Is Your Fear of Networking Leading to Job Search Mistakes?

Job Search Mistakes and Errors – Classic Example

The Wall Street Journal Laid-Off and Looking Blog just posted a great story profiling F. Ellen Whaley, an out-of-work introverted executive fearful of rebuilding her network.

The example could be a poster child for the classic job search mistakes and errors facing most executives and senior managers when they begin their job search. Read the full article here.

Here was my response to the example posted on this blog regarding ineffective networking as one of the key job search mistakes and errors made by those starting or stalled in a job hunt:

Great example of not considering the value of networking while working. The vast majority of candidates we work with in our Executive Search Practice come to us with a woefully inadequate network to begin their job search. Most have no idea where to start in using social media as a tool in leveraging networking.

Like the commercials about loans, the time to do it is when you don’t need it. Networking should be something you do through-out your entire career so when you need it – it’s there for you. When senior managers and executives start networking for their job search, it can take a minimum of 6 months to establish an effective network that will begin to generate an abundance of job referrals and leads.

My partner and I host a weekly internet radio talk show on job search on LATalkRadio.com at 11-noon PST. This show and the FREE archived broadcasts on our website dealing with job search networking and LinkedIn are some of our most popular downloads. A month ago we posted a FREE scorecard (available to members of our LinkedIn Job Search Discussion Group – join the group and get the FREE Scorecard) to assess the effectiveness of your LinkedIn Profile for Job Search – the response has been overwhelming.

Interesting side note: of over 2000 job search candidates that have shared their Linkedin Profile Assessments with us, less than 10% meet a minimum standard for using the tools LinkedIn provides for effective job search networking and personal branding.

If you’re an executive and trying to figure out why your job search is a failure, stalled, or ineffective, you might not need to look any further than your network itself and the activities surrounding it. A weak network and lack of classic “old-school” networking disciplined methods will cause your job search to go from 6 months to 12-18 months.

Barry

P.S.: On Monday Brad and I will be discussing on our radio show at LATalkRadio.com 11-noon The Top Ten Job Search Mistakes and Errors and the use of a brand new FREE Assessment Tool covering your entire job search – within minutes you’ll be able to discover do you have a job search headed for a downward death spiral or will you quickly being to generate an abundance of job search leads, referrals, and offers.

P.P.S.: We’ll post the link to download the new Job Search Plan Assessment Tool exclusively into our LinkedIn Job Search Discussion Group on Sunday prior to the Radio Show Discussion.

Are You Difficult to Connect with on LinkedIn in Your Job Search?

Many candidates are obsessive about protecting the confidentiality of their contact information on LinkedIn when they are in a job search, even when they indicate on their LinkedIn Profile that they are open to career opportunities.

Why?

This doesn’t make any sense!

Here’s the sad part: Most recruiters, human resource professionals, and hiring managers will skip right by you on LinkedIn searches for candidates when recruiting if you make it too difficult to connect with you. When I do a search on LinkedIn for candidates in our Executive Search Practice, if you make it too hard to connect I’ll move on to the next candidate – I might sound a little harsh – regardless of how much you might be a perfect match – I just don’t have the time to play games or dig too deeply – particularly when there is lots of other great talent available.– I’ll define “too hard to connect” as the following:

• You have no phone number on your LinkedIn Profile
• You have no direct email on your LinkedIn Profile
• You have not checked the settings for “open to career opportunities”
• You have not checked the settings for “open networker”
• Your group settings prevent me from sending you a direct message if we are in the same group

You could be missing out on great opportunities because of inappropriate fears of confidentiality or security. What’s the risk that someone has your cell number or email address when you’re looking for a job. At a minimum, what’s the risk in adding to your account the “open networker” designation so that recruiters and others do not have to use up their precious allotment of inmails?

