Guide: How to Get Interviews:

• Overview

• Planning your Search Campaign

• Identifying Leads and Opportunities

• Establishing Contact

• Following Up
  

Planning your Search Campaign

The task of planning a job search campaign or a “Personal Marketing Campaign” as commonly coined, must be one of excellent organization and a little bit of ingenuity. In getting organized, you will need a specific method of keeping track of all prospects, company names, telephone numbers, contact people, possible or published job openings, résumé versions sent, and log of your contacts with each organization and the outcome.   

You will find a copy of a useful contact log at the end of this guide that can prove to be very helpful in organizing this information.  Keeping yourself highly organized will keep you on top of where you stand with each company.  In addition, you will impress would-be employers by knowing who you spoke with, when you spoke with them and the details of your interaction with them. Don’t, however, carry the list into an interview and unleash your secret.  Copy only the relevant information to reference during your in-person visit.

Your résumé will likely not be a 100% perfect match for every opportunity you seek, so the copy you send each company might use a good 30-second tailoring to bring to front those skills that are important to them. Unless you are changing careers your history and abilities should already be a reasonable match from which a prospective employer could identify transferable skill useful in their organization.  Whether or not you modify each résumé, you should keep track of which copy you provided them and have another copy available if you are called in for an interview.  It happens in some cases that a company calls 2 months after being contacted, perhaps after the résumé has undergone changes.

If you plan to broadcast your résumé or post it to job boards (in which case there’s no possibility for individual tailoring), the strategy is to keep the document more general – the way it is when first prepared.  This will appeal to a wider audience.  Keep track also, which copy was distributed or posted.

With these ideas in mind, the step-by-step plan for organizing your job search is below:

1. Put together a contact log.

2. Identify all possible leads and opportunities (outlined in the following section) and input these in the contact log.

3. Plan a timetable for your first contact, follow up contacts and set a reasonable goal for the number of people per week you can maintain correspondence with.  The initial résumé distribution can usually be all done at once but subsequent contacts should be planned and executed on schedule.

4. For individual job orders/postings and advertisements found, identify the critical needs unique to this company – if any, and make note of them.

5. Identify opportunities that require the identical or a very close set of skills and proficiencies and group them together.  They will get the same résumé copy.

6. Make any general modifications such as re-arranging of words or statements to bring the most attractive aspects of your background to the forefront of the résumé if necessary – for each group of opportunities.

7. It is recommended that either you print or have a professional copy shop print your résumés on a quality, neutral, light colored paper.   Print enough so that you have a few extras of each copy for future use and reference.  

Next Step  >>>> Identifying Leads and Opportunities

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