Dirty Rotten Job Search Secrets
Dec 3 2010 in Featured, Job Search Strategy, reCareered Blog by Phil Rosenberg
When the Department of Labor reports that the unemployment rate is increasing and there are already nearly 6 times more unemployed workers than advertised jobs, maybe it’s time to play dirty.
Learn 5 job search tactics that are so effective, they’re unfair. These are the dirty rotten job search secrets those jerks who always get the job are using … to get the job you deserve.
Most candidates spend the majority of their job search efforts replying to ads, company websites, and calling/emailing their contacts, asking about available jobs, or to pass a resume along. Those jerks know better.
These tactics have an unfortunately low response rate, yet the majority of candidates use them as primary search tools. Why? Because it’s what they know … it’s in their comfort level. Plus it’s simple – it may not be effective, but it’s easy to execute.
Those jerks use a more effective way. Would you incorporate more effective tactics, even if they weren’t as simple? Even if they were unfair?
One way is to adopt a dirty rotten job hunting approach. In your job search, Information is the power that gives candidates with the best information an unfair advantage. Yet most job seekers don’t invest the time to gain that power by gaining better information. Most candidates leave this to the jerks, because it seems dirty.
Most candidates, if they do much research at all prior to applying for a job, find out little information other than what they might find in a job ad. Candidates who spend a little more time might review a company’s website … or if they’re investing a LOT of time, might search Google or business portals like Yahoo Finance. Do you think that information gives you much of an edge over other candidates? Doubtful – when your competitors can find the same information, how can it give you an advantage?
The dirty rotten candidate goes beyond basic publicly available information in their search. Going farther is difficult, time consuming, and outside most job seekers’ comfort zones.
Becoming A Dirty Rotten Job Seeker
Job search is a war, and you have thousands of competitors. Your primary weapons are information, marketing materials and contacts. Dirty rotten candidates don’t play by the standard rules … Dirty rotten candidates push the envelope to gain an unfair advantage over their competition.
Many candidates focus just on marketing materials – something tangible that they can see. Marketing materials are important, but information and contacts are even more important to gain an edge.
Your best way to push the envelope is to gain an information advantage over your competitors. But how can you gain an information advantage? The same information is available to everyone on a company’s website, on Yahoo Finance, on Google.
5 Ways To Become A Dirty Rotten Candidate:
- Gain an information advantage: – Your most valuable information about a target company will come from non-public sources. How could you gain insight about what’s going on within a company beyond company websites, Google, Yahoo Finance, and the business press?
- Maximize use of contacts: Dirty rotten candidates ask their target company contacts for information, while everyone else asks their contacts who’s hiring, what jobs are available and to pass their resume along. Most candidates misuse their contacts by spamming their resume, asking them for work, or to keep an eye out for openings. Using your contacts’ insight just as a resume conduit creates a huge missed opportunity and may result in undermining your relationship.
- Build intelligence: Dirty rotten candidates find multiple sources, because different sources have different issues and angles. Evaluate the data you’ve gotten from a number of sources within the company. What does it tell you about the issues that affect your target department and it’s manager? Is the company cutting costs? Is it expanding products, sales force or locations? Is it focused on customer retention, developing new customers, or lowering the cost per customer?
How does this information translate to pain? Do you have a track record solving any of this pain? (If you don’t have experience solving your target company’s identified pain, keep looking or cross this target off your list).
- Spy tactics: Dirty rotten candidates hang out at the water cooler to conduct espionage. Since you may not be able to loiter inside the company or hide behind potted plants, do the next best thing. Hang out where employees have lunch or go to a nearby happy hour. Make it a point to spend a few early Friday evenings at the closest bars around your target company and make some new friends. You’ll be amazed at the information you can gather and the additional informational assistance you can gain just by buying a few drinks.
Find more pain, more information, even if you have to use dirty rotten methods to find it.
- Be selective: Dirty rotten job search takes time. You can’t scatter-shot this strategy. Pick a small handful of your top targets for unfair tactics.
