In a previous chapter, I advised you that getting your resume prepared was of the greatest importance in starting a job campaign. We will assume now that it has been organized. Your resume is your stock in trade, your saleable merchandise. It becomes the basis of your job campaign. Without it, you would be like the picture that Dun & Bradstreet circulated during the depression. It showed an old country peddler standing beside his empty horse-drawn wagon. Underneath the title was the inscription, "You can't sell from an empty wagon." Your resume represents the inventory of goods that you put into your wagon.
The whole purpose of everything you do now is to find as many buyers of your services as you can. You may have the most perfect qualifications for a job, but unless you can talk to employers, your qualifications are as useless as a book that he unread on a library shelf, or as ineffectual as the Fuller Brush man who doesn't get a chance to open his case before a housewife. If you want a better job, you must get interviews, interviews and more interviews.
How to Get Interviews
More than twenty years ago I discovered what every placement person must eventually conclude-that is, that the right individual is never available when you have a job lead; and when you do have the person available, the right job is not at hand. Consequently, when I first started this work and had an office full of people looking for jobs, I had to get them activated. They branched out in every direction. They called on all possible employment agencies. They used letters of introduction. They answered advertisements, and they inserted "Job Wanted" ads themselves.
At one time, as placement chairman of an alumni association, in order to get leads, I mailed out 15,000 letters country wide. I enclosed a self-addressed return card, on which I re quested employers to list job lead. Hundreds of leads came in, but there were very few that fitted the abilities of my people or resulted in anyone are getting a job. The big thing I learned, from all this indiscriminate prospecting, was that job leads are, as a rule, for very specific persons with specific experiences. Even though one is constantly told that the business world desires people with broad backgrounds, it nonetheless wants individuals with specific experience. The business world calls for specialists.
Some of the job-seekers got friends to write a letter about them to prospective employers. Here is an example from one such letter; "I know of a man who has fine qualifications as a sales manager. He is an excellent man of proven character, and I will gladly arrange for you to see him," etc. I do not recommend this approach. The results of third-party letters are very poor and very disappointing. I remember one man for whom an agency mailed out 350 letters to firms on a list he bought from it (the agency is paid a commission if a job is secured through it). He received only one interview, but no job. I regard third-party letters as the least successful of all approaches. I don't advise using it unless the job-seeker has to work on a sub-rosa basis.
After trying one method after another to secure interviews, the experience of several of my job-seekers opened my eyes to a new avenue, and I began to realize the value of mailing out ''broadcast" letters written in the first person.
One man had been making the rounds seeing company officers with letters of introduction furnished by two influential business friends. He had no trouble at all in getting in for a courtesy interview, but none of these interviews resulted in a single job offer.
When he had exhausted his list, his energy, and his morale, I persuaded him to write a letter directly to the presidents of several hundred companies. He picked the names from a directory. The list included a goodly number of the presidents of companies he had previously seen. To my great surprise, he received replies from half of those to whom he had written, and 5 per cent of these suggested he call for an interview. One of these came from a president he had seen just two weeks earlier. When he had been interviewed on the basis of his letter of introduction, he had been told that there was no job available. However, when that same president received his personal broadcast letter, he wrote that he had turned it over to his vice-president in charge of manufacturing and suggested that the applicant arrange an appointment with him. The man followed through, had his interview, was hired, and is still with this same company twenty years later.
This broadcast letter incident opened my eyes to the potential use of this approach and taught me that the letter does something that nothing else seems to do. Its message penetrates right into the inner office. The letter short-circuits not only lesser officers and impersonal personnel departments but frequently makes it possible to get to see the president or another officer of the firm. As a result of this kind of letter, when you are invited for an interview, you do not have to fight your way past a protective secretary who is adamantly trying to see that her boss is not disturbed by a job-seeker. Your letter will have done the preparatory job for you unlike anything else. It will have put the focus on the exact position you want, and now that you have been invited in, you are on an entirely different footing: you come in as a peer.
This is a letter I received from one of the men who, reluctantly but at my insistence, sent out some broadcast letters:
Dear Carl, I'm sorry that I can't be with you on Thursday night. I have an interview out of town. In fact, I have eight more interviews lined up ahead. I sent out 225 letters. They just exploded into interviews. My coat tails have been standing out straight ever since the mailing. I'll report to you as soon as something is definite.
