Gain an audience by recognizing opportunity
Theres a sexier method to salsa into a great career with less tripping and more flair. Look for problems to solve and create a personalized solution. Find those challenges by spotting company movement of any kind, whether the change is good, bad or ugly. If you do this, youll capitalize on an opportunity to be heard and get that coveted invitation to dance in the kings court. Hot career tip:
If you want to infiltrate an intended employer fortress, a feat that other job seekers assume impossible, remember that its much easier if the inhabitants on the other side open the door for you. Here are three things that you need to know to increase your chances of obtaining an insiders invite: Resume blasting is as productive as sailing paper airplanes aimlessly into the wind Traditional networking causes most job candidates to feel like hookers standing on a dimly-lit street corner soliciting interest from passersby. Online job searching, a passive mind-numbing activity, done without a target will suck the creative energy right out of you You wont find that best job through traditional networking
What happened to the prevailing idea that networking is the best career resource to find a new job? Networking is still one of the better methods to find employment but today its used in a different way, says Randy Stevens, President and CEO of R. L. Stevens & Associates Inc., a national career marketing firm based in Waltham, Massachusetts. In the fifth year of a negative economy, actually by the second year, networks get choked. Over the last few years these networks have been overused by people who had good networks. Traditional Networking has been replaced and redefined
Theres a better way to get doors open says Stevens. The concept of Greasing the Wheel, has replaced the model of traditional networking. He explains, In this current employment cycle covering the past five years, traditional networking transitioned to becoming more meaningful for informational interviews to gather information, rather than directly finding a job. Greasing the Wheel on the other hand, is a fresher approach because it ties or connects a personalized solution youve identified to an employers need. Your job search is then redefined from looking for employment openings to more proactively seeking a gateway to supply value and benefit as a solution provider. Hunt for spot opportunities to find the secret passageway to employers
Increase your exposure to unpublicized job leads and customarily inaccessible decision makers by exploiting Spot Opportunities. These are indicators of movement within a company that can be triggers for hiring. They are the beginning of a hiring pattern and usually signal the development of a hiring initiative. Wisely and routinely using spot opportunities leaves your competition choking in the dust wondering how the heck you got inside. Forget everything youve heard or know about finding a job
Stop looking for a job and start proactively targeting employers who have problems or challenges you can solve. When you pick a job based on employer need rather than your own you immediately provide tangible value and benefit to busy decision makers and earn the right to be heard. Greasing the Wheel is exposure-to-opportunity gone extreme
The radical method of Greasing the Wheel is rarely used by the job search masses because it involves taking considerable time to research industry and news sources and sniff out the possibilities and the players with a keen detective-like nose. However, if you keep doing things the way youre doing them now, youll keep getting the same results. To see changes, in what you get, you need to change what you do. Go extreme. A sneak peak into Part Three
So, how do you pull off a career campaign home run? In Part Three, well drive what is labeled the Reality of Exposure by showing you how to become a major league pitcher of solutions using the fast ball of strategic promotional development. |
