Are you “addicted” to finding your next job?

Bruce Solberg was one of the first people to read The Market for Me. And he gets it.

A key factor in your long term career success is your shift from seeing yourself as a job seeker to becoming a skills holder. A job seeker needs a job. A skills holder has value. He admits to being “addicted to finding my next job.” The first step is realization, Bruce.

Bruce says it best on the Bruce Solberg Blog. Here’s my take on it.

Brian Massey on
The Job Search Attitudes that will Get You More Interviews at the Places You Want to Work

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Thanks,

Brian Massey

Following is an email I sent to my Brother-in-law who has a job, but it is with a certain car company that begins with a G and ends with a bailout. So, he’s looking. Three days later, I started turning it into a book. So, here’s the balance of my job search philosophy in one blog post:

Jerry,

I’m attaching a file that I’ve marked up with some recommendations on your resume. Two major ways to improve it are:

1. You need more specifics. How many years? Which projects? What were the outcomes? What goals did you hit? Where did you increase results and by how much?

2. Make consistent use of action verbs and use consistent tense. “Managed” is better than “Responsibilities include… .” Consider verbs like “Increased” “Succeeded in…” “Drove” “Designed” “Lead” “Launched”, etc.

I’ve done a lot of job searching in my day. Technically, I never stop. In this environment, you’ve got to get into unlisted jobs and avoid the stack of resumes that hiring managers are inevitably going to get for posted jobs. You want to have someone “walk” your resume in for you.

First steps in the Job search:

1. Create a list of everyone you know who has an email address. Mine your Yahoo! or Gmail account for people. They can be casual contacts.

2. Call the people you know who don’t have an email address and let them know you’re looking. Get their email address.

3. Compose an email that lets these folks know that you’re discretely looking for new career opportunities. Tell them that you’ll be looking for contacts inside companies that you’re targeting and ask them if you can engage their help with specific opportunities. Don’t attach your resume, but send if someone on your list requests it. What you want is a go-to list of people who may know someone at a company to which you’re applying. They will also be a source for unlisted opportunities. If someone refuses, or says “I don’t really know you” take them off of your list.

4. Whenever you’re applying for a position, send the company and a short description of the role to the people on your list asking if they know someone at the company. Keep it short.

5. Create a series of alerts at www.Indeed.com. You can enter search terms for companies or positions you want and get an email daily with open opportunities.

6. Find a local job club and go to the meetings. If they have resume reviewing groups or interview prep, take advantage of those.

For each position you apply for:

1. Search LinkedIn to see if you can find the name of the hiring manager. Also, look for people you know who are working at that company who know the hiring manager, or who might walk your resume in. You’ll be surprised.

2. Create a custom resume for each position, making your Objective match the duties of the role. Remove any job experience that isn’t directly related to the job. Change “WORK EXPERIENCE” to “SELECTED WORK EXPERIENCE” on your resume.

3. Create a cover letter by pasting the job description into a Word document. For each qualification listed, rewrite to “I have experience with…”. The goal is to use the words they used in writing the cover letter, and hitting their key care abouts. Keep the cover letter to less than one page.

4. Ask for an interview by phone or in-person at the top and bottom of the letter.

Remember that the ONLY role of the resume and cover letter is to get an interview. Don’t sell yourself into the position. Provide only the information needed to get the interview.

That’s the bulk of my wisdom. Allocate an hour a day, 5 days a week. It’s going to take that level of effort.

Best regards,

Brian Massey

A group of Austin Skills Holders (that’s "Job Seekers" to the uninitiated) has made the statement that desperation is not an option. The group has dedicated itself to donating 505 man-hours of volunteer time that the Capital Area Food Bank in Austin, Texas.

Your actions determine what kind of person you are. What kind of people are these? They are giving, generous, courageous and compassionate. That’s a pretty good place to be working from when you’re looking for and negotiating employment deals (that’s "Job Hunting" to old-school job hunters).

