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Unlike the news or features departments, advertorial editors are concerned with sales of advertising space, not the content of what’s around it.

If you want instant interview invitations, this is a major play.

Just write a short article (a thousand words or so) on some local topic that interests you. You can start by calling one of the advertisers and ask if they’d like you to talk about the wonders of their business. They’re delirious to have you do it, since it’s extra exposure for them. They basically own the advertorial department, so they’re the de facto editors.

Getting Placed

Next, write your short piece, a short bio, and have someone take your picture. E-mail them to the editor and you’ll be published.

You might even get the editor to place the article in a career section or create one for you. This is just a layout process, unlike the sections readers pay to read.

It’s so effective that you have to wonder why it’s legal! Probably because nobody ever does it but . . .

You will now!

Do 28: Guiding a Counselor at a Free Career Center

Career centers are a relatively new concept. They’re usually operated by nonprofit corporations that receive grants and other government subsidies to help jobseekers find jobs.

This is really nothing more than a transfer of the responsibilities of the traditional unemployment office. Its responsibility is getting people back to work. Government agencies, charities, senior centers, and other enablers refer jobseekers to the centers. Totally free to the jobseeker.

The centers are usually in high-end office buildings in high-rent districts. They’re professional, well staffed, and very efficient. They have: job postings, reference materials, phones, phone directories, employer directories (for finding jobs and e-mailing resumes), resume-writing classes, interviewing classes, job retraining, networking with other walking wounded, and employer show-and-tells.

Did I leave anything out? I don’t think so. I didn’t say that people get jobs there, did I? Nope. Fine.

People don’t get jobs there. The employers who interview on site are there for PR. Many are often multilevel upliners looking to build their downlines (multilevelspeak for, “You pay to have your own business selling our goods or services through your downline.”) Those aren’t interviews. They’re sales pitches.

The concept is well intentioned, and the social workers at the center have nice titles. It’s all so professional. Carpeting. A water cooler. With paper cups. Always a logbook, a receptionist, an appointment with a career adviser. But no jobs. Yet it’s probably the best job-intelligence gatherer you’ll ever harness.

Unlike the media that rarely get hiring activity right, career centers are real time. They just don’t communicate what they learn very well.

We’re going to help yours do just that.

Call Your Unemployment Office

Ask for the name of the closest career center. Then call and make an appointment with the most senior career counselor or career adviser there. This is imperative. We’re talkin’ people with the interest and the information, but not the intuition to get you instant interviews. So meet with the most experienced person.

Politely Listen to the Advice for a Few Minutes

Then tell him that you’ll complete the forms and do whatever is required to keep the taxpayer dollars flowing to the center.

Keep Checking In

In exchange, you’ll call him once a week to check in. He’ll call you back the same day and give you an update on any new job listings at any level with nongovernment, nonutility, non-MLM (multilevel marketing) entities.

Tell him that you would also like him to notify you in that call about any trends that he’s picking up in the job market. Tell him that time is money and you have neither. You expect straight, nonbureaucratic, concise intel. Finally, tell him if he does this every week for three months, you’ll write a letter to his CEO that