Guerrilla Job Search Tactics – Faster Way To Find A Job

The definition of insanity goes something like this:

Doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. Naturally this labels about 80% of all job seekers as complete nutcases.

What does every job seeker do these days when it comes to searching for jobs?

The same thing they have been doing yesterday, six months ago and two years ago, which is simply applying online over and over

The root cause of most problems job seekers face is that they have a major lack of focus; meaning they don’t even know what they want to do. I can’t tell you how many times I have heard these phrases “I just want a job that pays well” … or better yet “I just want a job”… and of course my personal favorite “I want to work with people”

Don’t worry I’m not here to complain about the sad state of affairs, as always with me you will only get the most actionable material possible that you can implement today and see real success with your job search.

That I promise you 

PS: Isn’t it sad how many career related articles there are on the net, 95% of it are these lame 500 words general career advice, tips and tricks that only waste your time. Not here my friends… Lets get to it

TIME TO WAKE UP TO REALITY

FACT 1: ONLY 20% OF ALL JOBS ARE POSTED ONLINE

FACT 2: 80% OF ALL JOB SEEKERS ARE APPLYING TO THESE 20% OF OPENINGS

FACT 3: 20% OF JOB SEEKERS ARE APPLYING TO 80% OF ALL THE AVAILABLE JOB OPENINGS

In order to accelerate our job search and get a job as fast as possible, we will employ some amazing guerrilla job search tactics and become part of the 20% of jobseekers who are scoring big time after time by tapping into the hidden job market. The Term “Guerrilla” is a marketing term that simply implies doing things differently in a very creative way. These types of marketing strategies are proven to work so why not apply it to our job search.

BEFORE WE START – A LITTLE BIT OF MOTIVATION IS IN ORDER

GUERRILLA JOB SEARCH TACTIC 1: Become a Headhunter, Become Me

When I was handling the Amazon Account, on any given day I had roughly 80 positions that needed to be filled and that was just a very tiny piece of the overall pie. Do you think I succeeded as a recruiter by simply putting up ads on Craigslist?

Posting Job Ads is time consuming and costly. I didn’t have time to write a job descriptions, to look through 500 resumes, e-mail, call, set up interviews etc. Instead of doing all of this what did I do?

I Head Hunted, more specifically I wrote elaborate search phrases commonly referred to as Boolean search strings which allowed me to quickly find a candidate that met my criteria. Then I would e-mail, cold call and when this did not work. I would find other companies who have similar business units and work my way though ranks until I found an employee who was interested.

How many people did I hire though job adds?

You guessed it, roughly 20%, mainly lower end positions such as administrative type work

OK “UBER-RECRUITER-GURU” how does this help me?

Well my friends this is the essentially the core foundation of our guerrilla style job search that we are going to adopt.

Instead of head hunting employees we are going to head hunt for companies, allies and decision makers. Our job search will become laser targeted. Employing this type of job search strategy will enable us to find the right people, the right companies and consequently the right jobs for us.

Say goodbye to your passive job search where you sent out your resume to 100 different postings hoping that something will stick. It won’t

Action Steps

• Research Companies that you would like to work for for
• Branch out your research to its competition ( a simple company name + competitors should do the trick )
  
• Branch out your company research into its suppliers and vendors ( company name + suppliers … It’s not rocket science)
  
• Google is your friend so develop a list of 10 to 20 companies to start and continue to add more over time
  

GUERRILLA JOB SEARCH TACTIC 2: Say goodbye to applying to job postings, we are signing off Huston

How do companies make money?

They sell goods or services

How do they sell goods or services?

They have sales people that sell it for them

How do these people sell the goods or services?

THEY PICK UP THE PHONE

Yes that’s right they pick up the phone. In my career out of 1000 applications maybe only 1 percent would call me. And these calls usually went like this

Job Seeker: “Hi my name is … and I applied for such and such position and I’m checking if you received my application”

Me: “Yes we did, we are currently still in the selection process, so we will give you a call if you make it to the interview stage”

Job seeker: OK Thank you

Picking up the phone should be second nature these days since most of us can’t even hold a conversation without looking at them, however dialing a number and pressing call is still a foreign practice it seems. How many of you have actually picked up the phone to call a company after applying. How many of you have tried to ask for a coffee meeting or simply started a conversation?

