PeopleHirePeople

JOB SITES GONE WILD!

Just when you think you have exhausted all the ways to get a job, here comes a new job site where you can pay and bid for an interview! Times get tough and innovation blooms. But paying a company for an interview? Really.

Haven’t job candidates had enough? The ultimate is websites where the only form of contact is through an email. No way to trace a phone number and speak with a human yet the site offers to store and share candidates’ resumes. This makes PeopleHirePeople suspicious that websites are owned by recruiting firms looking to acquire free resume databases.

No doubt innovation for the fast bucks is accelerating new job sites. PeopleHirePeople discovered a site charging a $5 fee just to view a single job. Some candidates are spending $30 plus per month for resume exposure and access to an exclusive database for job postings.

Job candidates think time and expenses of job search have gotten out of hand, so do employers and recruiters. In a recent Wall Street Journal an article was titled, “Recruiters Use Search Engines to Lure Job Hunters Cash-Strapped Companies Save with Search Ads, Scale Back on Rival Media Like Job Boards and Newspapers”. Employers just like job candidates are seeking new Internet tools for hiring. In order to save job boards fees which can be $10K for one user access to resume databases and $500 per job posting, employers are using the “free” social networking sites.

The digital electronic job search is turning candidates into indentured servants of the computer. No rest for the weary. Computer busy work is researching job boards, on line applications, creating profiles on social networks, twittering, Yahoo groups and on and on. Candidates spend more hours per day working job related web sites than they did on their daily permanent employment.

Does all this digital electronic searching work? Not according to the statistics. Less than 5% of job candidates actually reap a job from job boards. Only 15% of jobs are advertised. Finally, 90% of managers actually hire through some form of their own connections. An unofficial poll by PeopleHirePeople found that normally after 90 days job candidates realize that their electronic searches do not pay off.

What actually works? Statistics show that 60-85% of employment opportunities occur when humans actually connect. Therefore the obvious goal for job candidates becomes human contacts rather than digital electronic connections. Job candidates find they lack industry contacts for several reasons.   Many have had employment that consists of individual interaction with a computer only. Others find their busy lives are full with work and family so there is no extra time to “network”.

How do job candidates create new contacts quickly now that they are unemployed? PeopleHirePeople suggests the power of the phone. The majority of candidates are communicating through emails. Assumptions that emails will pass through security, be opened, read and message retained should not be made by senders. Email inboxes overflow with messages and the receiver often deletes unfamiliar senders.

Select individuals who are very knowledgeable within the industry of choice. For example, who would a job candidate contact who was moving to Dallas with no job leads and experienced in event planning? PeopleHirePeople suggested finding the society reporter in a major Dallas newspaper. Then call that reporter. This reporter would be covering all the latest events and have knowledge of the town’s best event planners, caterers etc. In one phone call the job candidate can learn the major event players in Dallas and approach those companies for employment. The job candidate could also ask the reporter for a contact within each of the companies. Lastly the job candidate could also ask permission to use the reporter’s name when placing calls into the companies. It is always a door opener to use a referral’s name when making new connections.

Phoning industry professionals that have a wealth of information is extremely focused which brings many more contacts and referrals. A phone call asking for assistance is effective because the receiver of the request is more likely to have time for a quick conversation than a face to face meeting. PeopleHirePeople has always found that one focused phone call is more effective than one hour spent on digital electronic searches. In the end, digital electronic connections don’t hire, people do.

CALL ADVERTISED JOBS

One of the main methods stressed by PeopleHirePeople is to use the phone in job search. Personal connections by calling contacts pay off big time. There appears to be hesitancy on the part of job candidates to make direct contact about advertised jobs.                  Most job candidates continue to email resumes for advertised jobs resulting in no response.
One job candidate and PeopleHirePeople seminar attendee emailed me the following concern. He also phoned me to discuss it.
“We spoke briefly after today's session.   As you requested, my resume is attached.   After I left, it occurred to me that you might be able to help me with an opportunity in Boulder.   There is a Sr. VP of Operations position advertised in the Rocky Mountain Internet Users Group that I was planning on applying for today through the standard resume-submission-via-email method.    Your seminar has made me reconsider this… This position is being offered through a Denver recruiter. I have not contacted him. I don't know how good he is, or if he has an exclusive with this company. I DO know how good you are. Thus my request for help”