He landed a job as general manager of a machine shop in New Jersey employing 2,000 men. A miracle? Yes. One wrought by a human being such as you, but one who had faith and energy enough to make this effort. Today, over 90 per cent of all the people I work with find their jobs and is placed through the broadcast-letter campaign. These letters are sent out cold to unknown presidents of companies which the applicant did not even know existed until he found their names in a directory. Therefore, your most important task is to get your broadcast letter out at once.
It doesn't make any difference whether you are looking for a job that pays $5,000 or $50,000. Get those broadcast letters in the mail. Of all the methods of job-finding I have had people try, I have found the broadcast letter the most positive, the most effective, the most time-saving, and the most reasonable way to get placed. Do not be persuaded otherwise.
This does not mean that jobs cannot be located by other means. I have always told people that they should use every possible means available to get placed. In other words, shake every tree and turn over every stone; but before exploiting other avenues, get those letters in the mail. I speak from long experience. Many individuals who tried other means first later and sadly turned back to the broadcast letter.
After your broadcast letters have been mailed, you can generally count on from ten to fifteen days of comparatively free time. The first answers you will receive will be the "no" answers. These will come in immediately. You will then get courtesy replies from presidents stating they haven a job for someone as good as you but assuring you that anyone of your stature should have no trouble finding a place. This is plain baloney.
The next letters that come in will contain application blanks for you to fill out. These will be from personnel departments and should arrive a few days after you have made your mailing. The letters suggesting you call for an interview lag and come in later. Usually, they reach their peak about the eighth or tenth day after mailing, and then they begin to level off. So, during the first week before you get your requests for interviews, you can hit the town, visit your friends, see employment agencies, and follow any leads you may have. After the tenth day, as a result of your broadcast letters, you should have plenty of appointments ahead.
Keep Them Going Out
There is a great difference between the interviews that result from the broadcast letter and those otherwise obtained. Time and again 1 have been told that interviews resulting from letters are infinitely superior. Keep mailing out broad cast letters. Get out a hundred or two each week. Keep mailing them out, even though you feel fairly certain after a particular interview that you "have it made" and that the offer of a job is only minutes away.
Sometimes jobs are like mirages-they fade away. I strongly advise you to get out another hundred letters even when you feel you have a job cinched. Nothing is so depressing and demoralizing as to find that the job you counted on has fallen through and you don't have any more interviews scheduled ahead. I have known this to happen many times.
Profit by this experience and don't insist on learning it the hard way. Keep the broadcast letters going out? Should they result in several job offers, you have a choice. One of the greatest boosts to your morale is to be in a position to turn down a job; it gives you a wonderful feeling of security.
Over the years, the average number of interviews per loo letters sent out by people I have coached runs to about 6 per cent. It probably will run double that amount and even go higher for jobs in the medium and lower echelons. After all, if you want to be a general manager, remember that there is only one job in that category in a given company. There can be only one controller, whereas there may be half dozen regional sales managers, several hundred salesmen, and so on. It is like the Army-one general, several colonels, more captains, then a greater number of lieutenants and sergeants. Because there are necessarily fewer job-openings in the higher echelons, you must get out a much larger mailing.
The Physical Aspect of Your Letter
You need not go to the expense of having each letter individually written. Individual letters are more expensive to get out, and the results are no better than those gained from letters that are mechanically reproduced. Reproduced letters cost one-quarter to one-third of the price of individually written ones. Do not let anyone persuade you that it is necessary to use individually typed or individually reproduced letters unless the cost is of no account to you. Cost is important to most job-seekers. Have your letters multiplied, or use any process which prints through a ribbon so that, except for experts, the typing cannot be distinguished from that which is individually done. It is very important, moreover, that you match the ink and type of the body of the letter when you fill in the names and addresses.
An inexpensive way to print your broadcast letter is to use the photo-offset process. An ingenious method of using photo-offset from a cost-conscious job-seeker is summarized below:
- Change the standard ribbon in your typewriter to an I.B.M. carbon ribbon. Though this is a messy job, the new ribbon will yield a bold dark imprint that is similar to the imprint made by your own typewriter when you put in a new standard black ribbon.
