Create Your Own Job Out of Nothing
In many cases you may have a specific background and unique experiences and qualifications that enable you to see a need before it is recognized by a company. If you do identify such an unfulfilled need in a company, write a letter to the president about setting up and running a department to perform this function. Let me give you an example of this.
A friend of mine is a data analyst consultant within a large company, where she teaches executives how to make use of computers in their work. Even though the capabilities of computers and data processing in today's market are extensive, only a small percentage of executives are using these capabilities to anything approaching their full potential. Therefore, her job is to teach executives how to do this.
Although her company has recognized this need, many others have not Even though computers are used as a daily part of their business and a special department exists to do their computing perse, there is no one that teaches executives about the new technology or consults with them on how their operation might be improved by the use of computers and data processing. Therefore, if this specialist wanted work in other companies, the opportunity exists for her to create her own job out of nothing and to become a department head simply by selling not only her accomplishments but also the unique advantages of the function.
This technique is especially useful when a function that has been recognized by very large companies can be adapted to smaller companies. This may be true in a case such as the data analyst consultant I already mentioned, but also in many other areas that small or medium size companies may not yet have developed to full advantage. Two examples come to mind. A large company, in dealing with the government or other industrial firms, maintains large departments that do nothing but coordinate and write proposals for work. The same concept can be adapted for smaller companies; perhaps not an entire department, but one person could specialize in writing proposals. Since there are many advantages of doing this, this concept can be sold to medium size or small companies. In the same way, very large companies frequently have employees whose function is to market the licensing of inventions that the company developed but for which it has no use. This occurs because many large companies, which may spend millions of dollars for research and development, develop products that have nothing to do with their main product line. Now, small companies may also spend money for research and development to develop new products, but on a much smaller scale, so that every dollar saved is important. This creates an opportunity for an employee whose responsibility is the reverse of those who market licenses in a larger company: to seek out inventions available from larger companies and to license them for manufacture. This could save a small company thousands of dollars in research and development.
Answer Every Ad with Two Letters
Most advertisements that are placed seeking executives to fill jobs advise the potential respondent to send a resume to a personnel manager. I don't recommend sending a resume or going along with other requirements of the advertisement, although I do recommend targeting the advertisement and concentrating your resources to respond to the specific requirements of the job. Another technique that you may use to double your chances involves writing two letters in response to every advertisement that appears attractive. One letter should be targeted in accordance with instructions given. However, in a second letter, write to the person responsible for the hiring: the one you would actually report to. This means that you must first find out who that person is.
As mentioned previously, this is accomplished fairly simply by imagining to whom the job would report, by title, and asking a receptionist for the name. If you are seeking a job as a director of engineering or an engineering manager, chances are that this position reports to the vice president of engineering. Therefore, simply call the company in question and ask the receptionist who the vice president of engineering is. If the job is for a marketing manager, then clearly it must report to a vice president of marketing. Or, if the job is a top management job carrying a vice president's title, then it clearly must report to the president of the company. Once you get the name, proceed with the next step.
Now send one letter to the personnel address as indicated in the advertisement, and address the other to the executive who is your PE. In this letter you will say that you have learned about the company's need for a, and you will then, using the advertisement as assistance, write a sales letter emphasizing your accomplishments.
This technique clearly increases your chances. At the very worst, the personnel manager will have two letters, one written directly to him as required by the advertisement and the other sent down from the person who may be interested in hiring you sometimes with the notation, "I'd like to see this one," or something to that effect. Such a notation won't hurt a bit. But even without the notation, you have less chance of getting screened out.
Use Your Contacts in a Letter and Telephone Campaign
You can use contacts that you may have because you went to the same university, were in the same professional, fraternal, or athletic organization, or met in some other way. Get these people to give you the names of their contacts, whom you will approach yourself. Write to these PEs instead of having your friend or associate do it for you. This will strengthen the perception of you by the executive concerned and will also lessen the number of courtesy interviews that you may get, since the PE, if he does respond to your letter, will be inviting you in for a real interview rather than agreeing to interview you out of politeness to your friend.
Make certain that you call within two days. This letter will, of course, assist you in getting through the PE's secretary because you can tell the secretary that your call is expected. What should you do if the secretary says that your letter was received and was sent to personnel? Simply tell her that this must have been a mistake since you are not applying for a position. And again ask to be connected with the executive concerned. Once you get the executive, repeat that although you would appreciate being considered for a position, the primary reason for your desire to get together for a few minutes is to get advice regarding your career plans and not to seek a specific position in the company. This combination of using a contact plus a letter and telephone campaign is very effective for getting high level interviews, especially in a tough job market.
The strategies and concepts illustrated here should be reviewed as indicative of what you can do to better your job hunting odds when times are tough. There are only three things that should restrain you. One is the law. Do not do anything that is illegal. The second is your personal code of ethics. You have to decide what is ethical and what is not, and no one can do this for you. And third, you should never do anything that might be viewed as bizarre.
All the techniques described here involve actions that are concealed from your PE or actions that even if your PE found out about them would probably be viewed either as clever or as evidence of your aggressiveness in a positive way. However, bizarre or strange acts will not be viewed this way. For example, the number one method of getting a job is, unquestionably, to use the direct mail campaign. One kind of direct mail campaign that works well in selling products is the lumpy package, because people almost always open letters that are lumpy simply to find out what is inside. However, your using such a technique in a mailing to PEs would be a bizarre strategy and would not be a good idea. Yes, your lumpy letter would probably be opened and you might even get a response; however, because the tactic is bizarre and not par for normal business practice, you would probably not get an interview unless you were in the direct response industry, where this would be considered not at odds with the norm.
