Sex and Your Job Search 2013: A Guide to Scoring Your Dream Job (4 page)

Gold diggers are able to see how a potential date suits their needs. They want a match that meets their needs, and so do hiring managers. During the interview, a hiring manager quickly assesses what you can do for them and the company.

Don’t forget, this relationship is mutually beneficial: you get the satisfaction of doing what you love and a paycheck. We’ll talk later about how you can become the one hiring managers want to “score” with.

A legendary hip-hop song for the ages, “Bust a Move” by Young MC has been played at countless clubs, parties, and weddings. It has been featured on ads for Priceline and Verizon Wireless, as well as many movies and TV shows.

In the song, Young MC talks to all the men out there. He speaks to guys that are nerdy, witty, overweight, rich, and poor. His message? There are certain places that you should go to meet people you’re interested in: celebrations, brunches, movies, and weddings. But, if you look for a special friend in all the wrong places, you will be frustrated and lonely. Once you find someone you’re interested in, Young MC suggests, you’ve got to go for it. Bust a move.

The same applies to your job search. If you look for a job in the right places and in the right way, you will find one that gets your heart thumping. In this chapter, we’ll focus on the right places to look, and in the next chapters, I’ll show you how to
Bust a (Career) Move
.

WHERE TO LOOK FOR LOVE
(YOUR DREAM JOB)

So what are the best ways to find your dream job? This list is based on what I have seen work
over and over
as well as countless books and articles I have read on the subject.

If you are like most people, with a limited amount of time and resources, I suggest starting with strategy one and continuing to number twelve as you need to. Also, it would be extremely helpful to review the notes you took in Chapter 2 relating to your passions, skills, and ideal kind of work.

1. BUSINESS FLIRTING - NETWORKING

Ah, networking. The flirting of the business world. I generally cringe at buzzwords like “networking.” So far, however, I have not come up with a suitable replacement. Regardless of what you call it, networking is one of the most effective ways of finding a job. This is the best way to meet someone, whether personally or professionally.

I mentioned earlier that when I moved to California, an acquaintance of my brother named Marty gave a good recommendation to my current boss. This person was just an acquaintance of my brother, someone I had never talked to in college.

I connected with Marty during the interview process. It came down to another qualified candidate and myself. Marty said “a few good words” to the hiring manager and later my boss told me that Marty’s recommendation made the difference. That changed my life forever.

Thanks, Marty. That gesture brought me to where I am today.

Every career book references networking as a best practice. But who should you network with? Every person you know! Family, friends, classmates, former teachers or professors, alumni, acquaintances in the community, and business associates. It also includes everyone that
they
know.

Brainstorm.
Type or write out every name and contact that you can think of. Keep it handy and add to it as more names come to mind. I have a Note for this on my iPhone.

Begin networking by asking
all
of these individuals if they know of any job leads in your areas of interest. Remember to be specific and describe in detail what kind of work you are looking for. I would recommend mentioning your skills and the job titles, ideal work environment, and locations you came up with in Chapter 2.

Obviously, use common sense when contacting people.

A few months ago an acquaintance named Chauntelle, who works in L.A. as a hiring manager, received a text from an applicant she did not know. He was a friend of her friend. He texted her on a Sunday morning at 8:30am to ask her why he had not heard anything about his job application.

Don’t text someone that you do not know early on a Sunday morning asking about a job! Not cool. That’s weird and passive-aggressive stalking-type behavior.

Chauntelle never responded. When we met at an association meeting a week later, she asked me if that was normal behavior for an applicant. I said, “Heck no.” Needless to say, the Sunday texter didn’t get the job.

In short, what the Sunday texter should have done was call Chauntelle during working hours, politely let her know who he was, who their mutual acquaintance was, and ask about the status of his application. If he couldn’t gather enough courage to call, he should have texted Chauntelle during traditional Monday through Friday working hours and provided her with the same information in the text. In Chapter 7 we will talk more about the right ways to approach a prospective employer.

2. SOCIAL MEDIA

As some of you know,
Napoleon Dynamite
is a sweet flippin’ film about an eccentric and alienated high school student by the same name. The part of the movie I feel is relevant to social networking is the part where Napoleon’s unemployed older brother Kip brags about spending time online chatting with babes. This strategy actually works out well for Kip, as he quickly starts dating a girl named Lafawnduh from Detroit. Soon after, Lafawnduh comes out to visit and they fall in love.