- Leaving blank spaces for the date, name, address, and salutation, type the letter carefully. I advise against using letter head. You do not want to call so much attention to your name in case you want to write another letter. Just type your address in the upper left-hand corner, and your telephone number in the lower left-hand corner.
- Have the letter photo-offset.
- Change the ribbon in your typewriter to a new standard black ribbon. Simply type in the dates, names, addresses, and salutations as needed, and sign each letter. The type should match the offset-printed letter, giving the impression of an individually typed letter. You can do as many or as few as you wish each day.
Use a good bond paper; always white-never a color. Be conservative in the physical makeup of the letters. I recommend the use of the monarch-size stationery because it creates a more personal tone. Sign each letter yourself and have your name typed under your signature. Be sure to have your telephone number below the body of the letter on the left side. You will receive many telephone requests to come in for an interview.
Letters That Create Interviews
You should expect nothing of the letters except that they get interviews-good interviews. If your letter has been properly written, it should make your interviews a thousand per cent easier, for the letter will have laid a firm foundation for them.
A broadcast letter should produce about six interviews for each hundred sent out. Often the percentage will go much higher. If the first hundred letters bring in only 4 per cent, that does not mean that the letter was bad. Your next 100 may bring in 8 or lo per cent. One hundred letters are not a large enough sample.
Sometimes people tell me they have had wonderful response they have received 30, 50, and even 80 per cent re plies. "Replies" count for absolutely nothing. Count only the interview requests. You can regard as an interview a reply that states, "We have your interesting letter, and although we have nothing specific in mind, we would suggest that you drop in when you are in this vicinity. We would like to meet you." The writer is hiding behind a mask. He doesn't want to raise your hopes, but many replies like this lead to real job offers.
You will get a number of replies that enclose application blanks for you to fill out and return. This usually means that your letter has gone down to a clerk in the personnel department. I am often asked what you should do with these applications. Long years of experience have taught me that it is pretty much a waste of time to fill them out, and when you finish you may as well mail them directly to the dead-letter office. Yes, there are a few personnel departments who make a fetish of keeping all applications, building up files that contain thousands of names, and sometimes, months or years after a person has sent in an application, he will be asked if he is still interested in a position with that company. I always won der what they think the person has been doing in the meantime-gone on relief or been collecting unemployment insurance?
If your letters bring in a low percentage of interview re quests, probably it is because the letter should be reviewed and strengthened; often it doesn't take much to strengthen it. Too often the applicant tells how an action was accomplished. Forget the "how." Concentrate instead on giving a measurement of what was done. I also find that people want to give their whole life history. This acts like pouring water into good coffee-it dilutes, instead of strengthens, the emphasis on their specialty. Everything must be grooved in a single direction-that is, to make you a specialist-to make you different. For instance, if you are a controller for a manufacturer, place all the emphasis on manufacturing. Mold and keep your letter in that groove. No matter how important you feel your other experiences are, do not bring them up in the letter.
This is what he wrote to tell me about the results of this letter campaign:
Dear Carl,
As you know, I was rather skeptical of the direct mail approach for finding a job.
After a few Thursday evenings with you, I thought that I had my accomplishments in sufficient shape in resume form to pre pare a letter on my own. I sent the letter out in October to 120 companies and received only one interview. You have a copy of the original letter.
Needless to say, I was discouraged. However, I decided to change the letter along the lines you recommended and sent out i6o more letters. 120 of these went to exactly the same group to whom I originally wrote last October. I also sent out letters to 40 new firms because I wasn't sure that repeating the mailing would accomplish what you said it would.
The response has been terrific. I sent out the letters last Monday and had four interview requests by Tuesday. To date, I have had eight interviews. This letter should pull better than 6 per cent. Better yet, on Thursday I was offered and have since taken a position at 11,800 more than I was making before I was called back into service two years ago. I got the job on the first interview, "without a rhyme, without the company's asking for references, and I received $2,000 more than the company originally planned to pay. Strangest of all to me, but I am sure not to you, is that the company never even bothered to answer the first letter I sent them in October. Of the interviews to date from this last mailing, all of them have been from companies on the original October list. Some never answered the first letter; others had sent courtesy replies. So it really doesn't make any difference what happened a few months ago.
