Networking & Referrals

This is a short post but I will eventually write a longer piece on the same topic. I just wanted to get a few thoughts down that have been running through my head today on networking and referrals.

When I think back on my career I've never landed a job coming in cold. What I mean by that is every job I've ever found, I've found because I knew someone. It was either word of mouth, a personal referral or someone I knew working at the company already.

When you come in cold from the outside, the odds of landing a job with a successful company that pays well, are unfortunately stacked against you. I can remember early on in my career being blown away by my managers' attitudes to hiring. I was working for one of the largest companies in networking. Silicon Valley was booming. My first interview was over coffee, talking about music. You see, I already knew this person through other friends working at the company. There was never a question of my skills and how I might fit in with the team.

After progressing within the company I went through a few more managers. My second manager was a very laid back guy but extremely busy. He didn't like to bother himself with "annoyances" like interviews. I remember walking by his desk. He had a stack of resumes about a foot high, untouched. Not an exaggeration by any means. So I asked him if he was going to look at them and schedule any interviews. He briefly glanced at the stack and then looked at me and asked, "Do you have any friends I could interview?" No one ever came in cold from the outside.

In this economy, developing your own network and referrals is more important than ever. Depending on the type of work you are looking for, think of ways you can put yourself into contact (indirectly or directly) with people already involved in what you are looking for.

Using Stories in Behavioral Interviews

Industrial psychologists are scary. They are those shadowy characters working behind the scenes in order to influence employees psychologically, according to the company's agenda. If you have a few interviews under your belt, you have undoubtedly had to answer a few behavioral interview questions. These type of questions were created by the same industrial psychologists in the 1970's.

Most people get very nervous when it comes to behavioral interview questions. They hit on an emotional level that common interview questions never reach. Typical behavioral interview questions include:

1. Tell me about yourself.
2. What are your strengths and weaknesses?
3. Why are you interested in working for us?
   

These are definitely not the type of questions you want to approach unprepared. Rather than just naming off your interests, places you've worked, your skills, a list of strengths and weaknesses, and the standard spiel on your future ambition with your target company, I'm going to recommend something a little different. I want you to incorporate your answers into stories.

Metaphorical stories can convey messages to the unconscious mind indirectly and in subtle ways. Before you begin preparing answers to behavioral interview questions, think of the messages you want to convey. Make a list of some common traits your interviewer may be looking for. If you make the common mistake of saying, for example, you're a team player and you get the job done under pressure, it may sound good but it won't catch the interviewer's imagination like a well thought out story that really shows you expressing those qualities. Their imagination of what you are saying will stick much easier.

I will be writing later about representational systems and how they can be incorporated into metaphorical stories to have a more powerful impact.

Unemployment rates are increasing

It looks like unemployment rates around the U.S. are exceeding all-time highs, and unfortunately are probably going to increase significantly in 2009. Many companies are downsizing because they simply do not have the money to pay their employees any longer.

This leaves a majority of new college graduates, with fresh degrees in hand, very few choices. There were times when a four-year degree could almost guarantee you a job immediately after graduation. At this time it is difficult to find a job unless your area of expertise is very specialized.

And that's the way it will continue. Students and potential job seekers will need to specialize in an area that will set them apart from the rest of the masses. Well, that's one scenario to think about for the long term, but what about the rest of this year?

Because companies are downsizing rapidly, they continue to search for that mythical Renaissance man, the one who can do a little bit of everything, thereby allowing them to pay only you and not three or four other employees. As impossible as this may seem, it is doable. It is not only doable, but you can work such a situation to your advantage in more ways than one.

So if you are employed now, I suggest you begin learning other people's skills around you. Of course, start with areas which are related to what you are already doing.

This reminds me of two Oracle Database administrators I once knew. The job market was stagnating but fortunately they saw it coming. They began taking molecular biology courses at a local University - just a few here and there. Then in their spare time they taught themselves Perl and Java programming. This enabled them to jump right into Bioinformatics, a new up and coming field at that time. In this way, they not only diversified their skills, but they were specializing as well.

It's important to be aware of what's going on in different industries and try to anticipate what areas will come together and create new opportunities. But you just can't follow websites, newspapers, or some clueless job headhunter. Be the first to create these opportunities and then be completely clear with yourself about the type of job you want. Don't let predefined titles and descriptions in a job ad define what you will do.