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• Interview preparation averaged about 5 hours per company.

— Product

— Industry

— Competitors

— Position

➤ Register on Job Boards and Respond to Posted Advertisements

• Monster

• Careerbuilder

• Various others

He searched the web sites and responded to a limited number of opportunities. Typically, they were being handled through headhunters.

➤ Contact Headhunters

• Allan only contacted a few headhunters. If a headhunter believed Allan was trying to work with too many competitors, there would be less interest in trying to place him.

➤ Results

Initially, his results were dismal. Job boards, recruiters, and traditional networking were a complete bust. There were plenty of lunches and kind advice but no offers. After many months, he decided to try a targeted approach to marketing himself. He designed a 1-page Extreme Resume based on the qualities employers look for, as outlined in Table 2.1. He sent his resume with a customized letter to just 2 employers that he had closely researched. Both employers made offers.

When I asked him why this approach worked for him, his answer, which may surprise you, was:

I forwarded the letter I wrote using the techniques laid out in your book. I called when I indicated I would. They [the employer] requested my full resume. I forwarded a full functional version that summarized my background under select headings, as suggested in your book. At our first meeting, the employer indicated several things during our discussion:

• He received literally dozens of resumes and phone calls weekly. He responded to none—ever!

• He had all his calls screened to reduce the number of job seekers who got through.

• He told me that the main reason he took my call when I followed up was that my approach was unique. I did not throw a resume at him hoping he liked what he saw. Neither did I call repeatedly.

Allan created his own job where none had previously existed by triggering the value requirement in each company. He did that by focusing on the prospective employer, not himself. He made heavy use of the employer’s needs as described in Table 2.1.

➤ Summary of Activities

➤ The Key to His Success

Initially, Allan used a variety of weapons to no effect. Shifting his approach, rather than doing more of the same, changed Allan’s results. The key to securing interviews with both of his targeted employers was following up his Extreme Resume, which had been designed specifically to target each employer’s needs.

GUERRILLA INTELLIGENCE

Surviving beyond Hopelessness

Deanna J. Williams

I knew a young woman whose husband had left her 1 month before she had her lungs burned with hydrofluoric acid at work. She had been laid up for a year and had 2 children to support by herself. She could no longer work around acids per her doctor’s orders, so she had to start all over. She had no formal education other than a high school diploma but she did have a strong will to survive. She tried desperately to find work, but when asked if she had ever had an industrial injury she admitted that she did, although it was through no fault of her own but rather that of a faulty vent that was not properly working. The interviews seemed to stop immediately after she disclosed her injury and she never heard from the companies again.

After many months of this, she decided she needed to try something new. The young woman decided that with her experience in the semiconductor industry, she could use this experience to become a recruiter and hire people to do the work that she could no longer perform. She went to a temporary agency that was looking for a nonexempt recruiter with a couple of years of experience. Although she did not have the required experience, she did her research on the agency and looked at their want ads and acquired a couple of resumes from people she knew whose backgrounds fit the job descriptions. When she arrived at the agency she told the manager that she knew what kind of people