Passive career searching…

December 12th, 2008 • Uncategorized

Chris Brogan wrote a great piece on lead generation in marketing and sales efforts that hit a nerve with me – but not because of the sales and marketing side of the argument. Instead, I think one can take a lot of the points that Chris makes and extend them to your personal marketing efforts – or your personal career search. After the break, I’ll talk about what sorts of things Chris mentioned specifically that you should be applying in your own life.

Alright, so you made it past the break – congrats! Let’s talk about what you can do to passively pursue your passions, or how you can find a new job without spamming resumes. This works best if you’re at least socially competent; otherwise you have other skills that you should be working on.

In the article, Chris brings up the example of Greg Cangialosi, who is involved in the community he’d like to sell to, using podcasts and sponsorship on top of just being a voice to be human, and be there. In this age of social media, this isn’t that much of a surprise – any Twitter user has experienced the use of bots or company accounts in order to advertise their services, sometimes with legit content with them as well. 

However, even with social media, the old adage holds true: in the job world, it’s all about who you know. Having contacts who can pull strings behind the scenes for you, or who can let you know about something coming up before it becomes public only provides you with an advantage in the process. The more people you know, and who can speak positively in your favour (and I’m talking about knowing them, not just having them be a random social network connection with whom you’ve never spoken to), the more opportunites will present themselves to you.

This is all a no-brainer, right? The real question is how do you get to know these people, right? Well, unless you’re lucky enough to grow up at a country club (guilty as charged, although not as beneficial as you may think), or have a network of very affluent people, it may be tough to get to know the Key Decision Makers you need to in order to see these opportunities. What you need to do is make yourself part of the community. Become a defacto expert, by doing your research and making sure what you say and write is factually correct. Utilize social networking in a productive way, writing meaningful messages with each request and starting meaningful conversations with those you are connected with. Upgrade your skill-set by asking some of these people questions that you may not be sure about, also creating meaningful conversations. Seem like a human, not just spamming contacts with resumes or job requests. All pretty standard stuff.

However, one creative thing you can do is to hang out with your desired community, both online and off. Every community has hotspots – be them local conferences, regular events, parties, or even the local coffee shop. Figure out where these places are, and just go there. Put yourself out there, not to pitch yourself or to hand out resumes, but to get to know these people as people, and for them to get to know you as the same. You shouldn’t even mention a career search until you’ve had at least 5 meaningful conversations with these people; just get to know them. Who knows, maybe the career you think you want isn’t actually what you think it is, and getting to know these people may let you know that. Become a genuine part of the community; it’ll pay off dividends for you in the future.

This isn’t a short-term fix; if you’re looking to get a job starting tomorrow, this may not be your approach. But by taking this approach, you may find it has suddenly become easier for you to see the path to your dream career, and how you can actually get there. By “soft selling” yourself like this (and really, you’re not doing selling in any more of a way than by being yourself), people will regard you as an equal, and treat you as such.

Doesn’t this sound like a much better idea than spamming resumes out non-stop? Or at least, more fun? Going to parties and talking to people to advance your career? I know I’m sold (although I suppose I’m a little biased.)

Tags: career, social networking

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