WHAT IS A LEVEL 3 CONVERSATION?

Think of the sequence this way. Level 1 conversations are tentative explorations designed to help you create maps of what’s out there and build your confidence. Level 2 conversations are with people who can actively point you at interesting organisations, people and opportunities, which is where you find your level 3 conversations – opportunities to sit down face to face with decision makers.

Research analysing the factors which shorten a job hunt points to the importance of conversations at every level, but particularly level 3. Orville Pierson’s The Unwritten Rules of The Highly Effective Job Search, mentioned earlier, suggests that on average a job seeker needs to have 25 conversations with decision makers. This is not the same as job interviews – the decision maker may be your next door neighbour or someone you met at a conference. The difference is you are talking to someone who is capable of making or influencing a hiring decision.

You rarely reach these people cold. You may reach them because they already know something about you – which means they know someone who knows you. They are therefore prepared to speak to you because they can see a benefit in doing so. Some kind of information about you has already travelled ahead of you through level 2 conversations, so in a way you have already established the beginnings of a relationship. You reach them for a reason: they need to talk to someone like you because they need something.

WHY SHOULD A DECISION MAKER WANT TO SEE ME?

Level 3 conversations are opportunities to talk to decision makers. These may feel like job interviews, and may in fact be job interviews. They could also be highly speculative – for example when an organisation has a need which hasn’t yet formed itself into a job-shaped object. This is where level 3 conversations come into their own.

The way the hidden job market operates is that decision makers meet potential candidates at a time when there is an unfulfilled need – or just before a problem arises. You can learn to tune in to clues in the marketplace that point to employer needs – classic ones might be unexpected new orders or growth, restructuring, mergers, product recalls, or more mundane issues like roles needing to be filled where someone has left recently (see Chapter 5). These are the factors that experienced recruitment consultants watch out for in order to pitch candidates at potential vacancies. You can pick up the same information about organisations through your desk research and through conversations. Discovering a need in a conversation is of course far more effective. You can use the opportunity to find out, there and then, which individual decision maker might welcome an approach – you’ve got the name of a level 3 contact.

REACHING DECISION MAKERS

This is, of course, never without difficulty. If it was, all you would need to do is buy a piece of software or an expensive mailing list and you would be able to put yourself, immediately, in front of people with hiring power. What you are trying to do of course is to reach the right person with the right problem at the right time. Some people believe it’s as easy as finding out the name of senior staff using Internet research and sending out a punchy letter. This can, if used with great attention to your message, be an effective tool, but it’s a weak strategy for getting yourself in front of decision makers. They are busy people with plenty of people to buffer them against distractions.

So how do you reach them? Everything in your level 1 and level 2 conversations is designed to gather information, build relationships, but also to take you ever closer to decision makers. If luck is on your side you might occasionally leap from a level 1 conversation to a meeting with a hirer. For example, if a personal friend happens to know someone who is actively looking for staff this month, you may well be short-listed by the end of the week. The danger of making leaps like that is that you can easily find yourself in front of a decision maker without knowing exactly what you are going to say about your market worth (see Chapter 3). If this happens, either get up to speed fast on interview technique or have a few more conversations before you meet this busy decision maker.

Dull as it may sound, the best way to reach people you will be having level 3 conversations with is to keep working through level 1 and level 2 discussions. As long as you keep getting better at these meetings and become increasingly focused on your target and your message, you will inevitably find that you gain introductions to decision makers. You can sometimes top up this list by making direct, speculative approaches (see Chapter 15) and you can sometimes gain introductions to the right people through LinkedIn (see Chapter 12), but the safest and surest way of getting in front of real, live decision makers is to do your level 1 and level 2 conversations well. You start to seed information and shape your market reputation. People who feel they know a bit about you are more likely to want to know more. Your name comes up in conversation, and you may be approached about a role or recommended.

During your level 2 conversations, you will also learn to ask for introductions to the right people. Keep asking the question ‘who else should I be talking to?’ It’s powerful enough to get you in front of the right people quickly. Of course, it won’t work all of the time. Sometimes people don’t know anyone whose needs fit your skill set, and sometimes you haven’t made your level 2 contacts feel they know you well enough to make connections for you (you’ll improve – connecting with people and getting the right results is a high level skill). However, don’t be frightened of asking directly for an introduction to a decision maker, particularly if you know you can pitch yourself against that organisation’s needs. Record your contacts (see Chapter 2).

Career coach Zena Everett sees that too many candidates are looking for a job rather than an opportunity to create work:

Companies are hiring people who can make them money or save them money. They may not have vacancies but will always talk to talented individuals who are clear on what they can offer a potential employer. Your approach should be along the lines of ‘I have solved this problems before here, and got this outcome. I know you are facing similar issues and I would like to talk to you about how I can help.’ We see individuals use this approach to start work as a contractor or consultant in their target employer. This enables them to prove themselves as suitable for a permanent position.

