Chapter 31
Bass Are Still
Where You Find ’Em
Fishfinder #1:
There is more than one person who could be your boss. It pays to know who the other guys and gals are.
If you’re the principal electronics engineer for a municipality, it behooves you to know the senior public works officials for at least three other towns in your region. If you’re a delivery truck driver for the corner dry cleaner, commit yourself to meet three other dry cleaning owners who do home delivery in your neighborhood.
Why?
Because today’s competitor can always become tomorrow’s employer.
If you drive a dry cleaning truck, you’ve got something current non-bosses, who are those potential new bosses, want very, very much: customers so loyal to you personally many of them can’t even remember the name of the dry cleaner you’re working for now.
As far as your customers are concerned, they’re employing your services, not the name on the truck. Disloyal? Who’ll cry for you in the front office if you’re downsized out of a job?
Just remember, be discreet. Don’t talk to a “competitor,” i.e., someone who isn’t in fact a branch of your present outfit trading under another name.
Years ago, in the early days of black-and-white television, the most popular show in Minneapolis was called
Masterpiece Theater
. It was strictly local, ran on Sunday nights, and featured nothing but old movies. The sponsor was a local dry cleaning establishment called G&K Cleaners and the “host” was the owner, a fellow named I. D. Fink. In those days, there were no restrictions on the length of commercials, and those for G&K Cleaners were interminable.
Every ten minutes or so, the movie would be interrupted with what seemed like a commercial of equal length consisting of Fink explaining some arcane feature of the dry cleaner’s art in intricate detail. Fink was considered an extraordinarily dry speaker to begin with, and the subject was, if possible, even more so. I mean, who cares what they do when they dry-clean your pants? The kicker was, unbelievably, these commercials worked. People loved them. And business poured in. In fact, G&K got so big that, in order to disguise its almost total monopoly on the Twin Cities’ dry cleaning industry, it ran some of its operations under different names. One day, folklore has it, Fink gets a call from an irate customer. He’s watched
Masterpiece Theater
for years, believed every word Fink told him, and what happens? His shirt comes back with a spot still on it. He’s had it. He’s getting a new dry cleaner. Nothing Fink says helps. The customer slams down the phone. The next week, the ex-customer’s new dry cleaner appears at the door. It’s the same driver as before. Only this time, there’s a different name on the truck. It was that special rare case.
Remember two things about the Fink Gambit:
First, be sure when you cast your line not to hook yourself in the seat of the pants. There are companies that operate the same businesses under different names. Be careful you don’t apply to one while you’re employed at another. That hint of dissatisfaction with your current job could be hazardous.
A second thing to store in your tackle box: Don’t give up on a huge chain just because you’ve gotten turned down by one branch. While these chains try to use uniform hiring standards, individual managers are still individuals. Many candidates will apply to one store, one service station, or one dry cleaner in a national franchise operation and assume that a turndown means that the entire chain won’t hire them. Well, that’s not necessarily true. Supply and demand vary from branch to branch and from area to area and so do the attitudes and quirks of the person doing the hiring at each particular location.
The identical principle works in management: If you’re a financial analyst, even if you’re skunked at the regional headquarters in Georgia, the company could be biting at the same firm’s headquarters in Florida.
Fishfinder #2:
You have a job? Lucky you. Work hard for yourself. Work hard for your family. Work hard for your future. But don’t forget to work very, very hard for your out-of-work friends.
Send leads to those in need.
Call them every two or three weeks to bolster their spirits. Lest we forget, the iron law of human relations remains:
“Be nice to the people you meet on the way up, because you might meet them again on the way down.”
Mackay’s Moral:
Those who’ll remember you when you get
the pink slip are the ones you remembered when they landed
in the ditch.
Quickie—Ageless Alumni
Many people think university career placement offices are only for recent graduates. A 2009 article titled “Rah, Rah, Résumé!” by Jan Hoffman in the
New York Times
dispels that myth.