I urged this job candidate to call the recruiter directly. And here was how that call was received:
“And at your suggestion, I contacted the recruiter responsible for handling the VP of Operations position in Boulder.   While he didn't tell me who the company is, he did mention that it is a startup developing a product for the telecom industry.
Anyway, he also told me he received over 117 resumes via email and only one other person actually called him. So he's got me at the top of the list along with the other caller simply because we took that initiative. Interesting.”

One hundred and seventeen resume submittals by email and only two phone calls received by the recruiter. Placement at the top of the list of candidates is the reward to this job candidate for calling the recruiter.

Phone calls get more responses than email in job search. Job candidates find accurate and more current information from phone conversations.

One day as a recruiter, I contacted a hiring manager and asked to work with him on filling some of his company’s jobs. There were about two dozen jobs listed on his company website. In a two minute conversation I learned that all posted jobs were on hold.
Ironically, this hiring manager told me the name of two other companies where his employees were finding employment! About a week later in the local newspaper there was an announcement as to large layoffs in this company.

In yet another case, there was a posted position on a private marketplace that is open only to headhunters and employers. I viewed the job description noting that I knew the regional site manager for the position which was being advertised by the company’s headquarters. So I called the site manager. His response was that they were not hiring at this time and hoped to hold onto their sixty-five employees in the regional facility. Again, the job posted turned out not to be a real job.

Expending energy on carefully crafted cover letters, writing tailored resumes and emailing them for advertised positions is very time consuming. A ten minute phone conversation is for more productive than hours on the Internet making job applications.
Advertised jobs may not even be “real” jobs. Advertised jobs may already be filled. Defy conventional wisdom and pick up the phone. Get the truth about the advertised job and maybe even get to be a top candidate because of the phone call!


ONE COMPANY, ONE CALL, ONE INTERVIEW…

Job candidate, Duane, had contacted me for some direction and suggestions for his personal search as he was already schooled in the PeopleHirePeople job search methods. He had been a project manager assisting in the management of an $8 million performance improvement consulting and training project at one of the world's largest refineries located on St. Croix, U.S. Virgin Islands. Duane had just finished a contract position.

In difficult economic times I suggested the real possibility that companies would be doing more heavy equipment maintenance and repairs as an alternative to purchasing and installing new equipment. Therefore I proposed that Duane look at small private companies in industries where their primary business would be in repair and refurbishing of industrial equipment.

In a search engineer, I put in key words such as: industrial, repairing, equipment, pumps etc. I typed into the search engineer different combinations of words followed by Denver which is the city in which Duane resides. After researching several companies I suggested just one company because it was not a Fortune five hundred company. Remember seven out of ten jobs are created by small businesses. Eight-five percent of jobs are never advertised.

This email came to me after Duane placed just one phone call to the president!
From: Duane
Sent: Thursday, October 16, 2008 10:48 AM
To: Kathleen@peoplehirepeople.com
Subject: Denver Company
Hello Kathleen,
After you suggested the pump company I got the President's name from a database and called. After presenting my elevator speech I got an appointment to see him on the 10/28!
Learn as much as you can about the target company and then just call. He did not ask for a resume so I am inclined to just bring one to the meeting and if asks for a resume offer him the a choice of accepting the one I have with me or sending one that addresses the type of position he has in mind. He did not give an indication on the phone of what he has in mind.
What do you think of that approach?
Thanks,
Duane

How did Duane find the president’s name? After researching the company web site, Duane discovered that the president’s name was not on the listed nor was his name mentioned in any of the company’s press releases or news articles. So Duane went into Reference USA . He accessed Reference USA online through the local public library’s reference center. Duane learned that company is private and has about 20 employees with revenues of ten to fifteen million dollars.