You have converted me to direct mail. When I was thinking of the possible consequences of making the quick decision I had to make in taking this job, I figured it really didn't make too much difference. I can always send out another 150 letters if things don't work out. It does give you quite a feeling of security.
This second broadcast letter to Mr. John Jones was essentially the same as the one he had sent a month previously, except that he deleted this paragraph:
Later, for an investment company, I placed with banks and insurance companies business and mortgage loans ranging from $10,000 to several million dollars. I analyzed the operating performance of several manufacturers in which the company had financial interests.
You will note that this paragraph placed him with an investment company-a far cry from a manufacturing firm. It took only that short paragraph to dilute his manufacturing experience. He says that for the second mailing he used 160 names. One hundred and twenty of these were from the list he had first used and which had pulled only 1 per cent interviews. He added forty new names to his list because he doubted that the old list would get interviews. However, he did much better with the old list than the new. Note that he says in his letter to me, ''The response has been terrific. . . . Of the interviews to date from this last mailing, all of them have been from . . . the original October list." Strangest of all, the company (his new employer) never had bothered to answer the previous letter. You may well ask, "How is this possible?" The answer is that business is ever changing and never static. I will have more to say about this later.
When the recipient of your letter reads it, he must drool. He must see something that is close to his interest. Perhaps he has a problem at that moment that must be solved. All businesses, no matter how smoothly they seem to be running to an outsider, are meeting just one problem after another. Some problems are more acute than others, but there will always be problems in sales, taxes, government contracts, costs, new products, public relations, manpower, acquisitions or mergers.
It is into this atmosphere that your letter arrives. Your letter states factual deeds which you have accomplished or, in other words, problems which you have solved for someone else. If one of your achievements fits the reader's problem of the moment, your chance of being called in is very good. The interviewer usually brings up the one thing in the letter which struck his interest, so you can readily tell which accomplishment is of most interest to him.
No business stands still; it moves either backward or forward. A small percentage of your letter readers are faced with a particular problem today. Perhaps none of your achievements offers a solution to his problem of the moment, so you do not get a request for an interview. This situation may change completely in a few weeks. Four weeks later, you should send out another letter to those on your list who did not ask you to come in for an interview when they received your first letter. I have found that with almost the same letter you will get about the same percentage of interviews as you got from the first round, sometimes even more.
In the 1940's I came across Richard C. Borden's book. Public Speaking as Listeners like it (Harper & Bros.). In it he demonstrates his formula for speech organization and clarity. I then started to apply this formula to letter writing-perhaps crudely-but I consider the results pure magic. Borden says in his book, "Listeners like vertebrate speeches-speeches with a spine. They dislike jellyfish speeches. They dislike flabby, shapeless speeches that begin nowhere, ramble in all directions, and end nowhere.'' I simply transpose "listeners" to "readers" and "speeches" to "letters." Paraphrased, it becomes "Readers like vertebrate letters-letters with a spine," etc. Today, every broadcast letter that comes to me for consideration-
The first, the "Ho Hum" paragraph, must catch the reader's interest immediately. It must make him sit up in his swivel chair; he must react as if you had rung his doorbell. The second, "Why bring that up?", must build the connective link between your opening paragraph and its application to him or to his business. Here, too, it becomes necessary to show that you are looking for a job and a very specific one. It is quite important that you guide the reader in the direction you want him to go.
In the third step, the "For instance" one, you must give concrete evidence of what you have done. Do not make it a recital of generalizations, but recall your specific deeds. I stressed in the earlier chapter on resumes that your resume be a recital of deeds or, in other words, your measurable '*for instances." These now become the main body of your letter. With your reader up to step four, "So what?", his reaction now will be "What do you want me to do about it?" Now is the time to ask for, or suggest, some action or response which is within his power to give.
