Guerrilla Marking for Job Hunters 2.0 - Jay Conrad Levinson [123]
Traditional job-hunting methods will expose you to a minefield fraught with booby traps. As you advance each successive level up the chain of command toward the final decision maker, you risk being eliminated. After the company finally does make you an offer, it will be subject to an excruciatingly detailed reference check and yet another opportunity for you to be eliminated.
For most job hunters, diagrammatically, interviewing looks like this:
Recruiter → Human Resources → Hiring Manager
→ Executive → Job Offer
The lower down the chain you begin, the more people there are who will need to approve of your hiring, and therefore the more hurdles you’ll have to clear. Luckily, the opposite is also true.
➤ Navigating the Minefield
As a guerrilla, you’ve been trained to attack weak points. The higher up in the organization you begin, the fewer people you need to satisfy, and the closer you’ll be to an offer.
Executives have a macroview of the industry, their business, and skill sets. They’re more interested in what you’re capable of doing for them in the future than in dissecting your life story. Executives have more experience hiring and tend to make quick gut-level decisions with little validation. So, you should always aim to begin your job hunting in the executive suite.
Guerrilla interviewing looks like this:
Executive → Job Offer
Or in the worst case scenario, this:
Executive → Hiring Manager → Job Offer
When you start at the top, you can get an offer without meeting anyone else. Executives have authority to make an instant hiring decision and have a mandate to continuously “talent hunt” for the whole company. They’re the only people who have that macroview of the company’s needs. When an executive passes your resume down to a hiring manager with a note saying, “get a hold of this candidate” or “looks good,” it’s much easier to get an offer. If you think that’s simplistic—boy, are you ever wrong! Headhunters work with senior executives for a reason—they can make decisions quickly and efficiently.
➤ Focus on the Employer’s Goals
What you’re ultimately “selling” during an interview are those elements of your background, skills, and personality that can make a significant contribution to the company. Your potential contribution will be weighed against the cost of a bad hire. If they make the wrong choice, at minimum, they are wasting time and money. At worst, a bad choice could jeopardize the recruiter or manager’s job, perhaps even the success of the company. A lot is at stake.
Your mission is to neutralize their concerns by eliminating fear—doubt and uncertainty.
➤ Preparation—Understand the Meeting’s Purpose
The employer believes you’ll bring something to the organization. What exactly is that? Are you being interviewed because he has announced a specific opening, or did something in your approach pique his interest? To prepare for the meeting, you need to understand the reason for his interest.
If you’re being interviewed for a specific job, he’ll tell you and you’ll know what to focus on. If it’s a general nonspecific get-to-know-you interview as a result of your unsolicited approach, you need to focus on the requirements you uncovered while researching the company. If he’s in line with your accomplishments, then that’s likely the reason for the meeting.
Personally, I’ve always found being direct gets the best results. The easiest thing to do is simply ask, “How much time do you think we’ll need” and “what’s your agenda?” They’ll tell you. If they don’t tell you, it means they definitely have a pressing problem that your background indicates you can solve—but they don’t want to show their hand. In that case, you’ll need to focus on what you’ve accomplished