Dirty rotten candidates ask for insight and gather data. Your contacts have a wealth of information of what’s going on within your target companies. Why not learn from them? Ask what their department is working on, what business opportunities their company are focused on, how they interface with the department you’re interested in, what are the top corporate initiatives, and company concerns/risks? Ask what bothers your contact about their company, what’s bugging their boss?
If your contact can’t or won’t answer these questions, talk to someone else in the company. It doesn’t have to be the CEO, but a mail room clerk might not be so helpful either (unless you’re looking for a job in the mail room). Of course, the closer your contact is to your desired department and hiring manager, the better.
This dirty rotten information is perfectly legal to use to gain an unfair advantage in the job market and an incredibly effective strategy. Just don’t buy investments from this – it’s how some of the dirty rotten scoundrels on Wall Street end up in jail. These tactics are so dirty, so unfair that it’s illegal to use this information for investment information or to trade stocks. However, there are no laws about using information to help your job search, regardless of how you gain it.
One of the best times to gather inside dirty rotten information is during the holiday season. How will you use the next 6 weeks to advance your job search?
Will you be naughty, or nice?
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Want to do more than just complain about a bad economy?
To attend our next complimentary live webinar featuring action items to double your resume response rate and number of interviews, plus live career Q&A with Phil Rosenberg of reCareered, register at http://ResumeWebinar.com .
Also, check out the complimentary Linkedin job search webinars sponsored weekly at http://LinkedJobSearchWebinar.com .
Join our mailing list to for newsletters, announcements of complimentary upcoming webinars and other job search resources. Sign up at http://www.reCareered.com/newsletter/
For access to more information:
Connect to Phil Rosenberg on Linkedin: http://linkedin.com/in/philrosenberg
Follow reCareered on Linkedin: http://linkedin.com/company/recareered.com
"Like" reCareered on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/reCareered
Follow Phil Rosenberg on Google+: http://gplus.to/philrosenberg
Follow reCareered on Twitter: http://twitter.com/philreCareered
Join Career Change Central on Linkedin: http://linkedin.com/e/gis/1800872
Source: http://reCareered.com
You might also like
 |
 |
 |
 |
Phil, this has to be the most creative slant I’ve seen written on this topic. Doing so you’ve stealthfully highlighted the resentment so many jobseekers feel about those who employ the dirty rotten tactics and the resistance they feel to joining the “game”. It may not be fair or quick, but its a fact that behind the scenes information gathering is the top method of standing out from other candidates, finding the 80% of opportunities that are never posted, and nailing the job. The choice is whether to brave it and embrace it or to play it safe and wait for the job to find you. Braving it sounds easier for the long term.
I don’t know. While I agree that most employer research is inadequate, we need to devise more concrete stategies than these to gather it. Imagine, by analogy, a football coach has his team all primed and ready to burst through the tunnel and go to work on the field against the opponent. Instead, he tells them to get out there and… wander around the stands and see who has some insight into the opponent and who to ask who knows more, etc., etc. Do you feel the air leak out of that momentum balloon? These desultory “networking” and “research” directives can do more harm than good if they’re vague, diffuse, and time consuming. Let’s open the discussion to more specific sources of insider information. I agree that it’s certainly not going to be the acquisition-divestment announcements or the CEO’s self-congratulatory statements in the trade media.
OK Kent, what do you suggest as an alternative?
I probably get my best information from three sources, but I’d like to hear about more:
1) A close colleague who has a friend who is at the company in question who opens up to him about what’s going on. But it goes without saying that I don’t control who my colleagues friends are or what sort of motivation that second degree contact has to get to know anyone new who might be helpful.
2) A supply chain partner, service provider, or vendor who sees the inside of the company. This is subject to all the limitations of no. 1 above, but still yields a bit more than barstool or water-cooler leaning would. Note: they’re just as likely to point out issues at another employer you aren’t even necessarily targeting.
3) An article or case study write-up on solving a problem or a before-and-after picture at the company of interest or its related competitors or players. In industrial engineering and process improvement, my area, a good vehicle is Target magazine from the AME. I find that the library research engines (Gale, InfoUSA, et al) are woefully ineffective in locating these materials. They’re great at finding stock price, buy-sell news, etc.
Other readers, what’s working, not just what is purported to work?