At the end of
Napoleon Dynamite
, after some of the credits have rolled, there is a short scene where Kip and Lafawnduh are getting married in a serene outdoor wedding. After the nuptials, Kip sings a rhyming song about how much he loves technology, “but not as much as he loves Lafawnduh, you see.”

The social media strategies that worked for Kip in finding true love can work for you in your job search. It is easy and fast to network online and find exactly the person or type of company you are looking for. And when you do find that person or business, you will be singing about how much
you
love technology. Here’s how to do it.

The two most beneficial social networking websites for job seekers are LinkedIn and Facebook. The general rule is that LinkedIn is for those you want to connect with professionally and Facebook is for those individuals closest to you. However, there are no set rules for this, and it is up to you to determine what level of privacy you are comfortable with. I’m “Friends” with some work contacts on Facebook as they are pretty cool people.

LinkedIn

The main purpose of LinkedIn is for professionals to “exchange information, ideas, and opportunities.” According to their website, LinkedIn has over 187 million users in over 200 countries and territories, making it by far the world’s largest professional network on the Internet with over 69 million users in the U.S. alone. That’s the biggest work happy hour I’ve ever heard of.

LinkedIn estimates that on average, two new members join every second of every day. Chances are that you will be able to quickly locate past and present colleagues, classmates, alumni, and teachers. In fact, executives from every 2012 Fortune 500 company are members, and 2.6 million companies have LinkedIn Company pages. It is estimated that LinkedIn users are on track to do over 5.3 billion people searches in 2012. Also, 25 million LinkedIn profiles are viewed daily.

Like most social networking sites, LinkedIn is free and lets you create a profile, which is basically a condensed version of your resume. In fact, you can quickly upload your resume to LinkedIn and extract key information. One to six lines of job duties per position are recommended.

Fully completing a profile is a great way to add value, enhance employability, credibility, and promotablility.

You can also Recommend someone on their profile page or have someone write something positive about you. Employers want to trust you, and this is a great way to increase their confidence level. It also shows that you have teamwork and people skills, further increasing trust.

LinkedIn recently introduced the Endorsement feature, where you can recognize someone for their Skills and Expertise. Likewise, someone can do the same for you. If a certain Skill is not listed and does not automatically pre-populate, you are able to add it to your profile. A few bloggers have been calling the Endorsement feature “Recommendations lite,” because you are able to endorse complete strangers without providing any specifics. I tend to agree and think that getting a detailed recommendation is the preferred way to go.

Once you enter your education and employment history in your profile, LinkedIn suggests people you may want to add as Connections under the heading People You May Know. This includes past, present, or forgotten co-workers and contacts. LinkedIn also shows if you have mutual acquaintances with that person and where they work. There are other searches by which you can find contacts at the company of your dreams on the LinkedIn site, such as the Advanced People Search.

Another brilliant feature is the Follow Company button. Search for the names of the companies you wrote down in Chapter 2 and follow them. You will then receive updates from them and potentially job opening information. Professional societies and Groups have pages as well, where you can network and ask questions.

The Jobs tab at the top of the page is another fantastic feature. Click on this and LinkedIn displays what job openings you may be interested in based on your profile, connections, and companies you follow. It also allows you to do an advanced search for jobs by keyword, job title, location, company, country, postal code, distance, function, experience, industry, date posted, and salary.

You can also sign up for weekly LinkedIn update emails that show you jobs you may be interested in, along with posts related to your interests.

LinkedIn is free, but they also have several paid versions whereby you can get extra functionality, like becoming a Featured Applicant (putting you at the top of the list) when you apply for a job through LinkedIn and being able to send emails through their site.

It only takes a few minutes to sign up, and if you do so now, you may be connected to key people before you finish reading this chapter!

How to Screw Yourself by Not Getting on LinkedIn

A few weeks ago I received a call on my cell from a high school acquaintance who had moved to the area and was looking for a job. I gladly agreed to talk with him and spent a half hour talking with Nelson. Nelson is in his late twenties, almost done with his MBA, has some work experience, and wants to change fields and get into healthcare management. I work in human resources in healthcare, so I gave him feedback on his situation as I saw it.

I asked if he was on LinkedIn and he said, “What’s that?” I explained that it was like Facebook for professionals and that hundreds of contacts and alumni from our school were on there. I recommended he get on LinkedIn ASAP. He thanked me profusely and we got off the phone.

That was ten days ago. He still hasn’t connected with me on LinkedIn. He’s only hurting himself by not extending his network and not following the advice of a professional in his field of interest.