I’ve had my phone number and email address on my LinkedIn Profile for years. I can count on one hand the number of solicitor calls and inappropriate emails from that contact information. It’s irrational to think you’ll be bombarded with solicitors and crank calls/emails. Take a risk and make yourself available – you’ll be amazed at the increase in the number of calls and emails you get when recruiters, human resource professionals, and hiring managers reach out to you when they are recruiting to fill an open job.

Take a look at my profile on LinkedIn as an example. I would also recommend joining our Discussion Group on LinkedIn and participating in the discussion regarding LinkedIn Profiles for your Job Search.

Barry

Your LinkedIn Profile as an Expanded Multi-Media Presentation of Your Resume

I’ve posted a Slideshare Powerpoint file through LinkedIn as a demonstration of one small aspect of how you can improve your personal brand and visibility on LinkedIn. Do you STAND OUT among a crowd of “me-too” profiles?

Here’s the actual Slideshare link to view or download the presentation. Over the next few weeks, I’m going to do a voice-over narration of this Powerpoint as an additional test. You can do this too.

I’ll be adding audio and video files to my LinkedIn Profile to demonstrate how you can leverage simple tools on this wonderful service to dramatically improve your job search. Take a look on slideshare at some of the other Powerpoint and Video files other job seekers have posted.

Employers and recruiters (including Brad and I) would love to hear you talking about your expertise and accomplishments, view a video of you answering interview questions, and be able to download a powerpoint presentation about your job achievements. Imagine LinkedIn as an expanded multi-media platform to enhance your traditional resume.

The funny thing is that less than a tenth of one percent of all job seekers are using all the available tools on Linked for their job search – and the tools are available for FREE – go figure!

What a shame!

Try it – look at my profile or Brad’s profile on LinkedIn. Look at some of the profiles of the masters of job search personal branding and job search networking. I’ll feature once a week a candidate who is truly leveraging LinkedIn for their job search – for each person selected every week, they’ll get a FREE copy of our book. Would you like to throw your profile in the ring to try and win a FREE copy of our book, This is NOT the Position I Accepted. Be the first to volunteer!

In the meantime, if you would like to start taking months off your job search, start taking the initiative to improve your LinkedIn Profile as a small step forward.

Barry

P.S. Don’t forget to take the Self-Assessment of your LinkedIn Profile by using our FREE scorecard for assessing your LinkedIn Job Search Profile to determine your effectiveness of being found by recruiters, human resources, and hiring managers.

P.P.S. Brad and I also did a broadcast on our radio show about this LinkedIn Profile Self-Assessment Tool and how to most effectively improve your visibility.

What Fish are In Your Networking Pond?

Let’s continue along my last post about fishing and networking. As you’ll recall, we were extending the wonderful post about fishing as a metaphor for job search networking that Anna Farmery from Buzz Networker had brought to our attention a few days ago.

One of the points that Anna raised was what kind of network are you looking for – or to continue our fishing metaphor – what type of fish should be in your network?

I’ll be so bold as to suggest that most of the fish in a job seeker’s network STINK!

It’s not that most networking contacts are bad people – but rather the network that a typical job seeker has assembled to help generate job leads and referrals is nothing short of useless in most cases. Brad and I take you through this introspective look at your network in our networking chapter in our book “This is NOT the Position I Accepted.”

One of the services that IMPACT Hiring Solutions provides is Job Search Networking Strategy and Coaching. Every day, Brad and I are immersed in reviewing the networks and networking activities of job seekers within our job search network (those that have participated in our tele-seminars and webinars, those who have downloaded our FREE Internet Radio Shows on conducting a Job Hunt, and those who participate in our LinkedIn Discussion Group for conducting an effective Job Search.

Although I have not yet quantified the data (do you sense another survey/research project coming on?), I’d surmise that less than 5% of the networks most candidates are using – are useless and yield very little in terms of job leads and referrals.

Why?

It’s because you have the wrong fish in your network. As a candidate involved in a job hunt, you need four classes of fish to have an effective network that can generate an abundance of job leads and referrals.

