Question
My name is Fxxxx Cxxxx and I am beginning a national job search. I found your information and I want to introduce myself to you. My background is that I have spent 15 years in business with five being in human resources and 10 being in technical sales and general management. I have a Masters degree from Michigan State, international experience in both Asia and Europe, detailed technical sales experience in the ultra-competitive xxxx market, “Fortune 5” experience, change leadership knowledge and new business startup entrepreneurship.
I am willing to relocate at my own expense. I am currently employed. I am seeking to get out of the xxxx business. I believe that there is a massive over-capacity in the market and it will not go away any time soon. I have a broad set of skills all anchored around my ability to influence customers to buy more and employees to contribute more. If you have any questions or would like more information please feel free to contact me at xxx xxx-xxxx. Thanks. Fxxxx Cxxxx
Nick’s Reply
I receive so many “introduction” e-mails just like this one. I believe what you are doing is a waste of time and insulting to employers. (I’m not insulted that you sent it to me, but I’m troubled for your sake.) Think about it. You’re saying to someone you don’t know and who doesn’t know you, “Here are my credentials. Now, you go figure out what to do with me.”
Managers don’t do that. As a headhunter, I don’t, either.
What good am I to you?
You don’t even say what you want to do. Again, you’re asking people you don’t know to figure it out for you. What’s truly stunning is that you have worked in human resources. You should know better.
You tout your sales expertise, but imagine that a sales manager receives the boilerplate e-mail you sent me. What your e-mail really says is, “I sell by sending out canned information to people I don’t know.” What sales manager wants a sales person who sells like that?
Yes, that’s unbridled sarcasm and it’s directed at you. Better that you hear it from me than from some manager who deletes your e-mail because you’re asking them to figure out what you’d be good for.
Is that this what job hunting has come to?
I know the economy is frighteningly uncertain. Companies are scattering their employees to the wind. Jobs are getting hard to find. Mass mailing resumes to companies you don’t know is bad enough. But if sending around random “job hunting” e-mails is a new trend, then I’m putting more filters on my Outlook.
Please, folks. Don’t demean yourselves. Dumbing down your job-hunting efforts will just make you look dumb. The only way you will inspire a manager to call you is if you identify a problem or challenge they are facing, and then suggest how you’re going to tackle it and make the business more successful. If that sounds like consultative selling, it is.
Tell them what to do with you
Consultative selling is a lot of work. But if you’re not willing to do it, why should anyone want to hire you? “Hey, I’d like you to give me a job, but don’t expect me to even know what your business is. Just bring me in for an interview.”
Managers today are very busy, sometimes frantic, trying to save their companies, their jobs, their employees and their own jobs. Why should any manager spend two seconds reading an e-mail that reveals no interest in, or understanding of, the manager’s business?
Try this exercise: How would you convince a manager — who has no job openings — to create a new job just for you? This is a useful exercise because it requires you to discuss not your credentials, but the employer’s business. How could you apply specific skills to the business so that it would be foolish for the manager not to create new job and hire you?
Take careful aim
For your own good, pursue the jobs that you can add value to. Only you can figure out what they are. But your e-mail suggests one thing: You are hunting for a job aimlessly because you don’t know why a manager needs you. You must figure that out and explain it convincingly.
If you want a job, show an employer that its business matters to you. Entice the manager by showing how you would make the business measurably better. Because that’s how your competition gets hired.
Do you send a canned introduction to employers and wait for a response?
: :
The average HR screener, as well as the average “hiring manager” doesn’t know what to do with the average candidate who tics all the boxes, hits his mark and says his lines.
This is largely because most job descriptions are written by committe. They include everything the guy who left did, every “nice to have” that someone needs to do, and everything from the positions they are trying to eliminate. Some random buzz words as well.
So when candidates arrive, no one knows what to do with them. Not HR, not the hiring manager, not the supervisor.
Most job descriptions could be cut by 2/3 and be adequate for the position.
Throw another one in here…the hidden requirements that they DON’T put in the JD. You can tick all the boxes on the screener (whether by HR or the HM) but then the HM, VP, or a C level “discovers” something new and that becomes a dealbbreaker, or decides what was #1 or 2 on the list is less important. Then they wonder why the search takes so long and nobody’s the perfect squirrel. HR people are so insecure now that they simply take orders.
The other thing is that learning on the job, and the capacity to do so, is completely denigrated. You must come fully qualified from the brow of Athena. You can have Hubspot and strong design in Powerpoint, but you are disqualified if you don’t have Marketo or Canva. You’ve done B2B2C marketing, but you are DQd because it’s not B2C. AI? You don’t have 5 years? Out you go. Etc.
Apologies for typos. Spellcheck on phone.
@Dee: “The other thing is that learning on the job, and the capacity to do so, is completely denigrated. You must come fully qualified from the brow of Athena.”
I’m still laughing! That should be tattooed to every interviewer’s forehead and required as a warning at the beginning of every posted job description!
Glad to give you a chuckle. It’s. True!
It is difficult to second guess what their business problems are unless you have been there before in their shoes, And how to you get a good solution when the essential information for solutions are proprietary? I recall one candidate who tried hard but was way off the mark due to a lack of specific data unique to our problems. It is a tough situation to be in.
Nick, once again you are spot on. I also receive dozens of similar messages every day, often from executives who have no idea what industry I’m in. They all start with the canned, “I admire what you’re doing in xxx” or “I noticed the work you are doing with…” without taking ten seconds to see what industry I’m actually in. Thanks for this article and the excellent advice you give. I frequently forward your newsletter to jobseekers that reach out to me
@RG: Thanks! Glad that one hit home for you. My all-time favorite qualification that’s highlighted in a pitch e-mail: “I want to work with people!”
All these manifestations are variations on the elevator pitch, and suffer from the same problem: Your pitch must not be about you. It must be about the person you want to work with/for. Anyone that doesn’t get that is lost.
Thanks for your kind words!
Whitney Houston’s lyric fits here: “I wanna dance with somebody!”
I find it so hard to get people to tell me what the problems are in their company. I don’t know if its English reserve or something else. Hard to show how to solve proble,s when you don’t know what the problems are.
@Craig: I know, often it’s not easy. This is what triangulating is for – coming at it from multiple directions. Try to identify people connected the company. Employees, consultants, attorneys, accountants, customers, vendors, even the landlord. Contact them and explain you’re considering doing business with the company and you’re making casual inquiries to find out how they are regarded. If you can get one or two conversations going, you can ask who they’d recommend you talk to at the company in [marketing, engineering, operations, etc.] “who could tell you more.” No need to say you’re looking for a job but if it comes up don’t deny it. “I like to do my homework on a company in advance.”
Not everyone will be helpful, but you need only one or two to suggest an insider for you to talk with. And that step is then similar. “I’m considering applying for a job, but first I want to make sure I’d be a good fit and that I’d have something useful to say in an interview.”
Follow the tips here: https://www.asktheheadhunter.com/12516/hiring-manager