A STRUCTURED RESPONSE

So, the right questions to ask yourself, in order, are:

1. What organisations are right for my skills and experience?
2. How can I discover more about their actual, current problems or opportunities?
3. Who is the decision maker?
4. What’s the best way to make an approach so I can get a meeting?

Question 4 requires you to balance timing, strength of relationship and good judgement about the best communication channel.

Timing is critical, so if you get any kind of indication that an organisation has a problem it wants to do something about, that’s the best moment to make an approach. The need may not be a problem – sometimes an organisation has an opportunity it wants to exploit, or things are going better than expected.

The strength of relationship you have with the primary contact will often dictate how you move forward. If you already know the primary contact well, all you need do is pick up the phone. If you know someone vaguely or don’t know them at all it will be smarter to get a level 2 contact to make an introduction. Always start with the question ‘how can I make a connection?’ Search using the company name on LinkedIn to see who you already know, and ask around. You may need to make connections and draw in favours quickly if the need appears urgent or the window of opportunity is closing.

So, your best and preferred channel of communication will always be to get a meeting through someone you already know. The great thing about this method is that no one asks ‘why do you want to see me?’ Your intermediaries have already done their work. Your level 2 contacts will already have explained why you are interested and said something about what you have to offer (see Chapter 12).

If you can’t find someone who can make a connection for you (have you tried, really?), then you might try a relatively cold speculative letter (although if you press the right buttons this can be more effective than you might think). This tends to have more impact than an email, and is less likely to go wrong than a cold phone call where you will end up saying something like ‘you don’t know me, but …’.

IMPROVING YOUR VISIBILITY IN THE HIDDEN JOB MARKET

Level 3 conversations are the way the hidden job market operates. Most people think that unadvertised positions are filled on an old boy network basis, but this is rarely true. What is true is that when organisations are faced with problems or opportunities, they look around for resources close to hand. This could be the temp in the next office, or could be a consultant who did a project in the organisation last year. It’s highly likely to be someone recommended, and it could be the enthusiastic person who came in for an open-ended meeting last week.

ARE YOU READY FOR LEVEL 3 CONVERSATIONS?

This is an important question. Put one in the diary too soon and you’re squandering a level 3 opportunity in order to have a level 1 conversation. You’ll be sitting in front of someone busy saying ‘I’m still working on different versions of my CV and not sure what I am looking for’. You will be highly vulnerable to questions like ‘why are you on the market right now?’ and totally unprepared for ‘why are you interested in working here?’ In short, you’re wasting someone’s time.

On the other hand, it’s easy to find candidates who have ready access to high-flying decision makers but don’t want to bother them, or at least won’t cash in those chips until everything about their job hunting message is nailed down and perfectly rehearsed. You don’t need to be word perfect or crystal clear to take these meetings, just good enough.

BEING CLEAR WHAT YOU’RE ASKING FOR

Candidates come unstuck at this stage by appearing to ask for the wrong things. Let’s be clear. In a level 1 conversation you are asking for advice, information and encouragement. Level 2 conversations help you identify target people and organisations. Here, at level 3, you’re after an opportunity to influence a hiring decision.

The difference between this conversation and a formal job interview is that very often here, at this stage, there are no job documents. The job title has yet to be decided. So asking the wrong questions (about the exact nature of the job, terms and conditions, benefits) does you no good at all. If you ask these questions you are effectively saying ‘please consider me at a later date’ – when the paperwork is resolved, a formal job description is published and the job is advertised. Do you really want to delay things so that you are up against a field of candidates who can also do the job?

If you want to know the right kind of questions to ask, think the language of consultancy. Start by helping the decision maker understand the size of the problem. What needs fixing? How big is the problem? What solutions have already been tried? Then look briefly at opportunity costs: what happens if the problem isn’t solved soon? What happens if the decision is postponed? In this mode you’re not a candidate sitting the other side of a desk, you’re a fellow professional helping someone to understand their problems better. Now’s your opportunity; match yourself against the problem, not the job. Talk about what you have done in the past, how you can make a difference, quickly.

And, if it needs saying, don’t leave the room without an answer to the question ‘what happens next?’ or ‘how can we move things forward?’ The answer may surprise you, of course – you might be offered an interim role, or be asked to do some consultancy work. That’s always worth considering but, if you are looking for a permanent position, say so and explain why appointing you will help solve the organisation’s problems. The main focus of the conversation is solving a problem or grasping an opportunity, not your need for a job.

So, ask for the right thing. If another conversation is required, try to prompt it. If you hear that there will be a recruitment process, ask for an interview. If the need is pressing and urgent, offer to help immediately and see what happens.