Syracuse University recently provided a 1976 alumna with the names of “graduates in related fields” and helped her fine-tune her résumé.
Other colleges offer older graduates such help as “panels of alumni experts, professional affinity networks, personal coaching and job listings.” Schools like Lehigh have revamped their placement services to be much better equipped to support “midcareer professionals.”
Why does this make sense? Colleges and universities sit on top of the most valuable job-search gold mine in the world—personal networks. Some alumni may be out of jobs, but most are not. And the college experience tugs huge heartstrings of personal loyalty to rally around fellow graduates. And the more people an institution of higher learning can place, the more people in its network available to help place other alumni.
Then there’s the upside for the institutions. Some of the people who are helped are alumni who have broken off ties with their alma mater for decades. When they get career assistance, they often respond generously in terms of a contribution to the school or remembering the institution in a legacy.
As you go down your network checklist, don’t overlook your alumni affiliation, no matter how many reunions you’ve missed.
Chapter 32
The Octopus Exercise
As I mentioned earlier, during the course of a lifetime, you’re likely not only to make twelve to fifteen job changes, but at least three to five career changes as well. By my lightning calculations, it appears that for every two or three times you change jobs, you’re also going to change careers.
Take a sheet of paper or call up the graphics drawing program on your laptop.
Draw a small circle in the center.
That’s the body of the octopus. My picking an octopus is no accidental choice. This animal is one of the smartest invertebrates around. It’s even said they can open screw-top bottles. Also, as I write this, I am in Rome, Italy, and I had a less-smart octopus for dinner last night.
This octopus body represents the skills and knowledge you use in your present job or in your most recent job. It’s your operating system and core database governing your drive to reach out and grab onto other jobs.
Now, draw a series of lines branching out from that central area. These represent jobs different from the one you have now, but jobs for which you could conceivably be qualified if you had to shift careers.
For instance, let’s say you’re the rental agent for a major property management firm in your town. You’ve been at the business for five years, and your general knowledge of commercial real estate is pretty good. What other jobs could you reach out for?
How about site locator for a major retailer in power malls?
Negotiator?
Default evaluator for a firm that has bought up high-risk mortgages?
Physical plant and property manager for a major manufacturer?
Real estate auditor for an investment trust?
Rental investigator for a municipal or taxing authority?
Specialist in automated HVAC and security controls for property management?
Instructor in commercial real estate at the college?
Appraiser for a local bank or housing authority?
That’s nine arms. If you’re knowledgeable in commercial real estate, you could probably build an octopus with eighteen arms.
Keep in mind that many of the most desirable jobs around today didn’t exist ten years ago, so lift that lid and think outside the box about jobs that
could
exist in five years that people could think would be wacko today.
Mackay’s Moral:
In octopus networking, tenacity matters as
much as tentacles.
Chapter 33
Matchmaker, Matchmaker,
Find Me a Job!
The advent of social networking suddenly made it possible for people to reach thousands and in some cases millions of contacts to fulfill very specific personal needs for products, relationships, and—most of all—jobs. This is a brand-new marketplace. How do you manage it to get the best results?
To be sure, job seekers have to be very creative in this shrunken economy. The Internet offers a seemingly huge sea of opportunity, but there are lots of one-person kayaks paddling in it. For every job you have applied for, there are dozens . . . or hundreds . . . or thousands of other applicants with the same target. Your paddling skill won’t make the difference; building a personal lifeline to a potential employer will.
Google a job, scroll through the classifieds, or dash directly to Web sites of the companies where you most want to land a job. Job-site listings are increasingly controlled by keywords that screen applicants in or out. What is the system short on? Two-way communication. It’s like cyberspace Cinderella. What employer wants to waste time squeezing on a shoe that won’t fit, especially if there are hordes of other contestants breaking down the doors?
Savvy users know how to play the system, to choose keywords in packaging their résumés that trickle through the human resources filters. The hiring manager’s heart swells, convinced he just found Cinderella, not a pumpkin. In the interview, he discovers the applicant is better suited to writing fiction than delivering results.
