By Jeff Altman, The Big Game Hunter
From the archives (2014) This is a simulcast of No B. S. Job Search Advice Radio
On this show, Jeff Altman, The Big Game Hunter talks about some of the things you should be doing to look for a job while you are already working.
NOTE: I don’t longer do recruiting. I’m a coach who helps people be more effective in their careers. That can be with job search, hiring more effectively, managing and leading, being more successful in your career and career development, and many more. Any job that was mentioned in the show was filled years ago. I have no idea whether any of the advertisers mentioned are still in business.
Good morning, it’s Jeff Altman, The Big Game Hunter. It’s Monday morning at 9am eastern and that translates into a good, healthy dose of No BS job search advice. This is a time where I like to spend about 15 minutes speaking with you about some elements of job search because, to me, job hunting doesn’t have to be hard, difficult, painful, or even take as long as it does for so many of you.
The mistake so many people make is thinking that if they can do the job, that’s enough to find a job and get hired for that job when, in fact, there are a whole series of additional skills that complement competence that are really needed that most job hunters never cultivate and it causes them to take way too long to find work. So, that’s where this show comes in. Now, most of the time, I spend my shows talking to people who are out of work or who are aggressively looking for work. But sometimes, you’re thinking about changing jobs, or you’re pretty happy doing what you’re doing. But if you you’re thinking about improving your circumstances.
So what can you be doing? What sort of things can you do to engage in this kind of job search as a person who’s currently working and is considering another alternative? Now, the first thing to do is to get clear about what you’re looking for in the way of a new position. Now, to me, this is hugely important. After all, if you were driving from, I don’t know, Miami to Boston, and you didn’t have a road map or GPS in your car, how would you know you were on the right road? How would you know you were actually on the way to Boston, if you didn’t have some version of map or GPS to help you? Now, you might be able to say to yourself, well, I figure it out as I go along.
Is that the way you want to conduct your job search, figuring it out as you go along, and at least create a target for yourself? Now, a lot of recruiters or jerks, in my mind, suggest that you should think of a dream job. I don’t believe there’s such a thing as a dream job. I think what you should start doing is creating parameters that give you an idea of what your target is.
And then you can kind of adjust as you go along, seeing what interests you and what doesn’t interest you. But start off having parameters for which you want to start looking. And then from there, there are two things that you need to do.
Number one is update your resume and cover letter. And number two, update your LinkedIn profile. Before you update your LinkedIn profile, I want to remind you, you may be connected to your boss or manager or some colleague who you don’t want to alert that you’re considering something else.
Before you update your LinkedIn profile or tweak it, turn off the privacy setting that alerts all your connections to the fact that you’ve updated your profile. And then after the profile update has occurred, then what you do is you turn off that function. And thus, in the future, you can notify people of changes.
So, for now, turn that feature off and, as well, update your resume. I use the term cover letter. That really is incorrect.
Think in terms of a generic email that you might send that you would attach your resume to that you could use to as a baseline for every other cover email that you might send out. So, by doing that, you’ll have a basic resume that you can tweak because I don’t believe you’ve ever sent out generic resumes to jobs. And even when you’re contacted by recruiters, even if you’re contacted by corporations based upon your LinkedIn profile, you never send that generic resume.
What you do is always tailor it to the role that they’ve described to you. So, this way, you can demonstrate as best as possible you’re fit for that position. As for the generic resume, if you’re posting it on a job board, go so far as to pay for any feature that will hide your name from a recipient.
This way, they’re going to get some generic resume that doesn’t have your name and contact information. It may have this encrypted email address. I know Monster does this.
I think most firms, most of the major job boards do this. So, this way, many employers use these job boards to look for candidates in themselves. Do you want them to be finding your resume? I don’t think so.
Go so far as to pay for that service if you need to. Keep paying for it. Don’t cheap out on it.
The result winds up being that you’re hiding your identity from your current employer, but you can submit your resume to organizations. Another thing I think is really important is don’t use your office computer or office phone to do the job search. Now, if you’re using a computer, I would just simply say, never use the one at work because there are words and domains that employers set up as triggers to let people know that . . . let management know that someone’s looking for a job.
So, for example, some organizations may have my domain blocked from communications or as an alert to let them know that someone is communicating with me. If you’re using an office phone, remember that smartphone belongs to your employer. Use a personal smartphone for all your communications.
Don’t come through an office server where that same issue could come up. So, next, think in terms of taking a little time. Take one day.
I don’t care if it’s a weekend or a work day. Start thinking about something that begins the process of you networking and networking in person. See, to me, it’s important to think in terms of generating informational interviews, reaching out to people who you know and don’t know, buy them some coffee, pick their brain and start asking for some advice, particularly in informational interviews.
Talk with them about you’re considering making a change. You’re looking for some input about how your field is evolving and wanted to meet them for coffee or for a quick lunch and pick their brain about things you could be doing to prepare yourself for the next phase of your kind of work and where they might encourage you to improve your skills because you’re thinking about making a change and you’re looking for input. Where’s the miss in your background that interferes, might interfere with you moving forward in your career? So, take a little personal time to do this.
Many interviews are being done by phone these days, at least the initial ones. So, you want to think in terms of when a call comes in, do you want it coming into your desk phone or do you want it coming into your mobile? Do the mobile, do the mobile. When it comes into your mobile, you need to practice being casual when the call comes in.
So, you might just simply say to a caller, you may be sharing space with others, or they may reach you during meeting time. You want to ensure that you’re not having a conversation at an inappropriate place or time or you want to sound particularly tense when you have a conversation. So, practice just simply responding by saying, this isn’t a great time for me.
Would you mind if we scheduled time later today? So, then this way, you could be prepared and out of that common space and not just simply walking out to a conference room or taking the elevator out when a call comes in. There was a situation not long ago where a person forwarded a resume to me. They were in the process of getting into the elevator red loss connection.
Why? Because the elevator really didn’t have signal to allow the conversation to continue. He would have been better served by saying, Jeff, would you mind if I gave you a call back in about five to ten minutes? I just want to get to a place where I can speak freely. And then getting to that spot where he knew that there was good cell signal and then calling me back from there.
Lastly, and again, this is about that reminder from earlier that you may be connected with people through social media that you don’t want to trigger or alert to the fact that you’re changing jobs. One thing to do is do not talk about your job search online. Remember, that colleague of yours who you think of as your bud is all may also be someone who’s vying for your job or who wants to ingratiate themselves to both of your managers by letting them know that you’re out looking for a job.
So, do not talk about social media and talk through social media about how your search is going. When all is said and done, it is important to periodically change jobs. After all, the way the system is set up, if you stay in one organization for a long period of time, the tendency that organization has is to take you for granted, to not advance your compensation, to bring in people . . . not to increase your compensation more than a couple of small percentage points . . . to bring in people from the outside for roles that you want because they’ve already done it before.
You’re better off moving forward in your career and looking for a job while you have one.
The Simplest Job Search Networking Strategy
ABOUT JEFF ALTMAN, THE BIG GAME HUNTER
Jeff Altman, The Big Game Hunter is a coach who worked as a recruiter for what seems like one hundred years. His work involves career coaching, all as well as executive job search coaching, job coaching and interview coaching. He is the host of “No BS Job Search Advice Radio,” the #1 podcast in iTunes for job search with more than 1700 episodes and “The No BS Coaching Advice Podcast” and is a member of The Forbes Coaches Council. “No BS JobSearch Advice Radio” was named a Top 10 podcast for job search. JobSearchTV.com is also a Top 10 YouTube channel for job search.
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