Step L Ho Hum-Opening Paragraphs
A, Topical Openings. I have found only two kinds of opening paragraphs which are effective-topical and accomplishment types of openings. The topical type is much more difficult to find and use than the accomplishment one. I have seen very few really good topical opening paragraphs. Timing and circumstances have a lot to do with this. Still, I recommend the topical if at all possible because of its electrifying effect. Following are some examples of topical openers which pulled interviews far above the normal percentages:
A week ago, I was filling sandbags in London, England. I was still advertising manager of --company. All merchandising and advertising had stopped on account of the war.
The writer of this letter had come back to the States to bring his family out of the war zone. He had walked the streets and ring doorbells for two months without getting a job. Then, with my help, he wrote this broadcast letter, using the above opening paragraph. Two weeks later, he was back on a pay roll at a higher salary than he had ever earned before.
Another example: "I have come back home to stay after eight years in South America." The timing of this opening was right-business was then looking to South America. It brought the amazing response of 23 per cent of interview re quests, in spite of the fact that the writer let it be known that she was not going back to South America and had really come home to stay.
Here is another topical approach: "I sold Florida orange juice to the people of California." I like this one. It was startling almost like selling a refrigerator to an Eskimo. It was written by an advertising account executive. Another one:
I have been in Sing Sing prison twenty times-each time in a professional capacity, auditing the books of the prison.
This was used by a seventy-five-year-old certified public accountant whose complete letter appears in a later chapter, "Life Can Begin for You at Fifty-" Still another:
When peace comes, industry may again, as in 1919, face the necessity of finding supplementary lines to utilize its vast new plant capacity.
This opening seemed very good at the time but brought in a very low percentage of interview requests, because the timing was poor. The person was too early-business wasn't yet giving any thought to postwar planning. But two years later, essentially the same opener brought an above-normal percentage of interviews.
B. Accomplishment Openings. Accomplishment type of opening paragraphs I have found to be more useful because they are much more adaptable to different people, whereas the topical depends too much on the right timing and on particular circumstances. Furthermore, in this type of opening, an accomplishment may be lifted out of your resume.
Try to use one that fits the business situation or cycle of the moment. For instance, in the last few years, the business world had problems about reducing its inventory position, so the following example was sent out at just the right time;
As an assistant controller, I set up controls which decreased inventory one million dollars in just 12 months. This was done even though sales had increased during this period by $5,000,000.
Though the writer of this letter had been only an assistant controller up to this time, he landed a full controllership. Here is an opener for a completely different sort of job:
As a National Convention Manager, I helped develop an electronic product display which drew more than 50,000 visitors to our booth.
The man who wrote this is now with a computer company as assistant to the president. Other examples:
Marketing Manager
a) As an Assistant Marketing Manager for a leading consumer product, I helped increase sales 12 per cent through a new marketing policy.
Financial Manager
b) I recently brought a 25 million dollar contract under financial control within a period of two months-and, more important, at a substantial increase in net profit.
This person is now the financial vice-president of his company.
Two accomplishment openers used by controllers read:
As Controller and Treasurer of a medium-sized manufacturing company, I converted a previous operating loss situation into a net profit of 15 per cent of sales, before taxes.
As Assistant Controller of a manufacturing company doing 25 million in sales, I discovered neglected stock, sold it for $240,000 and thus made a profit of $30,000 instead of taking a loss of f6o,ooo.
The man who wrote this letter is now controller of a well-known company.
A salesperson opened with, "As territorial salesman for an industrial goods manufacturer, I increased sales in my territory 20 per cent in just one year,"
A retailer opened his letter by saying, "As a merchandise manager in a large Midwestern department store, I doubled the volume of business in the basement 'ready-to-wear' section in four years. My profits were lo per cent above the store's average."
You see how easy it is to get a striking opening paragraph. In your resume you will find many which are just as potent. In the examples I have given, you will notice that nearly every person mentions his specialty. Also mark how the opening sentence gives the direction in which the writer wants to go, by mentioning his title and telling what function he per formed.
Once you have succeeded in arousing the reader's interest, you must now answer his unasked questions; "Why are you bringing this up? What has it to do with me or my company? Why are you writing to me?" Your second paragraph must tell "why. You can answer these questions by being completely frank in telling exactly why you are writing to him. For instance:
I am writing to you because your company may be in need of a man for its blank department with my training and experience, If so, you may be interested in other things I have done.
