What Color Is Your Parachute? (19 page)

Looking Ahead

• What value do you think you would add to a potential employer’s business? How would you be “a resource” or even “a resource-broker” for them, rather than just “a job beggar”?
  

• How do you think you would stand out from other applicants who have an equal background?
  

It won’t be enough to say, “I’m good at this or that.” The interviewer will want to know specifics—when, where, how much—that kind of thing.

If you are having trouble working out your achievements, complete this EASY task for each role, starting with your current position and working backward.

(You may wish to start with “skills” to help you in drawing out these achievements.)

To begin with, most discussions of job-interviewing proceed from a false assumption. They
assume
you are going to be approaching a large organization—you know, the ones where you need a floor-plan of the building, and an alphabetical directory of the staff. There are admittedly
huge
problems in approaching such giants for a hiring-interview, not the least of which is that in troubled times, many do more downsizing than hiring.

But many job-hunters don’t want to work for large corporations, anyway. They want to go after the so-called “small organizations”—those with fifty or fewer employees—which, in the U.S., for example, represent 80 percent of all private businesses, and one-fourth of all workers in the private sector.

Experts have claimed for years that small organizations create up to two-thirds of all new jobs.
¹
If that makes you prefer going after a small organization, I have good news: they are
much
easier to get into than large ones, believe me.

With a small organization
, you don’t need to wait until there’s a
known
vacancy, because they rarely advertise vacancies even when there is one. You just go there and ask if they need someone.

With a small organization
, there is no Personnel or Human Resources Department to screen you out.

With a small organization
, there’s no problem in identifying the person-who-has-the-power-to-hire-you. It’s
the boss
. Everyone there knows who it is. They can point to his or her office door, easily.

With a small organization
, you do not need to approach them through the mail; if you use your personal contacts, you can get in to see the boss. And if, by chance, he or she is well protected from intruders, it is relatively easy to figure out how to get around
that
. Contacts again are the answer.

With a small organization
, if it is growing, there is a greater likelihood that they will be willing to create a new position for you,
if you quietly convince them that you are too good to let slip out of their grasp.

For all of these reasons and more, small organizations must be kept in mind, as much as or more than, large organizations, when we begin talking about techniques or strategies for securing a hiring-interview. But let’s take each separately, as they involve two different techniques.

In securing hiring-interviews, it’s the large organizations that are the problem—the ones, as I mentioned, where you need a floor-plan of the building, and an alphabetical directory of the staff.

But you can simplify your task, if you keep certain things in mind. To begin with, you don’t want to just get into the building. You want to get in to see
a particular person
in that building, and only that person: namely, the
person-who-has-the-power-to-hire-you
for the job you are interested in.

Most job-hunters
don’t
even
try
to find out
who
that person is, before approaching a large organization. Rather, they approach each large organization in what can only be described as a haphazard, scattershot fashion.

There is a far, far more effective way to approach employers—and that, as I was saying, is to identify
who
at that organization has the power
to hire you for the position you have in mind, and then to discover what mutual friend the two of you might have in common, who could help you get an appointment.
The person-who-has-the-power-to-hire-you
will see you because that mutual friend got the appointment for you.

In a small organization with fifty or fewer employees, this is a relatively easy problem. Calling the place and asking for the name of the boss should do it. It’s what we call
The One-Minute Research Project.

But if the place where you are dying to work is a much larger organization, then the answer is: “Through
research and
by asking every
contact
you have.”

Let’s say that one of the places you are interested in is an organization that we will call
Mythical Corporation
.

You know the kind of job you’d like to get there, but first you know you need to find out the name of the
person-who-has-the-power-to-hire-you
there. What do you do?

If it’s a large organization, you go on the Internet or you go to your local public library, and search the directories there. Hopefully that search will yield the name of the person you want.

But if it doesn’t, which will particularly be the case with smaller organizations,
then you turn to your contacts.

So now, to our task. You want to approach
Mythical Corporation
and you know that to get in there, you will need to use your contacts. So, what do you do? Well, you approach as many people from the list below as possible and you ask each of them, “Do you know anyone who works, or used to work, at
Mythical Corporation
?”

You ask that question again and again of
everyone
you know, or meet, until you find someone who says, “
Yes, I do.”