Question
I’ve really enjoyed your Q&A columns since you used to write for Electronic Engineering Times. Your advice to bypass the job boards and algorithms is absolutely correct. I’ve always believed news outlets and trade publications are packed with great job leads — they’re just nowhere near the employment ads! The best job leads are right there in the articles, if you read between the lines and if you’re willing to contact the people you read about.
I also believe it’s absolutely an edge to use your mobile to actually call people rather than text or e-mail. It’s amazing how quickly gatekeepers and receptionists put you through to other professionals when you tell them you’re calling to discuss an esoteric work topic, as opposed to a cold “networking” call. Networking is for computers!
Keep up the great work!
Nick’s Reply
Wow, you’re one from way back in EET days! Thanks for your very kind compliments — you keep reading and I’ll keep writing! You don’t have a question, but I think you make such an important point that I want to talk about it.
Where the real job leads are
Employment postings are not the only place to identify job leads. The best source of information about great job opportunities is indeed the trade and business press. This is also where you get to identify and “meet” the people who make companies and industries successful. For example, engineers writing about their technology, marketers debating the value of a product strategy, executives discussing the viability of certain markets, and reporters revealing the stories “between the lines” that affect an entire industry.
These are the people who can lead you into a company, if you’d only bother get in touch with them! This gives you an incredible edge over your competition, which is content trying to figure out how to game LinkedIn and the algorithms used to sort keywords.
One incredible source of information is in the “letters to the editor” and discussion forums in pertinent publications. These are people like you who have knowledge and insight relevant to the work you want to do. These are the potential “insider contacts” that are worth more than any job ad in the world.
Job leads via phone call
And you are absolutely right: while it might seem daunting to get through to a manager to discuss your interest in a job, there’s just no way a receptionist or “gatekeeper” can screen a call from, say, an engineer who wants to talk to another engineer (or manager) about corner?case testing and thermal limits in design or whether high bandwidth memory is a long?term solution or a stopgap. If you lead with a question the gatekeeper doesn’t understand, you’re likely to be let through the gate.
Of course, many companies now have automated call reception systems. You can usually avoid this “gate” if you call into the executive offices where you will likely reach a human gatekeeper — the executive assistant. “I’m trying to reach Linda Jones, to inquire about high bandwidth memory in your Model J2 Frammitz…” (See Getting in the door and past HR.)
Again and again and again I talk myself blue in the face (don’t worry; I enjoy it) explaining that the best way to pursue a new job is not to talk about the job; it’s to talk about the work you do with other people who do it, too. That leads to the fundamentally healthy, mutually-beneficial conversations that reveal hidden job leads and drive all commerce.
(For those that might dismiss using a phone to actually make a call as passe, how’s all the A.I. in your job-seeking strategy working for you?)
Thanks again for your note, and for reminding people that it’s worth a phone call, and for emphasizing how to get past the gatekeeper almost anywhere!
Do you use your phone to make new connections and to find real job leads? Once you identify who you need to talk with, do you go straight to talking, or do you hide behind texts, e-mails and LinkedIn messages?
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I’ve used the telephone to reach a hiring manager, but I’ve also used snail-mail successfully.
These days, almost no one sends personal notes and letters through the mail – which coincidentally is why USPS is currently petitioning to raise the price of a first-class stamp from 87¢ to $1 – so when someone receives a hand-addressed piece of correspondence, there’s an excellent chance of it being opened and read.
Do NOT enclose a résumé. The intent is to start a dialogue that puts you on the radar screen for future opportunities. “Read your interview in Inc. Magazine with interest and would love to know more about how Acme Co. is applying process automation. I developed process automation systems at Milton Corp. for five years.”
Precisely! I use the same method, which works if you reach the right person who doesn’t trash it—that’s the biggest factor.
@Garp: I like your example. The more off-the-cuff the better!
The first gatekeeper is the phone# the next is the physical address. These are kept under wraps now. Sometimes I would call during a major holiday evening and of-course get the automatic switchboard and start wending myself through extensions gleaning names to work with. The firm’s website is universally a poor place to start, They tend to hide themselves well and not worth-wile. I explored making a good guess as to where they are located by using Municipal assessor’s databases and building permits to get contact information and call them to see if they have a number for the building manager’s phone#.
Why do they do such a good job of hiding themselves when they are needing talent? .. and customers…?
@Eddie: Some might think you go to extremes but your approach is very smart. You’re reinventing the wheel — which is exactly what’s called for. That great job you want is a lot of work, so start doing the hard work of presenting yourself effectively now!
Many companies hide their employees because they’re afraid headhunters like me are gonna steal them. They’re right but too naive to know that we have methods they’d never think of. :-)
That is why I don’t click the “apply here” because once your in their database, when a legitimate headhunter gets ready to submit you, you are already in their database and he can’t go any further. I leave out some strategic dates on my resume so if some lazy placement person enters my info into one of those apply here, It just hangs up and jambs the ATS software. I occasionally get bounce-backs saying they cannot go any further with my resume until it gets completed. I word each resume to online headhunters differently so in the error stream I know who is the culprit and they go on my poop-list.
@Eddie: Think about it. They spend millions trying to hire new people, but the managers are kept hidden away – you have to resort to clever ways to find them. They don’t want to hear from smart, motivated job seekers. They want you to enter their database.