The four classes of fish (network contacts) are:

1. Hiring Managers who might potentially hire you for a position
2. Contacts who would know the hiring manager (peers competing for a similar position and peers of the hiring manager)
3. Recruiters who fill the positions you want
4. Personal Service Providers (lawyers, benefit consultants, CPAs, construction company project managers, landscape service businesses, leasing agents, etc.) The key to having these folks in your network is the ones who are “trusted advisors to their clients” (more about becoming a trusted advisor in a future post).

If you can assemble a network of individuals balanced among the 4 classes of fish we’ve defined, you’ll begin within 3-6 months to generate more job leads and referrals than you can handle. It goes without saying that once you’ve pulled all your fish together, you’ve still got to do all the little things that comprise best practices in networking activities.

Pulling together the “right” job search network is only the first step in reducing the time it takes to conduct a job hunt in half. This is the core theme of our entire Job Search approach: The Career Success Methodology – Cutting your job hunting transition time in half!

Thousands of job seekers have shared their success stories with us that by following the Career Success Methodology they’ve reduced the time it takes to find a job by 50% or more compared to their peers conducting a similar job search.

Having the right contacts in your network who can deliver an abundance of job leads and referrals is only one important element of the disciplined job search approach found in the Career Success Methodology.

Barry

How Recruiters Find People

In my 29 years of recruiting, I have talked with and trained over 200 recruiters around the country in advanced recruiting techniques. Given this, I’ve learned two things 1) the recruiting industry is not homogeneous and 2) we all may be different, but there is one constant; how we find people. There really isn’t anything all that unique about how recruiters go about locating potential candidates. We all use our networks and other people’s networks. This includes both on-line networks such as Linkedin (Click here to join our Linkedin Job Search Group) and off-line such as networking groups in our community.

So why is this important to candidates? Because the most often asked question of recruiters is, “How do I get in touch with retained recruiters?” The answer is a simple one; “You don’t need to.” You don’t really want to get in touch with every recruiter, that is impossible. You only want to get in touch with those recruiters that have a search that meets your background. All the other recruiters don’t matter! So the real question should be; “ How do I get recruiters looking for me, to find me?” Now that is an easy thing to do, but like most things it isn’t simple.

The answer is one word; NETWORKING. Since recruiters maximize the use of their networks and others, all you have to do is be so well networked that a recruiter can’t help but find you. If you really are well networked, as recruiters tap into their networks, your name will always come up as a referral. The more often recruiters hear, “You should call ____, they sound exactly like what you are looking for” the higher the probability you will get a call.

So, if you want to have recruiters calling you, make sure they can find you.

GET YOURSELF NETWORKED in multiple industries and with multiple functions. Don’t forget that Linkedin is used extensively by most recruiters, so it is critical to have your profile up to date and complete. You can download for free our 8 Point Success Matrix For A Linkedin Profile, just click here.

Is Fishing like Job Search Networking?

Anna Farmery of the Buzz Networker put up a blog post the other day titled “Why Networking is like Fishing” that should serve as an important reminder to those conducting a job search.

Networking for Candidates

The funny thing about this title is that it is the opposing strategy for job seekers of the technique we teach in our “You’re NOT the Person I Hired” workshop for hiring executives and managers. We teach that you must be able to “fish in deep waters” to attract the best talent. Posting onto the various job boards a job description that is masquerading as an ad is rarely an effective strategy for finding great talent.

If the best technique to be found by recruiters and hiring managers is networking and the best technique to find great talent is through networking – the intersection of these two overlapping strategies by candidates and recruiters/hiring managers should result in great matches.

Seems obvious – right?

Why doesn’t it work most of the time?

Job Search Networking – Fact or Fiction

It doesn’t work because most candidates do a terrible job of networking, personal branding, and positioning themselves to be found. Most recruiters/hiring managers do a terrible job networking by fishing in the deepest ends of the pool for great talent.