Serious job seekers are leaning toward a new group of more personalized and intelligent sites. These sites are designed to match users to the exactly tailored requirements of specific opportunities. One such site,
Bintro.com
, uses semantic technology that recognizes, extracts, and categorizes your work to figure out what you really mean . . . and what companies need. It understands natural language and industry-specific terminology.
I like the personalized approach it takes in connecting job hunters with the perfect job. I also like that it’s a free service for both candidates and employers, and its privacy policy includes a guarantee that it will never resell or barter your name or other information you submit on the questionnaire.
How should you utilize these new sites? Sell your skills, but don’t hype them. Also, present a cohesive Web identity. Be a unified, positive, employable person on the Web—consistent from site to site in every place you have a presence.
Create a LinkedIn page and a Facebook page, because most people who are interested in hiring will Google you or go to Facebook to scoop up information about your background and experience. Keep in mind that this is your professional persona and restrict it to information you would share with a potential employer.
Remember, all information on the Web leaves a permanent record. Whether on your personal site or a friend’s, your behavior outside work can wind up in pictures or videos that can sabotage your job prospects.
Catalog what you have to offer a prospective employer and then seek out groups and meetings online with people who can benefit from your knowledge or experience. Plenty of sites with user groups offer such virtual and physical meetings. They’re great ways to get involved in a nontraditional way, meet people from your industry, and also discreetly call attention to your competence while you chat with your peers. Another great way to put forth your need and expertise is to create a blog that is specific to your background—and have the discipline to steadily feed it new insights.
A lot of job seekers have hefty experience in areas that are no longer in demand. Don’t despair. You can emphasize hobbies, personal interests, and volunteer work to build a second career. For example, an out-of-work banker might be an enthusiastic shutterbug and take a step toward turning that passion into a part-time job while seeking out something more permanent.
It may be time for you to make what was a passing attraction a front-and-center skill. An entry-level writer or freelance graphic designer may not be able to find a job in that profession, but why not build a portfolio and donate the time and output to a nonprofit organization? A small gesture—it may seem—but you’ll help others out while you get valuable exposure.
In the years to come, Web sites and Internet presence will define your job candidacy as much as a résumé does today. Whatever service you use, just remember one thing: Never stop putting yourself out there. And, for the sake of your career, make sure the person you present on the Web is one who others would want to hire.
Mackay’s Moral:
The Web is volatile territory. The trick is to
glow, not to incinerate yourself.
Quickie—One Sweet Tweet
The Web site
PhysOrg.com
serves professionals in a variety of sciences and technical disciplines. In April 2009, Etan Horowitz reported on this site about Brittany Ward, an account manager in her early twenties in Florida. “Just minutes after she was laid off from her job earlier this month, [she] pulled out her cell phone and typed a short message. ‘Needs a job.’” And “when she hit enter, more than 2,000 friends, family members and strangers learned of her plight via Twitter and Facebook.”
She got plenty of supportive responses. There’s an emotional efficiency factor in Twittering. Ward said, “With Twitter, all of a sudden they hear the story, and you don’t have to keep repeating it.” For many people, the faster they can put an end to this phase of job loss, the quicker they can move forward with the positive part of finding a job.
When I visited TwitterJobSearch, it boasted posting “22,315 new jobs in the last seven days.” Visit
www.twitip.com/leverage-twitter-for-your-job-search/
and read some excellent tips by Miriam Saltpeter of Keppie Careers. Three pieces of advice really resonated with me:
• Come “up with your ‘Twit-Pitch’—what you have to offer in 140 characters or less. [It] will help you clarify your value proposition.”
• “Brand yourself professionally. If you are planning to use Twitter for a job search, set up a designated profile and account. Choose a professional Twitter handle.”
• “Think about what you can do for others. Don’t blatantly self-promote. Instead, help promote others. ‘Retweet’ (pass along information someone else shared, giving them credit).” This, Saltpeter maintains, is the best way to build your own Twitter network following.