Following are examples of different ways to phrase the second paragraph, depending on what the job interest is. In all cases the "I am writing you because" is implied.
- Your company may need someone in the controller's or financial department. My experience may interest you.
- If your company needs a Manufacturing Manager with my training and experience, you may be interested in some of the things I have accomplished.
- Your company may have need in your marketing operation for someone with my experience.
- If you need sales representation, you may be interested in some of the other things I have done.
- Your company may be in need of a sales executive. If so, you may be interested in what I have done in sales.
- Your company may be planning to develop its foreign trade and may, therefore, be interested in my experience and back ground.
- If your company is in need of someone with budget and control experience, you may be interested in what I have done as a Budget and Control Manager.
The following letter was written to a medium-sized manufacturing company. It brought interviews from all over the country. Some of the prospective employers were so anxious to interview this man they offered to pay his travel expenses.
We lifted his deeds for his third step right out of his resume;
If your company needs a man of my experience for your manufacturing or engineering operations, you may be interested in what I have done. I have:
Doubled the plant area and relocated it without loss of production. Under my direction, $200,000 of priority equipment was procured for a new plant layout.
In a tight labor market, I expanded the production staff 150 per cent and doubled the professional staff.
While Chief Engineer, I expanded the market by improving the product. This secured new sales of high temperature and high load applications not previously possible.
I doubled the commercial applications in two years and directed low-cost design, which established the product in the field of machine tools and motor boats.
I provided a field engineering service, models, test installations, and catalogue data. New sales of highly engineered applications were secured through these services.
Precautions: Use only one deed or one ''for instance" in a paragraph. Let each example stand out as if you had thrown a sponge of wet paint against a canvas. Do not try to condense two or more ideas into a single paragraph. No artist would ever put two pictures in the same frame.
Remember my advice on resume writing. It applies here, too, and is even more important. Try to use no more than ten to twelve words in a sentence. Keep all paragraphs down to three and not more than four lines. Work and rework them until you achieve the greatest strength-a smooth staccato.
Before you proceed with this step, put in a paragraph mentioning your educational background-schools, graduate schools, or colleges. Do not mention any kind of training-it may affect the intended direction of your letter. Mentioning your schools however adds to the reader's receptivity; it ties you to a known-quality label.
Then proceed to the last step, Step IV, the close of your letter, in which you must ask or suggest action which is within the power of the reader to give. Since the whole purpose of the letter is to secure an interview, you now suggest that interview somewhat in the following manner:
I should be glad to discuss further details of my business experience in a personal interview,
Or:
If you desire to discuss my experience in greater detail, I shall be glad to do so in a personal interview.
A note of warning: Do not end your letter with:
I enclose a resume of my business experience. I would appreciate an opportunity to discuss any possible position which you may have in your organization.
For the following reasons:
- If you mention the resume at all, he will probably ask you to mail it, and you will have lost the interview.
- "I would appreciate" suggests begging. You should not beg for an interview. It is not necessary.
- Never say "discuss any possible position that you may have to offer." This weakens your whole letter. Remember you are selling yourself in one position, your specialty. To ask for any position makes you a surplus commodity and decreases your demand product value.
- Never say, "I would like to show you how I can help increase your profits." He will, and rightly, considers this presumptuous, coming from an outsider.
- Never address the letter to anyone except the president. You can always find his name in the directories. Only he knows whether or not he plans to retire a treasurer, controller, etc.
Develop your own mailing list; do not buy one from professional list-sellers. Some name lists may have as many as five or six names in the same company. To have your letter go out to all these could only spell disaster. Usually, when you pay for a list, it is not turned over to you, but is used by the list-seller to mail your letter for you. This means you never find out how many firms on the list '? can't be found" or have "moved, left no address," As many as lo to 15 per cent of your letters may be wasted.
Make your list strong by selecting your own names. No one but you knows the size and kind of company you want to work for. No one but you knows the geographical location you prefer. Only you can determine whether a large or small company can afford your job activity. For instance, a small company cannot afford electronic data processing.
List of Books to Use in Making up Your Mailing List
Poor's Register of Corporations, Directors, and Executives. This has a geographical listing. It is the best for all-round use.