One of the premises of this author is that you have to give to get. If you’re not worried about getting, that just leaves giving.

Go out and find some way to give a little.

I’m going to ask you to change the way you look at the job search.

I’m going to ask you to let go of what you think you know about the job search.

I’m going to ask you to stop believing in certain superstitions.

And I’m going to spend time on job search activities the benefit of which may not be obvious to you. If you have faith all come clear with time.

A career is a great way to build professional and financial freedom.

You don’t have to start your own business to create financial freedom. You don’t have to build a multi-level marketing network or buy and sell real estate to create financial freedom. You can create a great income doing work you love as an employee of any one of the world’s corporations. You must realize, however, that to do so, you must do the following:

1.       Steadily increase your value as an employee by increasing the marketable skills you have.

2.       Take work that is rewarding and educational.

3.       Be ready to switch jobs when new opportunities arise.

4.       Be ready to create new opportunities for yourself.

Basically, to build professional and financial freedom, you must continually invest in yourself, and be ready to have several different jobs during your career. Taking a job and leaving a job are just transactions on your path toward the salary and work that provides you the lifestyle you desire.

The modern corporation is the perfect invention for a free market economy. It is not a person. It is an entity. As such, it does not have feelings. It does not act emotionally.

Of course, the Corporation can only operate if it has talented qualified people creating the products and services that generate profits for its shareholders.

The Corporation hires without joy, and fires without remorse.

The Corporation understands markets. Markets determine the value of its products and services. Markets determine the value of its stock. Markets determine the availability and the price of the raw material that it uses to create its products and services. Likewise, corporations have created markets for the people they need to operate.

The market for people is created by a network of HR professionals, recruiters, newspapers, job boards, job posting sites, and more. Hiring managers are the buyers in this marketplace. The job posting is the “request for proposal.” The interview is the sales call. This is a system setup by corporations for the benefit of corporations.

Corporations have a distinct advantage in this marketplace for people. In creating a market place for skills, corporations have maximized competition. With greater competition comes lower cost. There are often a number of qualified alternatives for any job posting in the corporate skills marketplace, allowing them to set the terms for the positions they seek to fill. In situations where there is a shortage of workers, corporations will increase the price, seeking to outbid their competitors and driving the market price for those skills higher.

It’s time to put these same dynamics to work for you in your career.

It’s time for you to create a marketplace for your skills, a marketplace that maximizes competition, allowing you to set the price and terms for your skill set. The market for you will be created by your own network of professionals. As you increase the value of the skills you hold, you decrease the competition that the corporations rely on, forcing them to pay more for your skills and experience.

You must realize that job-search Web sites and recruiters serve the corporations and not you. They are agents of a marketplace that is designed to give corporations an advantage. Your network of professionals will reverse this, creating an advantage for you.

In this e-book, I am going to show you how to establish your own marketplace for your skill set, no matter how trivial you may believe your skills to be. I will help you change your attitudes about your career. I will show you how to minimize the competition for what you do, beating the corporations at their own game.

The process starts by creating a network with which you can communicate effectively through e-mail. You’ll be surprised at just how many people you know. I will show you how to ask the people you know to help you in our job-search, and how to help them in their careers as well. I will show you how to manage this network and grow it so that, as time passes and your skills grow, your marketplace will also be growing.

I will then take you through the process of activating this network when you apply for a position. I’ll show you how to find a Champion at any company to give you an edge. I’ll also show you how to find positions that have not been posted to the public. Obviously, you will expect fewer competitors for these positions then you would for posted jobs.

Finally, I will show you how to use a set of tools that I believe represent the state of the art in job-search management. This will be the information center of the market for your skills. It will be a resource for you in job search after job search, growing in strength year after year. It will not sleep while you are employed, but will continue to help you keep a finger on the pulse of the market for people with skills like yours.

You are no longer a job seeker, you are a skills holder. No matter how modest your education, no matter how common your skills, it’s time to start treating your career as a wealth-building activity.