Our next step in guerrilla job search is to pick up the phone and call the companies. Our aim here is not to ask for a job but to simply make an initial contact with decision makers. Please don’t over-think this step and please don’t say things like “I don’t mean to bother you”. I know this is a little bit general so let’s take it down to earth level

Action Steps: We need to make all phone calls work in our favor

• Find somebody who can refer you to the hiring manager
  • This may be a contact on LinkedIn who works for this company
  • This may be the secretary
  • People you know that have done business with this company, ask on Facebook, twitter, LinkedIn. Finding a name is crucial
    
  • You got a business card from this person
  • You found the name in a mutual group such as fraternity, non-profit organization, linked-in group etc
    

When you start a conversation with “Hi John, This is NAME and I was referred to you by NAME”

THIS IS THE MOST POWERFUL SENTENCE IN THE WORLD; it essentially eliminates all the barriers and preconceived notions this person may have about the phone call. If somebody was referred to me by another employee that I hired for example, I was always available and willing find out what their background is and how I could help them. Even if this person did not fit, I would file them under referrals and call them back if something came up.

PS: Do not get discouraged when you can’t get though to somebody or if this person brushes you of. Hiring managers and recruiters are very busy, so make that phone call again, leave a message, send an email, follow up again in about a week, be persistent this will pay off. I had a lady who was a tax analyst call me over and over, she did not score well on her excel so I was reluctant to present her to employees. However she kept calling, I then told her what the problem was and shared my concerns with her. She wanted to take the test again and she did well, I presented her resume and she was hired. Ready to move on… Lots of stuff to cover

GUERRILLA JOB SEARCH TACTIC 3: Send a unique Gift

I’m not sure where I read this article by this lady send a coffee mug along with her resume to a company and landed a job a week later. Here is how she went about it

I personally never received a mug but I can assure you that I would have given this person 30 minutes of my time. It is well deserved

GUERRILLA JOB SEARCH TACTIC 4: Become an industry expert

No I’m not talking about writing the next book or becoming a public speaker, we are talking about practical job search strategies.

Every single minute about 350 articles are published online, it’s never been easier than it is today to become well educated and informed on a certain industry or career field. If you are a project manager for example you can find amazing articles on the latest cross functional team productively practices for example.

Our guerrilla job search strategy here is to send a few carefully selected articles to the hiring manager along with a note that states “This was of great interest to me and I simply had to share” along with a letter that describes your sincere interest in the company, the open position and how  you can add value.

I don’t want you to waste time searching for articles on the internet so a simple way to do this is to set up Google alerts on certain key phrases or topics which will then be directly emailed to you. Here is a video on how to set up Google alerts.

GUERRILLA JOB SEARCH TACTIC 5: Start working for the company before the interview

Interviews can be a bit tedious for recruiters as they all usual follow the same predetermined path. I did countless interviews and looking back I don’t remember most of them.

Our guerrilla job search tactic here is to do all the work up front so when it comes to the interview we can lead, engage and manipulate the outcome. You can also use this tactic to propose an interview.

Example:

• If it is a sales position that you are applying for then bring in a large list of potential leads or business relationships you have already established
• If you are a technical writer bring in 4 to 5 major guides or tutorials you have written
• If you are a UI Designer bring in your laptop with previous projects you have completed or even better go to their website and write a lengthy analysis of what they are doing well and what they could improve upon

This approach screams “I am dedicated and better than the rest of applicants” It will set you apart and will land you the job. Persistence is the answer here

GUERRILLA JOB SEARCH TACTIC 6: Guerrilla Job Search Resume

Most HR Generalists would disagree with me here, but that’s OK as I have a personal vendetta against HR anyways.

Here are some great tips for enhancing your resume

• Section of a side of your resume and make a gray box. In that box we will include all of our endorsements that we have gained on LinkedIn. Building social proof does wonders to build credibility and eliminate red flags a recruiter may have
• Include the Logos of the top companies that you have worked for or done business with professionally. Many websites do this to build credibility they will have a section that states “as seen on” and then list the logos. This can be done underneath your name or at the footer of your resume
• Include a PS in your cover letter or resume, these always get read
• Send a thank you card along with your resume “I would love to meet over lunch” or “Thank you reviewing my resumes”
• Send your resume via post in addition to emailing, everybody only does email, it adds a personal touch plus you can include your portfolio, your business ideas you plan to implement etc. It will be read and if its good it will convert.

Enough Guerrilla warfare for today, there are millions other tips I want to share but I do have to hold myself back a little bit otherwise this blog post will never end. Let me know if you are enjoying this article and if its something you can use. I want to make sure that I’m delivering the best value and only you can guide what topics are discussed on this site.

I NEED TO ASK YOU FOR A HUGE FAVOR – Please share this article, like and g+, This means a lot, Thank you again for reading

[subscribe2]