Does Your Net Work?

HOT READS FOR THE PRACTITIONER

Title: How To Get Yourself Employed

Competency: self-development

Who benefits: job seekers (employed or unemployed)

Consultant Usage: must read article and book for career counselors

What’s it about? I am writing this post out of frustration.  Three different friends of mine, unknown to each other, are all seeking employment.  Two have been out of work for a long time.  One is employed but unhappy at work and says she is seeking to switch jobs and maybe careers.

All three have one thing in common.  They are going about their job search in the wrong way.

They are known in the “biz” as passive job seekers.  They look at the want ads in the newspapers and the Internet.  They post their (very average looking) resumes on job search sites.  That’s about it. 

And they get passive responses … that is, no responses.  For one of my friends this has been going on for over 2 years.  None of the three seems to want any advice and all three believe that the perfect job is out there and will somehow present itself, probably soon.  Except you and I know that “soon” probably won’t come and at some point at least the two unemployed friends will reach desperation and need to take the next employment opportunity that comes along.  And that opportunity is very likely to be low pay, out of their field of interest, and likely described as menial.  And the worst part of this is that while in the menial job they won’t have the time they need to do a proper job search.

Lordy I wish my friends would read Ariana Green’s Blog posting: “How to Make Your Network Work for You”.  It is short and to the point.  She acknowledges that most job seekers hate “networking”.  It just feels demeaning.  Ah, but not if you do it right, she says.  Make networking a positive experience for the other guy.  She has some tips on how to impress (my favorite, leave an after work message with some interesting tidbit on the other person’s phone). She also reminds us that no matter how many tips we follow, there is still no substitution for face-to-face contact.  Also included are two very short case studies that help make her point. 

If my friends can bring themselves to read a second short article, US News and World Report offers “How to Beat the Job-Search Blues”.  While not quite so well written as the Blog above, it too has some active job search actions including how to turn volunteerism into a job.

Finally, if my friends insist on sitting around all day (or night in the case of the employed friend) and wait for someone to contact them, then by all means they should invest some significant time in reading a new book called Networking Like a Pro: Turning Contacts into Connections.  This book has some “big names” endorsing it and it offers Networking Scorecard for measuring progress (or lack thereof). 

I would like to say a bit more but I have got to go meet some people now.  I don’t need anything, but the best network is the one that is in place when you need it.

Catch you later.

 
[tags]networks, people networks, people connections, job search, getting employed, making connections, networking scorecard, bill bradley, william bradley, bradley[/tags]

Bill Bradley

Bill Bradley (mostly) retired after 35 years in organizational consulting, training and management development. During those years he worked internally with seven organizations and trained and consulted externally with more than 90 large and small businesses, government agencies, hospitals and schools.