What Color Is Your Parachute? (53 page)

Sooner or later, as you interview one person after another, you’ll begin to get some definite ideas about a career that is of interest to you. It uses your favorite skills. It employs your favorite special knowledges or fields of interest. You’ve interviewed people
actually doing that work
, and it all sounds fine. This part of your Informational Interviewing is over.

As I said earlier, just make sure that you get the names of at least
two
careers, or jobs, that you think you could be happy doing. Never, ever, put all your eggs in one basket. I’ll say it again—the secret of surviving out there in the jungle is
having alternatives
.

Eventually, you will get the names of careers that attract you, and after that, you will find the names of particular organizations that employ “people who can do
that.
” Do you rush right over? No. You research those places, first.

Why should you research places, before you approach them for a hiring-interview? Well, first of all, you want to know something about the organization from the inside: what kind of work they do there. And what their needs or problems or challenges are. And what kind of goals they are trying to achieve, what obstacles they are running into, and how your skills and knowledges can possibly help them.
(When you do at last go in for a hiring-interview, you want above all else to be able to show them that you have something they need.)

Second, you want to find out if you would enjoy working there. You want to take the measure of those organizations. Everybody takes the measure of an organization, but the problem with most job-hunters or career-changers is it’s
after
they are hired there.

In the U.S., for example, a survey of the federal/state employment service once found that 57 percent of those who found a job through that service were not working at that job just thirty days later, and this was
because
they used the first ten or twenty days
on the job
to screen out that job.

You, by doing this research ahead of time, are choosing a better path, by far. Essentially, you are
screening out
careers, jobs, places
before
you commit to them. How intelligent!

So, try to think of every way in the world that you can find out more about those organizations (
plural, not singular)
that interest you,
before you go to see if you can get hired there.
There are several ways you can do this research ahead of time.

• What’s on the Internet.
  Many job-hunters or career-changers think that every organization, company, or nonprofit, has its own website, these days. Not true. Maybe they do, and maybe they
  don’t. It often has to do with the size of the place, its access to a good Web designer, its desperation for customers, etc. Easy way to find out: if you have access to the Internet, type the name of the place into your favorite search engine (
  Google, Yahoo, or whatever
  ) and see what it turns up. Try more than one search engine.
  ⁸
  Sometimes one knows things the others don’t.
  

• What’s in Print.
  The organization itself may have stuff in print, or on its website, about its business, purpose, etc. The CEO or head of the organization may have given talks. The organization may have copies of those talks. In addition, there may be brochures, annual reports, etc., that the organization has put out, about itself. How do you get ahold of these? The person who answers the phone there, when you call, will know, or know who to refer you to. Also, if it’s a decent-size organization that you are interested in, public libraries may have files on the organization—newspaper clippings, articles, etc. You never know; and it never hurts to ask your friendly neighborhood research librarian.
  

• Friends and Neighbors.
  Ask
  everyone
  you know, if they know anyone who works at the places that interest you. And, if they do, ask them if they could arrange for you and that person to get together, for lunch, coffee, or tea. At that time, tell them why the place interests you, and indicate you’d like to know more about it.
  (It helps if your mutual friend is sitting there with the two of you, so the purpose of this little chat won’t be misconstrued.)
  This is the vastly preferred way to find out about a place. However, obviously you need a couple of additional alternatives up your sleeve, in case you run into a dead end here.
  

• People at the Organizations in Question, or at Similar Organizations.
  You can also go directly to organizations and ask questions about the place, but here I must caution you about several
  dangers.
  

  First, make sure you’re not asking them questions that are in print somewhere, which you could easily have read for yourself instead of bothering
  them
  . This irritates people.
  

  Second, make sure that you approach the people at that organization
  whose business it is to give out information
  —receptionists, public relations people, “the personnel office,” “the human relations department,” etc.—
  before
  you ever approach people higher up in that organization.
  

  Third, make sure that you approach
  subordinates
  rather than the top person in the place, if the subordinates would know the answer to your questions. Bothering the boss there with some simple questions that someone else could have answered is committing
  job-hunting suicide
  .
  

  Fourth, make sure you’re not using this approach simply as a sneaky way to get in to see the boss, and make a pitch for them to hire you. You said this was just information gathering. Keep it at that.
  

