Thursday, May 29, 2014

12 Ways to Get a Job Interview and One Way Not To

Nowadays, most of the work I do involves helping recruiters and hiring managers find and hire perfect people for imperfect jobs. In the manual I give them I also provide a bunch of countermeasures for candidates to use whenever they meet interviewers who don’t follow the steps I recommend. Some of these are highlighted below.

Job Hunting Tip #1: don’t apply directly to any job posting. The only exception to this rule is if you’re a perfect fit based on the skills, experiences and titles listed on the job description. If you’re not a perfect, you shouldn’t spend more than 20% of your time applying to jobs. However, if you think you can do the job, even if you’re not a perfect match on the requirements listed, there are many things you can do to get an interview. Here are my favorites:
  1. Use the Backdoor. Once you know the job title and location, look on LinkedIn or use Google to find the name of the hiring manager or department head. If this doesn’t work, call and ask someone in some other function who’s the VP of the department. The big idea: use the job posting as a lead to work rather than an application button to press.
  2. Get More Referrals. Getting a referral from someone in the company is the best way to get an interview. It’s even better if the referral will give you a personal recommendation. If you’re serious about getting a better job, networking to get referrals should represent 50% or more of your job hunting efforts. Here’s a step-by-step guide on how to triple the size of your network in a few weeks.
  3. Be Different. I had one candidate prepare a competitive analysis for a product marketing position in the telecommunications industry. He sent it to the VP who routed it to the Director. He told me he got an interview as a result.

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