9 Days To Get Hired. Yep.

It was time for Mark to make a change. After being with his employer for 10 years, he felt a calling to do something else. But after searching for about 2 months, he wasn’t getting a lot of traction. At that point, he (and you) have a decision to make: do you continue on with what you’re doing because you know how to do it, or do you make the decision to do something different? In Mark’s case, he decided to do 3 things differently:

Jump Off The Job Boards

Here’s what everyone does when it comes time to look for a new job: jump onto the job boards and click, click, click away…

…until weeks, then months go by, and the only calls you’ve gotten have been about selling insurance on a 100% commission basis, or solicitations about how easy and affordable it is to go back to school.

Job boards are valuable as long as you use them correctly. Think of job boards as a signal. A signal is an indicator of something else, perhaps something larger, perhaps something coming next.

What job boards should signal for you is who’s hiring. Take that information, jump off the job boards, and jump back into the real world.

Real World = Real Human Beings

“The new LinkedIn profile pulled in more traffic,” Mark said, “And still continues to get attention from recruiters.”

The entire point of being on LinkedIn is to have people see you. Those people can’t be just anybody: they need to be the people who will impact the decision to hire you. Those people are recruiters and decision makers.

Say something that grabs their attention the very first second. What grabs you? “Sales Representative/Territory Management” or “Sr Sales Executive Who Drives Business Development | Partner Strategy | Customer Experience.”

Real Human Beings = Real Conversations

“It boiled down to networking,” Mark said.

Before you roll your eyes at the very thought of networking (because your networking usually doesn’t work), let’s go through what Mark did right.

“I reached out to a contact who connected me to the hiring manager,” Mark said. The hiring manager presumably viewed Mark’s LinkedIn profile and immediately saw the areas where he offered the most expertise. The hiring manager interviewed him the very next day.

What Mark did is an example of networking at work. And don’t be afraid of the word “contact,” or immediately allow your mind to go to the thought that you don’t have any contacts. Networking only with people you already know is the #1 reason why you networking is not working. You don’t know anyone in the company you’re interested in? Find someone. That’s what LinkedIn is for.

Don’t blast. You’ve received a blast email before and you didn’t like it either. Just be thoughtful and considerate regarding the people you decide to reach out to. Personalize your message. Be specific about what you bring to the table.

Reality check: is this the magic formula to suddenly get EVERYone to respond to you? No. But the rate of success when you’re only using the job boards is an abysmal 1-2%, whereas the rate of response when you reach out and touch someone is 40-70%.

The hiring manager presented Mark with an offer the next week. His entire process took a grand total of 9 days. And he works at home.

Do something different. In fact, do a lot of things differently. If you continue to job search the old way, you’ll find yourself deeper and deeper into the black hole. I can walk you right out of that, along a proven step-by-step path to take you from “job searching” to “job found” in half the time. DM me and we’ll talk about how to make this happen in your specific situation.