• Temporary Agencies.
  Many job-hunters and career-changers have found that a useful way to explore organizations is to go and work at a temporary agency. To find these, put into Google the name of your town or city and (on the same search line) the words “Temp Agencies” or “Employment Agencies.” Employers turn to such agencies in order to find: a) job-hunters who can work part-time for a limited number of days; and b) job-hunters who can work full-time for a limited number of days. The advantage to you of temporary work is that if there is an agency that loans out people with your particular skills and expertise, you get a chance to be sent to a number of different employers over a period of several weeks, and see each one from the inside. Maybe the temp agency won’t send you to exactly the place you hoped for, but sometimes you can develop contacts in the place you love, even while you’re temporarily working somewhere else—if both organizations are in the same field.
  

  Some of you may balk at the idea of enrolling with a temporary agency, because you remember the old days when such agencies were solely for clerical workers and secretarial help. But the field has seen an explosion of services in the last decade, and there are temporary agencies these days
  (at least in the larger cities)
  for many occupations. In your city you may find temporary agencies for: accountants, industrial workers, assemblers, drivers, mechanics, construction people, engineering people, software
  engineers, programmers, computer technicians, production workers, management/executives, nannies (for young and old), health care/dental/medical people, legal specialists, lawyers, insurance specialists, sales/marketing people, underwriting professionals, financial services, and the like, as well as for the old categories: data processing, secretarial, and office services. See your local phone book, under “Temporary Agencies.”
  

• Volunteer Work.
  Another useful way to research a place before you ever ask them to hire you there, is to volunteer your services at the place that interests you. Of course, some places will turn your offer down, cold. But others will be interested. If they are, it will be relatively easy for you to talk them into letting you work there for a while, because you offer your services
  without pay,
  and for a brief, limited, agreed upon, period of time. In other words, from their point of view, if you turn out to be a
  pain
  , they won’t have to endure you for long.
  

In this fashion, you get a chance to learn about organizations from the inside. Not so coincidentally, if you do decide you would really like to work there, and permanently, they’ve had a chance to see you in action, and when you are about to end your volunteer time there,
may
want to hire you permanently. I say
may.
Don’t be mad if they simply say, “Thanks very much for helping us out. Goodbye.” (That’s what
usually
happens.) Even so, you’ve learned a lot, and this will stand you in good stead, in the future—as you approach other organizations.

After
anyone
has done you a favor, during this Informational Interviewing phase of your job-hunt, you must
be sure
to send them a thank-you note by the very next day, at the latest. Such a note goes to
anyone
who helps you, or who talks with you. That means friends, people at the organization in question, temporary agency people, secretaries, receptionists, librarians, workers, or whomever.

Ask them, at the time you are face-to-face with them, for their business card (if they have one), or ask them to write out their name and work address, on a piece of paper, for you. You
don’t
want to misspell their name. It is difficult to figure out how to spell people’s names, these days, simply from the sound of it. What sounds like “Laura” may actually be “Lara.” What sounds like “Smith” may
actually be “Smythe,” and so on. Get that name and address,
but get it right,
please. And let me reiterate: thank-you notes must be prompt. E-mail the thank-you note that same night, or the very next day at the latest.

Follow it with a lovely printed copy, nicely formatted, and sent through the mail. (Most employers these days prefer a printed letter to a handwritten one, unless your handwriting is beautiful.)

Your thank-you note can be just two or three sentences. Something like: “
I wanted to thank you for talking with me yesterday. It was very helpful to me. I much appreciated your taking the time out of your busy schedule to do this. Best wishes to you,”
and then your signature.
Do
sign it, particularly if the thank-you note is printed. Printed letters sent through the mail without any signature seem to be multiplying like rabbits in the world of work, these days; the absence of a written signature is usually perceived as making your letter
tremendously
impersonal. You don’t want to leave that impression.

You probably won’t. Let me remind you that during this information gathering, you are
not
talking primarily to
employers
. You’re talking to
workers
.

Nonetheless, an occasional employer
may
stray across your path during your Informational Interviewing. And that employer
may
be so impressed with the carefulness you’re showing, in going about your career-change and job-search, that they want to hire you, on the spot. So, it’s
possible
that you’d get offered a job while you’re still doing your information gathering. Not
likely,
but
possible.
And if that happens, what should you say?