Approximately 70% of all jobs are never advertised and many of these jobs are created through networking. Determined networkers will meet the right people at organisations they are interested in, share their background, story and passion, stick around and ultimately a job will appear that fits their skills. I’ve seen it happen for myself – three of the 4 jobs I’ve held have come through my network – and many of my clients as well.
In the first article of this series, I outlined a process for clearly mapping and prioritising your network. The next step in this process is to create a powerful and concise message to deliver to your network about what you want. The job search can be seen as a giant treasure hunt. Unless you know what the treasure looks like and can describe it to others, it becomes a whole lot harder to win the hunt.
Creating a clear message for your network means crafting a specific concise statement of exactly what kind of work you are looking for. Typically this should be no more than two paragraphs of two or three sentences each, or if spoken should be deliverable in less than 60 seconds. Within this you need to articulate:
* What type of work you are looking for (marketing, sales, communications, project management, consulting, accounting, finance etc.)
* What sectors you would like to work in (banking and finance, manufacturing, non-profit, government, hi-tech, retail, fashion etc.)
* Ideally one or two example job positions (senior project manager, chief communications officer, vice-president of marketing)
* Other important factors (size of company, company culture, flexibility, salary needs etc.)
* Identify any organisations you have already identified that you’d like to work at (for example you might be interested in working in high-street fashion and identify Top Shop, Gap, H&M, Zara and Bennetton as your dream employers)
In order to create this statement and make it snappy you’ll need to spend a little time working on each area to make sure you are clear yourself on what you’re looking for. Think about each area and see what feels authentic or like a good fit for you. Crafting this short statement actually requires a fair amount of thinking time to make sure you’re really clear on what you are looking for.
One vital aspect of this process is to ensure that the description is specific enough. Imagine that you receive 2 messages from your friends as follows:
“I’m looking for a new job. Frankly I’m desperate and I’ll take anything that comes along. Can you help?”
“I’m looking for the next challenge in my career. I want to use my marketing, communication and marketing skills to help a hi-tech company grow and reach new markets. I’d ideally be looking for a job in the marketing department, perhaps as a senior marketing manager or marketing director.
I’m hoping you might be able to help me find opportunities or introductions to anyone you think could help in finding a role at a large and respected tech company. Some of my ideal targets include HP, Cisco, IBM, Intel and Apple. Please could you email me with any opportunities or connections you might be able to make.”
With message 1 your have no idea what your friend is looking for or how to help them. With message 2, if you happened to have an ex-colleague who works at Apple you might make an introduction.
Once you’ve got your message, share it with a few of your closest allies to make sure that it is clear, delivers your message effectively and has a clear call to action. After their comments, it is ready to go.
The next step is to send your message out to the world. Start with the people in the your first network circle (see article 1 is this series) and send it by email, call them or best of all get coffee. Make sure you keep track of who you’ve contacted and when, so you can follow up if you don’t hear anything. People are often busy and don’t get round to responding straight away, so don’t take this personally. You can send the message out to your next level of connections and so on.
Typically with this type of approach, the response rate is somewhere between 15% and 30% although this drops off as you get out to your looser connections. Following up can help to raise the rate. Of the responses, you might find that a handful of your connections are really helpful and make good connections to people in the right organisations. Yet, these connections are often the critical ones that lead to opportunity. Remember with this treasure hunt, all it takes is one great connection and you may find your dream job.
Tune in next week for the final instalment. We’ll cover how to follow up on the leads and give outstanding informational interviews.
