Networking Your Way to a Better Job
First, if you only read this article or only read the hundreds of other job hunting manuals on the market, it will be of no benefit. This article and the ones following in later issues of JP have specific exercises with lots of forms and examples to help you. Your own efforts will still have to be considerable. To make a truly committed effort, you will have to prioritize other aspects of your work, family and social life.
If you are employed full time, the critical networking time and follow-up will have to be structured around your at-least-minimum-employment performance. If you are unemployed, you will have to set up disciplinary structures that will give you a 40 to 60 hour job-hunting week.
Day times (business hours) are for people meetings (except those held in the evenings), telephone follow-up, interviewing. Night time and weekends are for research, writing, record-keeping, and responding to ads.
A rule of thumb is if you still have a voice left by 6:00 PM on any weekday, you haven't been putting in the right kind of time.
Visible Leadership Role
There are two clichés often heard in the context of job hunting. They are: It's not what you know but who you know" and "It's a matter of being in the right place at the right time."
Assuming both are true, employment as a guaranteed outcome dictates a strategy that you get to know everyone and be everywhere all the time.
Though both are impossible goals, they define the ideals to set the tempo of my job-hunting strategy. In terms of "who" you know, it's now a matter of getting to know everyone who can help you find the job of your choice.
So if you were to know everyone, then you would necessarily know the right person who could either give you a job or direct you to someone who could.
This then defines the essence of the strategy which is to achieve a highly visible leadership role in the professional community composed of those people who already have the job you want.
In other words, if you want to work in a real estate function for a major corporation in Chicago, you would join the Title and Conveyance Committee of the Chicago Bar Association.
If you wanted to become director of a training and development function in a government agency, you would join the local chapter and national level of the American Society of Training and Development.
If you wanted to become a sales and marketing executive, you would join the Association of Sales and Marketing Executives. The point is this. In the US of A, there is an organization on a local, regional or national level which you can join to achieve a visible leadership position.
Once you have clarified your career objective, use this to find the relevant professional society by looking at the Encyclopedia of Associations, published by Gale Publishing Company. Call the headquarters and find out about the local chapter and go to meetings. If there is no local, regional or national chapter, you will then pursue my strategy of going directly to the employer, using letters to start building your network outside of a formal organization of those in your profession.
By visible leadership position, I mean a role that will keep your name (and face!) before that professional community. As a job hunter, you want a role that gives you the most visibility for the least amount of effort. It is critical during your job-hunting to manage your time and energy in the most efficient manner possible, even when it means greater expense.
Since being everywhere all the time is clearly impossible, you will be at meetings of the governing body of your organization as well as at the usual monthly chapter meetings. Here you will carry on the business of your leadership role and meet everyone of any consequence to your job hunting success.
The other advantage of this strategy is that most employers will fully support your interests in your own professional community as they hope to gain from your new exposure amongst your colleagues.
by Mel Schnapper, Ph.D.
Mel Schnapper
Editor's Note: Mel Schnapper will be doing a career column
for every issue of JP. If you have a particular question or situation you would like him to cover, please write to Mel c/o JP magazine, 1105 Commonwealth Avenue, Suite 207, Boston, MA 02215.
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