Date:
August 20, 2002
I'm sure you receive a lot of thank-you
letters from people telling you that
they applied the Ask
The Headhunter philosophy and it helped them to find
a job that they are really excited about doing. This email has
one exception in that the book has fundamentally changed the way
that I think about interviewing and work in general.
A lot of people, including me, live under the old adage that
it is easier to get a job when you have a job. I used to believe
this misconception. I was in a situation where I knew that the
company that I was working for wasn't going to make it
financially.
I was working as a manager for a software development
company. The company's business plan (if there was one) was full
of holes and I started to feel like I was only there to collect
a paycheck. Work is about more than money. It is about doing
something that makes you feel inspired, want to grow, change,
and contribute. I felt like the people running my business fell
asleep at the wheel and I lost the ability to wake up in the
morning and think that I was going to do something today to make
a difference, no matter how small that contribution was.
The company offered an optional layoff to anyone who wanted
it so that they could reduce what was left of their dwindling
staff. I took the severance and decided that I would make
finding the right job a full-time job.
I know that you say that the time that it takes to find your
next position doesn't have to be all-encompassing,
but in order to do it correctly I believe it does take a
phenomenal amount of time.
The Russian Roulette of job seeking that many people find themselves
playing is, in my opinion, one of the worst things a person can do. We are not high school students waiting
for the captain of the football team to call us. I finally realized that
the Human Resources department is an obstruction. It's the reason why I was
not being recognized as a potential candidate for jobs that I
applied for. When I began to sell myself directly to the hiring manager, I got immediate -- if not always positive -- results.
I wasn't just blindly sending resumes to some resume scanner in
the sky only to be found one day several years from now, if
found at all. Blindly applying to ads on the Internet can
totally consume a job seeker's time,
and statistically it yields only about a 4% success rate. I
received an immediate response from calling the hiring manager
directly. This took a lot of the pain out of the job search.
Every day I got up as though I were going to work. I
researched five companies by 10 a.m.
and another five by 3 p.m..
Every day, I decided that I would make a minimum of 20 phone
calls. The calls could be follow-up
calls to networking contacts, networking calls to old friends
and former co-workers, or networking
calls to prospective employers. I only applied to companies that
had a business concept that I understood or companies with sound
financials. With those 100 calls a week,
within two months' time I was able to find what I think
will be the right job.
I also used to dread interviewing. I thought of it as an
arranged harassment where an interviewer would cross-examine
me on tidbits of jobs that I had done 100 years ago. I didn't
learn anything about the way that the manager thought or reacted
to various situations, or about the
job that needed to be done. And the
manager learned very little about my ability to respond quickly, to strategize, and
to implement solutions to solve the
company's problems.
I know that I am a good employee. After
reading your book, every interview I went on changed. I was able to adequately demonstrate
that I have what it takes to be a good employee,
and I was offered almost every job for which I interviewed! By
the second interview, I felt like an employee and asked
questions as though I were one.
Another thing that I think that many job seekers overlook
that you point out in your book is the ability to look past the
initial compensation posted for a position. Sure, there may be
some jobs that will only pay an entry-level
salary and there is no room for flexibility, but there are often
hidden benefits that on the surface may not be so apparent. In
my case, the company that I will be working for has a two-to-one
match on 403B and a huge tuition reimbursement plan. What I
didn't expect was for the hiring manager, based on my experience
and education, to bump up the grade level for the position so
that she could get me in the job. In total compensation, I will
be making more than I was making in my last position. The hiring
manager pushed the salary grade increase without my having to
ask! Now, this is someone worth
working for!
I wanted to say thanks. Ultimately,
your book helped to change the way I think about work. I
think that I will be a better employee because I can recognize
the signs in my own behavior when a job or organization becomes
broken. I also think that I
am now equipped with the tools to make better choices about my
fit within an organization and size up relationships with future
employers.
I have already recommended your book and life philosophy to a
number of people that I know who are still out there searching,
many of whom were searching long before I chose to leave
my position.
Inga Fleischhacker
Northwestern University
Application Analyst/Training Consultant
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