Everyone knows the traditional methods for finding a job. You create a dynamite resume and cover letter; you tell everyone you know that you’re looking for a job; you find job listings on the Internet and in newspapers and send in your fantastic resume; you attend career fairs… and then you wait for the news that some company wants to schedule an interview. Simple, right? But what if all those great ideas don’t work for you? What if you have a resume that does not fit the mold or skills that do not shine through on paper? What if you don’t know all the right people who have the right connections in your chosen profession or industry? The answer is that you have to start thinking like an employer.
Thinking like an employer means that your focus needs to change from finding a job to presenting yourself as a solution to an employer’s problems. Face it; employers are actually not in the business of providing jobs for you - or for anyone else. As harsh at it may sound, most employers do not care if you ever find a job. What they do care about is whether or not they find the right person to accomplish some task or fill some need of theirs, not some need of yours.
To present yourself as a solution, you obviously need to know something about the company's problems. That means that you will need to do some research. You can find out about problems in any number of ways - reading industry publications, hanging out at the same places the company's employees hang out and talking with them, talking to their suppliers or customers - snooping. Once you understand the company's needs, think about how you can fill those needs or partially fix some of their problems. If you have done your research well, it's time to move to step two: getting in through the back door - not literally of course, since I'm not advocating trespassing or breaking and entering.
This is where you need to get creative. A few methods that have at least a chance of working are:
- Place an ad in the employee newspaper, if they accept outside advertising.
- Find someone who works at the company to hand-deliver your resume to the department where there are some job openings in your field. Don't be deterred by the fact that there are no actual openings, since you may be able to define a new opening in the right circumstances.
- Attend industry trade shows and bring your resume.
- Write a letter (not an email - a real letter) to a department manager with some of your thoughts about how you could help them solve some problem you discovered in your research. Don't give everything away - and then end the letter with the wonderful information that you and all your clever ideas could be available to the company full time if you became an employee of theirs. Sell yourself!
- Remember, above all, that people who truely want to work will always manage to find a job.
In my next post, I'll share some actual stories of creative ways I have gotten in through some back doors to exactly the job I wanted. Come to think of it, I've never gotten a job the "correct way" - and I'm not alone.
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