So what really happens in most hiring situations? The recruiters/hiring managers revert back to pre-historic approaches to finding candidates by running ads and candidates devote the vast majority of their job search to responding to job ads. Is there any wonder why top talent fails to find great opportunities and companies fail over and over to bring top talent to their doorstep?

Brad and I will be releasing over the next week or two a self-assessment for you to determine if you’re networking plan needs a major check-up. Stay tuned for this release. Our surveys and research within our job search network on LinkedIn (which you can join by clicking here) indicate that less than 20% of executive and managerial candidates have an effective networking plan.

Here are a few questions to be thinking about while you await the release of our networking plan self-assessment tool:

1. Do you have a written networking plan?
2. What do you believe are the top 5 best practices in a networking plan of action?
3. Have you ever seen a formal networking plan with action steps, metrics, objectives, and tasks?
4. If you develop plans for projects at work – why wouldn’t you do it for your job search?
5. Can you list the top 20 articles/blog postings/content/books and other audio/video related content on job search networking that you’ve read within the last week and have taken 1-2 ideas from to incorporate into your job search.

Are these tough questions? Most candidates we’ve surveyed wouldn’t be able to answer them. If you can’t, your probably are facing a major need for a networking check-up OR the alternative is a prolonged period of unemployment that could have easily been cut in half.

Resources for Developing a Networking Plan

1. In our Book, “This is NOT the Position I Accepted”, we dedicate an entire chapter to the concept of Job Search Networking.
2. In our Job Search Home Study Kit, we have exercises, templates, and guidelines for developing a powerful networking plan that could help reduce the time it takes for you to find a job by at least 50%.
3. Brad and I have talked about networking numerous times – both about job search networking on-line and off-line – in our weekly Internet Radio Talk Show on LATalkRadio. We’ve taken all our Radio Show Broadcasts and put them in an audio archive for you to listen to and download.
4. If you’re in need of a “Networking Check-Up” for your job search, be sure to check out our Networking Strategic Plan Coaching to get an immediate boost over your competition.

Barry

Have You Assessed Your LinkedIn Profile Yet?

About a month ago, we published a self-assessment matrix by which you can assess the effectiveness of your LinkedIn Profile. In a recent research project/survey, we discovered that less than less than 10% of the LinkedIn Profiles we reviewed of active job seekers meet a minimum standard for effectiveness.

Are you missing an opportunity for personal branding, making recruiters and hiring managers aware of your capability, and falling short of being able to network effectively –  all because your LinkedIn Profile is at a minimum, average and mediocre level compared to best practices in leveraging LinkedIn for your Job Search.

Take the self-assessment today and then start rebuilding your LinkedIn Profile so that you can begin to have better success in your job search.

Bonus Tip: The effectiveness of your LinkedIn Profile extends far beyond just job hunting. An effective LinkedIn Profile can aid in sales, business development, career advancement, and marketing.

Download the Self-Assessment NOW to determine if you LinkedIn Profile is effective for conducting an efficient job search.

Brad and I also discussed using your LinkedIn Profile as an effective tool in a previous Internet Radio Talk Show. You can listen to and download all of our recorded Internet Radio Talk Shows on Job Search by navigating to our FREE Audio Library.

Barry

Our LinkedIn Job Search Discussion Group

Are you a learner or a dunce when it comes to discovering how to improve your job search and reduce the time it takes to find a new opportunity. Do you explore every blog, tweet, and discussion group capable of offering new ideas and injecting renewed energy into your job search?

Learner or a Dunce in Your Job Search

Or do you feel you know everything there is about doing an effective job search. Is your attitude “You can’t teach an old dog new tricks”. The funny thing is that in my 25 years of executive search, I’ve discovered more 55 year olds than have a passion for learning than 25 year olds. Learning, growing, expanding beyond your immediate knowledge or bubble is not age dependent. It’s a life long attitude about personal growth and learning (this could be a entire blog post just by itself).

Job Search Discussion Group

Brad and I facilitate a vibrant community on LinkedIn that is rapidly growing toward being one of the most active job search discussion groups on LinkedIn and the Internet.

