job-search-strategy.md

Job Searching Strategy

This is a summary of Steve Dalton’s book The Two Hour Job Search

Background

Applying through random online channels produces a mere 1% response rate. Steve Dalton suggests a new approach focused on reaching into companies to find advocates who can help you find your job. In the exercise outlined in Steve's book (and below), you will create a list of 40 companies you want to work for.

Build your list:

1. Create an Google Sheets document with four column headings: List, Alumni, Motivation, and Posting.

2. Give yourself 1 minute to write as many companies as you can think of which you would want to work for. This should give you a handful.

3. Visit LinkedIn. Type your top company into the search and hit enter. Click "see similar." This will give you a list of companies similar to the ones you already wrote down. Add any of interest to your list.

4. Used the LinkedIn advanced search/filter to:

   5. Narrow by location (ie Seattle)

   6. Get a list of alumni (Galvanize or your collegiate institution) who work at companies

   7. If you aren't clear about a company you want to work for, you can start a search by putting a functional keyword (ie "marketing") into "job title" search under the advanced search. You will see a list of people. Do not click them. Look at the companies they work/have worked for and add them to their list.

5. To find more companies you may like, visit www.indeed.com. It can highlight companies that are in your area of interest. But it is terrible at getting you a job. Just add interesting companies to your list.

6. Now populate the motivation column. Once you have reached 40 jobs, alphabetize your list of companies before ranking to help reduce any bias. As fast as you can without thinking about it, rank your list of companies by motivation to work at each company. Doing this fast is key and taps into a phenomenon called arbitrary coherence. Any individual rating is meaningless, but if you rate a large number of individual items in rapid succession, the relative ratings are indeed meaningful. Rate them on a scale of 5 to 1, with 5 being "dream companies".

7. Now populate the alumni column with a "yes" or "no". Use LinkedIn's advanced search feature to determine if your prospective companies have alumni working for them (and also check with your Career Services Manager).

8. Populate the posting column. This is a rating of 1, 2, or 3. 1 is not hiring; 2 is hiring for a somewhat relevant job; 3 is hiring for a job that is relevant for you.

9. If you are looking for start-ups, checkout how recently a company received funding on Crunchbase. If a company just received funding, put a 3 in the posting column. If it has been a year, put a 2. If it's been longer than a year, put a 1.

10. With all data filled in, now sort first by motivation, then by posting, then by alumni. Once you see results, use your intuition to play with the data until you are confident you have your top 5 jobs in the top 5 positions. Work your way through your list from the top down.

Finding Advocates' Email Addresses:

1. Find email addresses of advocates can be done using LinkedIn and Clearbit Connect and/or Full Contact.

2. On LinkedIn, see if you share any groups with existing employees at the target company. If you do, you can send a LinkedIn email to them.

3. Join groups on LinkedIn which will connect you to potential contacts within companies of interest. You will often be approved for a group within a few days. You can send LinkedIn emails to anyone you are in a group with.

4. With a little guesswork, Clearbit Connect and/or Full Contact--a Chrome add-in--can be very helpful tool for finding unpublished emails. You can take an educated guess at what the person's email might be. Check out a company's website or new articles to find the basic @domain.com. Then try common emails like “Philip.hoberg@doman.com” or “phoberg@domain.com.” If you enter the correct email, Full Contact will display that person's LinkedIn profile. If the email is wrong, Full Contact will display nothing. This is a great way to confirm you have the right email. Always send to someone higher up, so you can be passed down.

Making Contact:

Here is an example email:

My name is Philip. I am a fellow graduate of your school. Can I have a few minutes of your time to ask you about your experience at NewCo? Your insights would be appreciated as I am now considering applying for a marketing position.

1. About 40% of emails will come back. Focus on the people who get back to you within 3 days.

2. When you send an email, set reminders 5 and 11 business days later (or 3b7 if in USA) using your diary/calendar. If someone doesn't get back to you by the 5th day, email another advocate in the company and set another 5 and 11 day reminder.

3. On average, if you send 5 emails, 2 will get back to you, and one will be a solid advocate.

4. The point of the day-11 reminder is to reach back to the first person you sent an email to.

5. This person could be in your interview, so following up shows it is not your fault that you didn't connect. But if you try once and then follow up, you did everything right.

6. Here is an example follow up email:

I'm following up on my email from last week. I'm wondering if now is a more convenient time to talk. Please let me know if so.

Informational Meetings/Interviews:

1. When you meet for your informational, start small talk with a question on "how has your day been?" This will give you an indication of whether they want to talk or are all business. Ask them some of the questions you expect them to ask you, and then mirror their behavior. For example, ask them how they decided to come work here. If they take 60 seconds, you take 60 seconds. A question to open up someone who seems to be all business would be : what are you working on right now? Follow the energy. If you say something that rises energy, follow that. One way to get people thinking creatively and with energy is to ask: "What kind of trends are impacting or do you foresee impacting your line of work?"

2. Follow your advocates advice and execute on it. Report back a month later about how much it helped you. Reach out for further advice. The request for further advice is known as the Ben Franklin Effect. The best way to deepen relationships is not to repay favors, it is to ask for additional favors. The power imbalance deepens relationships in mentor-mentee relationships.

3. Always send a thank you note following up on a meeting with someone.

Tips for Meeting in Person

1. Nod once slowly, do not nod many times quickly when listening to someone.

2. Drop your tone at the end your sentences. People usually bring their tone up at the end of a sentence when asking a question. Dropping your tone makes you sound more confident.

3. Pause for a couple of second before you start speaking. That comfort with silence, people associate with charisma.

4. If you are listening to someone and your mind begins to wander, wiggle the toes in one of your shoes. This will bring your attention back to the moment.

Final Tips:

1. Your excel list should be your excel list. Do not put any comments in it. Use your sent inbox and calendar to track who you have contacted.

2. Forget people who make your life difficult to get them to help you.

3. Job searching is a numbers game. The more referrals you have, the more no's you get, the closer you are to a job.

4. Don't seek meaningless victories (ie applying to jobs randomly)

5. The only time to apply to a job posting is when your advocate told you to. If you apply to an online job posting, you may seem desperate and will likely get lost. If you know about a job, mention it in your first email, so your advocate knows how to advocate you. If your advocate tells you to apply online, do so. Some companies are required to post jobs by law.

6. Do not give up on a company, unless something happens that changes your motivation. At that point, demote them on your list. Feel free to try 3 or 5 people for your dream companies.

7. Remember, headhunters are good at getting you want to do the same thing you were doing before or stay in the same industry you were doing before. Their incentives are good at taking somebody who is already particularly good at a job and letting them do that job, but for a competitor. They get paid based on how quickly they can turn that around. If you are looking to change careers, headhunters are not going to be very helpful.

8. The whole idea of this exercise is that you are trying to find an advocate within the company who can bring your resume to the right person, make an introduction, or tell you where/how to apply (while they advocate for you in the background).