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Put your job-search eggs in many baskets
Newspaper ads, Internet postings, networking, cold contacts . . . These are all important sources of leads for job-seekers. Each tool plays its part in a successful job hunt. Unfortunately, job-seekers often don't use these methods in balance.
If newspaper classifieds didn't work, they wouldn't be around after all these years. People do get jobs from ads and will continue to do so. But the fact that not all -- and probably not even most -- jobs will be advertised in the paper reminds me that every job-search tool has its place on a continuum. When job-seekers put more emphasis on a tool than its place on the continuum justifies, they're leading a job search that's out of balance.
Internet job postings and job boards are the best example of this concept. The actual effectiveness of this tool is nearly unmeasurable, yet many job-seekers devote almost all of their job-search efforts to electronic ads.
It would be impossible to count the job openings posted on the Internet because there are literally thousands of independent sites where leads appear. The best studies I've seen ask employers how many new hires came from the Internet. This is at least measurable, even if employers may not always accurately assess how candidates found the leads.
If we don't really know the effectiveness of the Internet, and we understand that relatively few openings are advertised in the newspapers, why do job-seekers use these two tools almost exclusively? First, it's always easier to react than to act. When you see an ad, you know what to do; when you don't see an ad, you have to make up the next steps yourself.
Another reason may be a lack of understanding about how a job opening develops. When I'm talking with job-seekers, I'll often draw a simple graph I call the "life cycle of a job opening." The graph consists of a horizontal line with a vertical flag rising from about the center point. This flag represents the point in a job opening's life cycle when the company's human resources department hears about it. On the line to the right of the flag are all of the HR-based steps that we know so well: the advertising of the opening, the application process, the phone interviews, the in-person interviews and, finally, the job offer.
Job-seekers forget that the job wasn't created by HR; it was created by some need in the department where the work will be performed. That means the opening was "born" in a manager's mind, perhaps months before it was brought to HR. It existed -- and could have been filled without any public announcement at all -- in the months before it crossed to the right side of the graph.
It's pretty clear that the left side of the graph is the hot spot for job-seekers. If the job is not yet advertised in any form, there is no competition for it. Better yet, this is the side of the graph where all jobs appear. Every job opening has a creation point. But not every job crosses over to the right side of the graph and gets advertised.
Which brings us back to the balanced job search: To be successful, you need to include networking and cold contacts in your strategy. Next week's column will look more closely at these tools.
- Amy Lindgren owns Prototype Career Service, a career consulting firm in St. Paul, Minn. She can be reached at alindgren@prototypecareerservice.com or at 1071 W. Seventh St., St. Paul, MN 55102.
