For your friend or family member who is looking to secure a rewarding career with a new employer.
There are four sources:
1) Their network, referrals
2) Direct outreach to employers
3) Applying online
4) Recruiters
All four are viable.
Unfortunately, many candidates are not properly equipped to know how to leverage the most productive of the four: the Network and Direct outreach.
They therefore invest too much only applying online or asking recruiters what is available. The result is a lack of control, relying on a high volume of applications, and often frustration.
What they need is a structured plan and the right tools to execute a successful outreach campaign.
The campaign needs to include:
- The candidate’s solid understanding of the value they have created for past employers. The value should be expressed in terms of accomplishments considered to be of important to the employer’s goals, preferably quantitatively expressed and related to productivity, revenue, profit, customer or employee retention, etc. The value and accomplishments should be related to their core strengths that transcend specific domain knowledge. A financial service worker’s exceptional contributions can be a result of their back office domain knowledge, but it may also be because of their follow up, detail orientation, team work, communication skills, leadership, and work ethic. These latter traits are tranferrable to other industries, increasing the number of rewarding career opportunities for the the candidate’s consideration. (We may be in a challenging job market but employers still struggle to identify candidates who are intelligent, articulate, empathetic, hard working, coachable, timely, detailed oriented, and have track records that include infrequent job changes)
- Being able to articulate these transferable skills and accomplishments also helps the candidate’s network be more effective in identifying potential introductions to hiring managers.
- The candidate’s readiness to express their value, with examples, both orally and in writing … with brevity and impact, helping their network help them identify career opportunities.
- A resume and LinkedIn profile that also includes their accomplishments and aforementioned qualities that transcend specific industry/domain expertise
- A spreadsheet of employers whose products and services interest the candidate and align with the candidate’s abilty to contribute, and have reasonable financial stability and growth. The spreadsheet needs to reflect research into the companies’s executives and directors who would benefit from learning about the candidate – regardless of whether that have immediate hiring requirements. You never know when an unexpecting opening may surface.
- Readiness to use the spreadsheet to track which people in the candidate’s network can make introductions to hiring managers for you, or which hiring managers you attempted to contact directly: via LinkedIn, email, or phone.
- Contacting hiring managers needs to include thoughtful messaging about the candidate’s awareness of the hiring manager’s (or company’s) unique challenges and opportunities, and how the candidate’s experience may benefit their organization.
Executing this type of campaign will force the candidate to review and share their most powerful professional traits, the value they have contributed, and how they can help new employers.
It will provide the candidate with a sense of empowerment and control over their own professional destiny, and not relying on an algorithm to pick up a resume’s key words.
It will help uncover career opportunties not currently posted and where there is a fraction of the applicants.
It will demonstrate the initiative and thoughtfulness most valued by hiring managers today.
How else could hiring managers differentiate you from the other resumes infused with AI built content?