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Each of the Guerrillas profiled below got hired by thinking and acting very differently than the typical job hunter.
Best part: Everything they to get hired did cost exactly $0.
What can you learn from them?
1) Prove You’re the One to Hire
One job seeker, we’ll call her Jane, was looking for a position in retail merchandising — putting together POP displays, planograms, etc.
While developing her résumé, she mentioned that she could walk into any retail setting and show the store how to make more money with better merchandising.
Suddenly, she got an idea. How could she prove this to potential employers, on the spot?
Jane targeted 5 major retail outlets, went to a number of their locations, and made notes on what she saw and how she would improve it.
The first company she contacted was a major outlet with offices located in the building above the store. She walked into the office and asked to speak to the person in charge of marketing, but was told he was in a meeting until 11:00am. So she scribbled a quick note on a piece of paper that said this:
I’ve just spent 30 minutes in your store. I found 3 merchandising inconsistencies and identified 7 ways that should increase your sales by about 12-15%. My name is Jane Smart and I will be waiting in the coffee shop downstairs.
“Please hand this to him at the end of his meeting. It’s very important,†she said, and walked out.
Shortly after 11:00, the VP of Marketing came downstairs, found her in the coffee shop, and spent the next hour walking through every corner of the store to discuss her findings.
The VP hired her as the new Director of Merchandising, although no such position existed! The job was created just for Jane, as a result of the valuable expertise she had demonstrated.
Action Steps: Be like Jane. If you were already employed at your target company, what would you be doing all day? What’s stopping you from doing it right now and demonstrating your expertise to potential employers, as Jane did?
Could you walk into their lobby and deliver proof of your expertise in the form of a white paper, a list of sales leads, a PowerPoint presentation, or something else?
If you research your target company and “start working†for them before you any job interview, this can prove you’re someone they need to hire — even if they have to create a new position just to bring you on board.
2) Stand Out and Get Hired at a Job Fair
One of our clients, Tom, just found a great job by attending a job fair and impressing the hiring manager with how much he knew about the company’s plans to expand.
How did he get this knowledge? By reading a local business magazine in search of companies signing new commercial leases, a sure sign of a need for increased capacity.
With a little research, you can uncover valuable information about any employer that will help you make a winning first impression.
Here’s how Tom did it:
“I kept up on the local real estate market by reading Minneapolis-St. Paul Business Journal magazine. I learned that the employer had picked up 200,000 sq. ft. of office space on a 10-year lease, and I filed that information away mentally. When I met the hiring manager at the job fair, I told him what I knew about their plans to expand downtown. He was impressed with my knowledge and everything went very quickly after that first impression, ending with a job offer.â€
Action Steps: Here are two ways you can make an instant, winning rapport with hiring managers at a job fair …
1. Research and find relevant facts about employers before meeting them.
All job fairs publish a list of participating employers before the event, which eliminates guesswork for you. Simply research target companies until you find unusual data about them, their competitors, markets, problems, or opportunities.
2. Bring notes to the job fair.
Once you’ve found information that proves your interest in an employer, jot down notes on 3×5 cards (or in your PDA) and bring them to the job fair. That way, you can review your notes before talking to hiring managers, so you can make the best impression, stand out … and get hired.
Until next time, here’s to your success, Guerrilla!
David Perry and Kevin Donlin @ www.gm4jh.com
The last several weeks weve been working with a candidate (well call
him Bob) with whom I sent to a client. Ive been endeavoring to fill this position for many, many months. This client, a very good one I might add is on the extreme end of being selective when it comes to hiring its management talent.
When I uncovered Bob, it did not take long for me to come to the conclusion that he was simply the most talented manager I had ever sent to my client and I knew they would be thrilled. He was interviewed several times by my client and they were more than thrilled— they were ecstatic !
Back when I first interviewed Bob, and in my subsequent conversations with him, Id ask Bob a very simple question: Are you currently employed ? He answered Yes.
During the several interviews my client had with Bob, he would be asked, Are you currently employed? He would always answer, Yes.
Early last week we are at the offer stage and preparing to fly him to my clients corporate HQ to close the deal. My client does a background check going back 15 years on Bob. Everything he told us about himself and his stellar work history was absolutely true except for one little thing:
· With all the opportunities Bob had, he never conveyed to me or my client that he had in-fact resigned his position with his company. He never gave us any indication of such as he always spoke as if he was still reporting to work every day, though he never actually said it in those words.
Sure enough, when the background check was returned, it was only then that we discovered that he did in-fact resign from his well paying position !
When Bob was confronted with this newly found information his response (paraphrased) was, Ok, I should have told you I resigned, and for that I am sorry. I am embarrassed about it, but I didnt lie to you or your client as when I resigned, I still had 3 weeks paid vacation on the books and therefore I was technically still employed there.
When I talked with my client, they said, just as I had to Bob, You had plenty of opportunity to tell us you resigned, but you didnt and now your credibility is greatly in question. Had you just told us the whole truth, it would not have been any big deal.Then the client stated that this deal is in all probability good as gone.
In Bobs mind he truly believed he was employed by that company due to the fact he was still on paid vacation. Technically Bob would have been correct. Obviously though, the way he went about playing word games with us in the end robbed him out of a $ 94,000 starting salary BEFORE bonus, immediate benefits, a chance to enjoy a paid relocation to a part of the country that he and his wife always wanted to move to and lastly belong to a company that has never had a lay-off.
We all recall Bill Clintons infamous comment, It depends what you mean by sex. In Bobs mind he believed, depends what you mean by currently employed
Although Clinton was impeached, he for all intents and purposes got away with being less than truthful. The former president probably was embarrassed; although remorseful is something well never know. In Bobs case, I believe he is both embarrassed and remorseful, but Bob is no Bill.
Mark J. Haluska
Founder and Executive Director
Real Time NetWork
It’s the 8th commandment out of 10; found in the Bible’s Old Testament at Exodus, Chapter 20.
Irrespective of your religious beliefs or lack thereof, no judgments being made on my part but I believe except for perhaps the criminal element in society, it is common knowledge that theft is not only illegal but also immoral.
Now, what does this have to do with job seekers and dealing with professional recruiters? Bear with me.
If I could negotiate:
- An instantaneous 21% pay raise for you and your family with an additional $ 5K sign on bonus