Why did the president make the meeting nine business days from the phone call? Turns out like a lot of busy executives he had a heavy travel schedule. So the meeting date was conveniently placed into his schedule. Note that this president like many other small business executives does his own scheduling.

My advice to Duane is to carry his resume to the meeting but not to bring it out unless the opportunity presents itself. Instead go with the flow and have some key probing questions prepared. It might be more appropriate to email a resume after the meeting so that Duane can tweak it reflecting the needs the president communicates for the company. The tweaked resume, a thank you and a proposal plan as to what Duane can do for the company make for a terrific follow up. If this meeting turns out to be more on the line as an informational interview than an employment opportunity, Duane should ask the president for some industry referrals. Lastly Duane should ask permission to use the president’s name when contacting those referrals.

When job candidates do their due diligence in research and phone calls, things happen. Job candidates have nothing to lose and everything to gain by directly approaching industry executives of small businesses. Contacts plus phone calls equates to face-to-face meetings.


THE TOUGH GET CALLING

What can job candidates do to get above their competition in a difficult job market?
Make focused industry connections where the competition is not! What is the fastest and most effective method to connect with these focused connections? Use the phone!

Lack of human contact by job candidates seems to be the norm. Spending an inordinate time of merely making applications on the Internet is not productive. Why? Because job candidates never speak to humans! Therefore, the success rate of even getting a human response is highly unlikely. In fact, less than 5% of job candidates actually realize positions from job boards and often it is less at 2%.

PeopleHirePeople (www.peoplehirepeople.com) has two strategies for a focused action plan. One strategy of the PeopleHirePeople’s focused action plan instructs job candidates to call through target companies. Make direct contacts by phone to target companies until the decision maker has been reached. Focus creative research to discover target small businesses. 84% of the United States employed population works for small businesses. Small businesses are comprised of 500 or fewer employees. The key is to hunt and find small businesses, mainly privately held that are not overtly advertising positions.

Recently a job candidate contacted me to relate his success with direct phone connections using the PeopleHirePeople strategy of calling target companies for decision makers. Here are his successful statistics!

The job candidate selected 30 target companies within his geographical location. The target companies came from databases accessed through his local library on line services. His main concentration was small businesses with headquarters or regional offices in his city or within a reasonable daily commute.

PeopleHirePeople methods stress not sending a resume until job candidates have made connections with a company individual in a hiring capacity other than human resources. This job candidate made an average of 2 phone calls each to the 30 companies. He immediately got 10 no’s and he left 3 messages to which he received were no responses. However 7 decisions makers requested his resume and another 4 decision makers set up face-to-face meetings.

He accomplished in the span of 2 weeks! Careful, creative research of companies and making focused phone calls reaped successful responses: 30 targeted companies, 60 phone calls, 7 resumes sent and 4 face-to-face meetings! That is a 35% positive response rate which is terrific in any industry.

Note: These face to face meetings were granted without a resume being sent!

To prepare for the face-to-face meetings, we developed a strategy of reviewing the four company’s websites for current press releases and other indicators of current market focus. During the meetings, he was to ask and take note what are each company’s essential needs and problems. Follow up, would be a second opportunity for the job candidate to present outlined solutions for the decision maker. The job candidate’s goal would be to present himself as a professional ready to contribute value to the company and a cut above competition that would merely send a standard thank you note.

Results of the four face-to-face meetings were:
1. The president of the first company said he is waiting out the economic times before adding staff, but suggested the job candidate contact one of his competitors and provided a name of a decision maker at the competitor.
2. The interview with the competitor was successful as the job candidate was asked to get back with a proposal to restart a division for selling services. This competitor company is on the current list of Inc magazine’s fastest growing 5,000 companies.
3. The owner of another company may be interested in consulting for a plan to transition his business to one of his sons.
4. A fourth small company is considering adding on inside salesman and they have not met with any other candidates. The owners of this company agreed to let the candidate finish pursuing the other opportunities before meeting again.

This candidate’s success proves that very focused contacts through phoning are both time efficient and productive in job search. After all, computers do not hire job candidates, people hire people!