant to be experimental.
3. Don’t make the mistake of trying to conduct your job hunting without support, even if this is just the encouragement and support of colleagues or friends.
4. Seek out objective feedback on your CV and interview performance early on, and outside the process. Don’t use job applications as rehearsals.
5. Don’t keep job hunting a secret. Tell people what you’re looking for – you will be surprised who can help you.
6. Learn to talk about your skills and achievements – find your own style for getting your strengths across in a way that sounds natural rather than like selling.
7. Talk to people doing the kind of work you’d like to do – be inspired, pick up insider language, learn from their mistakes.
8. Start exploratory conversations, right now, the easy way – with people you already know.
9. Talk to contacts face-to-face in their workplace – your visit will be remembered and your name may come up in conversation weeks afterwards. In addition, you will learn far more about organisations by seeing them up close.
10. Commit, early on, to the reality that before too long you will be having conversations with people you don’t know – these will take time, patience, confidence and technique, but will give you the best results.

KEEP GOOD RECORDS

Dudley Harrop has worked both as a recruitment consultant and careers specialist, and knows the value of keeping good records:

These lists are not passive records; they are active mechanisms for working your way towards that job. They tell you what you have done so far – some satisfaction in that. They tell you what still needs to be done – and what new opportunities there are as you add new contacts to your search. And they also give you a view of what’s going on in the market – how many of your emails are acknowledged, how many CVs generate a response, how long after an interview do you get an answer, are you doing better with big companies or smaller ones? The key point is that these lists provide you with some sense of control over what can seem a complicated and daunting process.

Here are some suggested layouts for an effective record keeping system – an Organisational Research Record Sheet and Job Hunting Record Sheets. A4 versions of various checklists and tables from this book can be downloaded free of charge from www.johnleescareers.com/downloads.asp. See also the Job Hunting Timesheet in chapter 3.