Nev's Front Magazine, Register of 12,000 companies- It can be purchased for $6.00.
Dun & Bradstreef's Million Dollar Directory. This has a monthly supplement to keep it up to date. It is very productive.
Standard Register- This is published by the National Association of advertisers. It is extremely useful for people in marketing.
Moody's Banks, Insurance, Real Estate and Investment Trusts is good for people who are exploring these fields.
State Directories- Every state's Department of Commerce publishes a directory. These are available by writing to this department in specific states.
Regional and City Directories- There is one put out by the New England Council. The Boston Chamber of Commerce puts out a Directory of Manufacturers. Check with your own Chamber of Commerce. They may have what you need. These local directories are effective when you want to concentrate on a particular area.
Here is one of thousands of letters received by the author from those he has helped:
Dear Carl: After having tried for years to persuade you to write a book on your experiences in helping executives finds the kind of jobs they are looking for, I should have been among the first to send you a letter expressing my views on the subject. I certainly want to apologize for my misconduct in not writing sooner and hope that this letter has not reached you too late and that it may serve a useful purpose. Actually, I have resolved no less than loo times to write this letter but have had a peculiar mental block, worse than preparing an income tax return, because it concerns myself and trying to tell the next fellow how to do better than the little I have done. Accordingly, I seek your forgiveness.
You have mentioned that some people feel that putting on a direct mail campaign when they are seeking a job is beneath their dignity and that it puts them in a menial position. I must confess that I felt exactly the same way until I learned otherwise.
After I recovered from the astonishment of finding that the world was not avidly seeking somebody with my specific experience or qualifications or age or salary level or whatnot, I decided to follow your advice. Besides, what I had considered to be an impregnable financial position was beginning to appear less so as each month went by.
Accordingly, I sat down and prepared a letter along the lines recommended by you. After a great deal of work, and many rewrites, the letter was reduced from ten pages to less than two pages and it concentrated on accomplishments instead of the textbook type of experience and personal appraisals.
I sent the letter to about 200 presidents or chairmen of a varied group of companies of a size and character where I thought I might be a likely candidate. About 130 replies were received, but most of these were "regrets" that there was no opening.
About 7 asked for an Outline of Experience which I then sent to them and from whom I never heard further. (I have since learned that this is strictly par for the course.) Five gave me inter views. I needed only one job and this I obtained in less than two months of negotiations.
With respect to the company that hired me, they first of all had me talk with two of their vice-presidents, then they sent the company plane to have me visit headquarters, and subsequently I talked with a director who was a partner of a large investment banking firm and also with a partner of the company's accounting firm.
The job I obtained was that of General Sales Manager of a company doing $200,000,000 sales with 3,400 people in the sales department.
The company had been looking almost two years for a man with certain specifications to fill this job. It so happened that I had the kind of specifications they thought they had in mind, and my letter fortunately reached them at the right time.
The appointment was published in approximately 300 publications, including The New York Times, Chicago Tribune, Los Angeles Times, etc., and in most instances a photograph accompanied the notice.
Compensation was in the six-figure range.
In looking back on the situation it seems to me that the reception given me by the five companies who granted interviews was excellent in all respects. I simply explained what I liked about each of their companies and accordingly why I had written.
Without exception, there was a favorable response to my reason and also to the direct action approach. By comparison, I did not have the feeling of having my hat in my hand and being given the condescending treatment that I had previously experienced, all too often, when friends passed me on to friends.
About the only exception I can think of is that a recommendation is a highly effective way of making a change when a person has no need for changing a job. If the need arises, then the con verse suddenly becomes true.
As much as very few people who need a job can afford a false sense of dignity in lieu of a job, I strongly recommend a well-worded letter in a direct mail campaign. The sooner this approach is taken the better, so that the lapse of time between jobs does not weaken one's position.
I will repeat what I once told you; namely, that if you want to refer anyone to me, I will be glad to straighten them out on the subject of the type of treatment one receives on interviews resulting from a direct mail campaign.
In conclusion, I can only say that I have talked with others who have tried out the direct letter approach and we've all had the same type of experience, as indicated above.
Now that I have got this letter written, I will once again not be afraid to walk into the -Club where I might bump into you. I hope you will recognize me.
