Partners: Networking and Job Searching

I always appreciate the candidates I speak with who know perfectly well that none of the job orders on my desk are going to be what they are currently searching for, but they still take a few minutes to speak with me personally. Why should they spend that time speaking with me, and vice-versa – why should I spend that time with them? Simple. Networking, connections, referrals.

Recently, this proved to be the case when our firm placed a COO for a high end technical start-up company. This candidate was not the typical talent we have in our database, outside of the manufacturing industries we work with, but we spoke for a few minutes. She was a talented combination of vision, operations management and technical expertise. Our few minute conversation proved to be well worth it when a few months later, her dream job was landed through an affiliate partner of ours.

Likewise, I occasionally receive emails from other recruiters I’ve networked and partnered with who will warn me of certain candidates they’ve had negative experiences with that are in the disciplines I work. Word of warning – treat all recruiters like they are your meal ticket to your next job! Recruiters are masters of networking, especially amongst us.

Networking in business has long been a requirement and natural part of our everyday work. What surprises me is how few candidates turn to networking and really know how to work and expand their networks when job searching. Brush up your networking skills and apply them to your job search! To help kick your search into high gear, I’d recommend you read Penelope Trunk’s post on her Yahoo Finance column from a few months ago, “Networking for people who hate it”.

Additional resources on networking:

To find the right jobs, candidates need to be Selectively Networked

Open Thread: What's Your Professional Networking Style?

How Strong Is Your Network?

Network Your Way to a New Job or Career

Effective Networking for Professional Success

Round Up: Cover Letters

Resource Round Up: Recently Published Tips and Advice on Writing Cover Letters

Don't Send a Cover Letter

Tips For Writing A Great Cover Letter

Quick Cover Letter Guideline

New Resource – Free E-Book on Interview Tips

One of the blogs I have recently discovered is Liz Handlin’s Ultimate Resumes. I have been following her blog for the last couple of months and have enjoyed many of her posts. Much of her writing would apply to many of our readers.

Liz Handlin has recently published a new free e-book entitled “Interviewing Tips”, which covers topics from selling yourself to closing the interview to writing thank you notes. The e-book also includes common questions, closers, and a sample thank you note.

I found this booklet to be a well compiled, consolidated tool for people interviewing for entry to mid level professional jobs. While some of the content is similar to many other interview resources and tips, her format provides a solid start-to-finish refresher course. I would not recommend this for our upper management or senior executive candidates (and Liz Handlin states this in her own blog post) as the format and questions for this type of interview process are likely to be different.

Check out her post "Interviewing Tips e-book Now Available..." and download her booklet today!

Communication – For Granted?

I sent a candidate an email with a job description attached, requesting her to review and give me some feedback, including why she feels she is qualified for the role, if interested in the job.

Her reply comes back the next day, “I’m interested.” That was it. No signature, no name, certainly no feedback as to why, in her opinion, she is qualified.

In the time that it took me to look her up by email address in our database, I determined she wasn’t qualified for the job, and that I wouldn’t be presenting her to our client. I realize most of you are not asking “why?”, but I’m going to elaborate further for the point of this post.

In every professional job, communication – both written and verbal, is an essential core skill. I’m hired by our clients to find the best candidate – not just in all the specific industry, discipline and technical elements, but certainly as an overall professional capable of communicating in today’s business world. And today, that means a great deal of email communication.

If a candidate cannot reply back following simple instructions, cannot compose a few sentences supporting why he/she is qualified for the role and cannot remember to include a full name (or email signature) in closing on the email correspondence, I have grave doubts about their ability to perform an essential part of any job.

Even though email communication is a more casual form of communication, certain essentials must be included in the correspondence.

Perhaps the candidate assumed that because I was simply the recruiter, she wasn’t obligated to sell herself. Dead wrong. Remember we work for the employer, and every communication we have is an opportunity to judge your professional skills. You may have a great working relationship with your recruiter (I certainly feel I do with many of my candidates), but that doesn’t allow you to become completely sloppy with your communication with them.

Watch how you come across in your continued correspondence with your recruiter and all hiring managers – especially your emails!

Vacation Lessons

This post has nothing to do with job searching, but lessons in life I’ve recently learned. I just returned from a long weekend away in scenic Door County, WI with my husband and daughter, and here’s what I came back with:

1. Don’t move a lawn ornament, even to drive around an obstacle in a driveway, or you may be screamed at by the association management for 5 minutes straight (and he used to be a senior executive at a Fortune 500 company!).
2. Toddlers and beaches mean more sand in the van than you could possibly imagine.
3. State park rangers prefer the receipt that you paid for park entry on the right hand side of the dash, rather then the left – or the middle of the dash. Otherwise, they ticket you anyway, requiring you to drive the length of the park to the main gate to plea your case that you did, indeed, pay.
4. Vacations aren’t really like they used to be, as my husband and I both joined the ranks of numerous other supposed vacationers sitting in parking lots and coffee houses at every available “hot spot”.
5. Be inspired by change. So many of the business owners and people we talked with are pursuing a completely different way of life and dramatic career change as they had the courage to leave their successful “corporate world” jobs and follow their dreams.
6. Family time, or time with loved ones, is invaluable. In the midst of your job search, don’t forget to take time to make memories this summer with the special people in your life.