> The other thing, and it'll happen here too. Is people looking for a
job
> are stupid. I received a call from someone who used to work at a
company
> we interact with regularly. I know him fairly well, and we had gone
for
> lunch a few times. He asked how things were for "Dynegy". Dynegy
hasn't
> operated in Canada for almost a year. Frankly, I'm not going to hire
> someone who doesn't even know what company he's calling. This isn't
the
> first time. I regularly hear people call and ask "can I send you a
resume"
> immediately followed by "How do you spell your company's name?" or
"What
> does this company do anyway?".
Kevin's note is absolutely correct. Know the places you want to work for
and get known by the people who do the hiring in those places. Any
business will have hundreds of people just like you or better than you
coming in for a job every week. If you have done volunteer work for
causes they are interested in, have been to their trade show booths,
have interviewed them for information on what type of work they do /
what type of experience they need, used them as a case study in a course
your took @ college, etc. you will stick out in their minds.
It may sound corny, but if those who are looking for work head to the
nearest bookstore or library and pick up "What Color is your Parachute",
the information in there will do you no end of good.
Essentially, what you will see in the book is that the job finding
strategy of going to Monster.com and pasting up a resume is a waste of
time; you and millions of others are doing the same thing and your odds
of finding work from Monster.com are essentially nil.
Finding work is a full-time job in itself and requires a 9 - 5 effort
getting out there and getting seen. You will not be successful with the
electronic / faxed submission to a faceless HR dept unless you are
spectacularly well qualified or are blessed with an uncommon reservoir
of good luck.
I was laid off Dec. 31 2002. I was informed of the lay off in early
December, just before Christmas and with my second kid due in a few
weeks. After the initial shock wore off, my wife e-mailed me the
following (see under my sig file) to help me get my job hunting skills
back in tune. Maybe it will help some others as well.
BTW: Good luck to X, Y, and Z!!
------------------------
Jason Hayes - Principal
Hayes Holdings Consulting
[EMAIL PROTECTED] / www.hayz.ws
Blog: www.hayz.ws/weblog/blogger.htm
#1936 - 246 Stewart Green SW
Calgary, AB, Canada T3H 3C8
See the YOPY linux PDA
www.yopy.ca
------------------------
"...intimate laughter between fellow professionals, (is) of all
earthly powers...strongest to make men do very bad things
before they are yet, individually, very bad men"
--C.S. Lewis, "That Hideous Strength"
------------------------
The 14 Ways to Look for A Job
Not many people realize it, but the job-hunt is one of the most studied
phenomena of our time. It is amazing what we know about it. Acquainting
yourself with this research can pay rich dividends to any job-hunter,
and especially if your job-hunt is running into trouble. Let me
illustrate what I mean. Most job-hunters think there are basically only
three ways to go about their job-hunt: resumes, ads, and agencies.
Actually, there are fourteen:
1. Using the Internet to look for job-postings or to post one's own
resume. (1%)
2.�Mailing out resumes to employers at random. (7%)
3. Answering ads in professional or trade journals appropriate to your
field. (7%)
4.�Answering local newspaper ads. (5-24% depending on salary demands)
5.�Going to private employment agencies or search firms. (5-24%
depending on salary demands)
6.�Going to places where employers come to pick out workers, such as
union hiring halls. (8%)
7.�Taking a Civil Service exam. (12%)
8.�Asking a former teacher or professor for job-leads. (12%)
9.�Going to the state/Federal employment service office. (14%)
10. Asking family members, friends, or professionals you know for
job-leads. (33%)
11.�Knocking on the door of any employer, factory, or office that
interests you, whether they are known to have a vacancy or not. (47%)
12.�By yourself, using the phone book's Yellow Pages to identify fields
that interest you, then calling employers in those fields to see if
they're hiring for the kind of work you can do. (69%)
13.�In a group with other job-hunters, using the phone book's Yellow
Pages as above. (84%)
14.�Doing what is called "the creative approach to job-hunting or
career-change": doing homework on yourself, to figure out what your
favorite and best skills are; then doing face-to-face interviewing for
information only, at organizations in your field; followed up by using
your personal contacts to get in to see, at each organization that has
interested you, the person-who-actually-has-the-power-to-hire-you (not
necessarily the human resources department). (86%)
There are five interesting things about this list:
1. Researchers have discovered 'the effectiveness rate' of each of these
methods. By which I mean, we now know how often each method 'pays off'
for the job-hunters who use that method to hunt for a job. Those figures
in parentheses above are the effectiveness rate.
2. We know the failure rate of each of these methods. That is, how often
they don't 'pay off' for the job-hunters using that method. This failure
rate is found by simply subtracting each effectiveness rate, above, from
100. You can do the math.
3. I listed the fourteen methods above in inverse order to their
effectiveness. That is, researchers have discovered that method #1 above
is the least effective way to conduct your job-hunt, while method #14 is
the most effective way.
4. Generally speaking the effectiveness rate for each method is directly
proportional to how much work that method requires of you.
That is to say, method #1 requires the least work, but it is also the
least effective; method #14 requires the most work, but it is also the
most effective.
5. You want to use more than one method, but less than five.
Researchers discovered that one third of all job-hunters never find a
job because they give up too soon. And the ones who give up most easily
are the ones who are using only one job-hunting method (such as sending
out resumes).
51% of those who use only one method of job-hunting abandon their
job-hunt by the second month. On the other hand, of those who are using
two or more methods, only 31% abandon their search by the second month.
Does this mean that you should try to use all fourteen methods, if your
job-hunt just isn't working? Not exactly. As I said earlier, it is
amazing what we know about the job-hunt.
Researchers discovered that job-hunting success increases with each
additional method you use, but only up to four methods. If you use five
or more of the fourteen methods listed above, job-hunting success starts
to decrease.
I have pondered this bizarre finding, and concluded that the explanation
may lie in the fact that you can give up to four methods the time each
deserves, but if you try to do five or more, you start cutting too many
corners.
Well, there it is. Some of what we know about the job-hunt. The moral
for your next job-hunt? Don't just use one method, such as resumes, or
ads. Use up to four methods, and especially those that pay off the best.
And give thanks for our friends, the researchers!