Some of the topics of discussion include:

Job Search Networking

Marketing yourself

Job Search Personal Branding

Salary Negotiation

Thank You Letters and Follow-up with Hiring Managers

How to Prepare for an Interview

Acing the Phone Interview

Classic frustrations, errors, and mistakes most candidates make in their job search

How to get a recruiter to call you back

Join the Discussion Group

We also make special offers to this LinkedIn Group, including participation in job search teleconferences, special white papers, examples, and first look at new templates we develop, such as the 8-Point Success Matrix for Assessing the Effectiveness of Your LinkedIn Profile.

Join us today and jump right in by throwing out a question to the group, posting a comment on another discussion point, or adding a news link about a site, article, or blog posting you reviewed and thought would add value to the group.

Here’s the link to join our discussion Group on LinkedIn: IMPACT Hiring Solutions Job Search Discussion Group

There are number of really good discussion groups on LinkedIn regarding job search. You should be on all of them, including ours. If just one idea you can glean from the groups helps you take an entire month off your job search, the investment of time would have more than paid for itself.

Participating in on-line job search discussion groups gives you an opportunity to benchmark your own job search activities and success, bounce ideas off of other peers, learn about ideas that others have tried and you’ve never considered, and obtain leads and ideas of how to uncover those hidden jobs within companies for whom you would love to join.

Are you learner or a dunce when it comes to improving your job search?

Barry

Become a Beacon in Your Job Search

Adam Singer, writing today in his blog, The Future Buzz, used a lighthouse with it’s powerful lens as an excellent metaphor for networking on-line, particularly in using on social media, groups, discussion boards, and other communities to draw attention to yourself in your job search.

Adam uses this powerful metaphor and visualization to call attention to the importance of establishing your own personal brand in social networking, for both your success, career, and job search. He states:

A beacon is an intentionally conspicuous device designed to focus attention on a specific location.

Visualize what image the word beacon conjures in your mind:  perhaps a lighthouse casting light onto an otherwise dark horizon, or a signal fire atop a hill illuminating the night sky.  In the physical world, a beacon is used to draw attention, act as a guide, or call to action.  Civilizations have long used them to rally citizens together, protect ships from coastlines, and act as signal points.

But the concept of a beacon is not limited to purely physical signaling points.  There are beacons on the web – they are people, companies, networks, blogs, anything that can direct attention.

You must become a beacon or you are essentially at the whim of others who point attention at their own discretion, perhaps shining the light on you for fleeting moments…if you’re lucky.

You can read Adam’s full blog post at The Future Buzz.

Are you a beacon to others in your job search. Is the attention of hiring managers drawn to the light you cast?

If you missed our last post about using your LinkedIn Profile to become visible in your job search, you can still download the 8-Point Success Matrix for Your Job Search LinkedIn Profile. Within minutes, this matrix will help you to improve your existing LinkedIn Profile to become a bright beacon and attract the attention of recruiters, HR managers, and Hiring Managers in your job search.

Barry

Photo courtesy of Adam Singer at the Future Buzz

Do you stand out in your job search on LinkedIn?

I recently wrote a blog post for our Hiring and Retaining Top Talent Blog titled “A Baker’s Dozen of Techniques for quickly finding top talent on LinkedIn” When you review this list of the best practices of how employers and recruiters use LinkedIn to find top talent, are you guilty of not using all the tools LinkedIn provides for personal branding, networking, differentiating yourself from the competition?

Next Steps: Listen to our Home Study Job Search Course and work through the exercises to learn how to network on line and leverage LinkedIn, explore the FREE audio recordings of our Internet Radio Talk Show on using LinkedIn in your job search, or join our LinkedIn Discussion Group and focus on the topics related to using LinkedIn to “stand out”.

Tell us about a few of the stories of how you’ve landed a job or received a great job lead based on one of the Baker’s Dozen of Best Practices?

Barry

photo credit by Jill Murray