Summary
In a job search or your professional success networking is critical. It allows you not only to know others and to identify opportunities, but also to get inside information about an organization of interest. This has always been true, but what has brought networking into focus is how many do not know how to network effectively. So, they focus on expanding their network. Those learning to increase their networking impact, however, often are unaware that there is yet another dimension to increasing their impact: how they present their value message, not just at the beginning, but also throughout their campaign. This two-dimensional space in the networking and the messaging domains creates a paradox. This article demystifies this paradox and provides a prescription on how to leverage networking with a compelling value message.
Introduction
In today’s job market much is said about networking. As more and more desperate job seekers resort to flooding the employers’ mailboxes with irrelevant résumés, for them, too, networking provides a convenient and productive alternative to speed up things. Additionally, about 50 percent of job openings are not advertised or publicly known. The only source of such jobs is through social networks. Companies encourage its employees to network, too! Why? It is much more effective for a company to hire someone coming through their own employee referrals.
This article is aimed at showing job seekers that although networking helps, many underestimate the power of a well-presented communication that includes a compelling résumé, a cogent cover letter, and an overall message that differentiates. Networking may provide the initial access; it does not provide sustained differentiation because what you leave behind looks mediocre. If what is suggested here is leveraged with a good networking strategy, the odds of landing a dream job are enhanced greatly.
Networking
A social network is a universe that can be broken into two main types:
- Transactional Networks
- Relationship Networks
Transactional networks are opportunistic and transient. They arise out of immediate need people feel, and they meet that need by finding opportunities and events in which to participate. What come out of these events are person-to-person exchanges. The information exchanged can be that of jobs available, people contacts, and company intelligence. All those bits of information tend to be transient in nature and have significance only for a limited time, not only because of the nature of the need, but also because of the transient nature of the information itself! It is somewhat analogous to a stock market tip!
Using names and connections from transactional networks are not as useful as most believe. Why? The leverage available from this type of networking is useful only for making the initial connection. From then on, what help the jobseekers are the underlying value proposition, the perceived fit, and the employer’s assessment of ongoing ability to be a valuable contributor. The escalating interplay between the two can be seen as a dynamic created by the power of the initial connection, and how the jobseeker captures subsequent employer interest, based on their ability to create value. The crossover between these two forces happens quickly in a transactional networking contact.
If enough of these bits of information are exchanged through constant networking, the chances of hitting the target and landing a job are increased greatly, compared to those who merely rely on their résumé to do this work for them; here statistical odds play in the networked jobseeker’s favor!
This is why having a compelling value proposition is even more critical in leveraging the contact from a transactional networking source.
The relationship network, on the other hand, plays on a different dynamic. Here the person with whom you have a relationship of a certain standing can take you beyond just making the initial connection. In this context, even the initial connection can be more confident because how it came about. In the transactional networks, in comparison, the initial connection is precarious; someone casually handing out a name to a person seeking it, and then that person contacting the target as a “cold call.” Because of the power of the initial connection in relationship networks, the jobseeker has more opportunities to present a compelling value proposition. In some cases, they may even get help from those whom they are soliciting in preparing a compelling and aligned value proposition, although going in with a well-thought-out message always helps!
It is easy to see that only your closest inner-circle contacts can belong to the relationship domain. Although the nature of relationships with those in the outer circle can change over time with your diligent efforts, with their becoming your relationship contacts, the actual status of any one of the contacts is irrelevant for the discussion presented here.
Implications
What does this mean in a job search? Networking is king; no doubt! It is priceless in finding hidden jobs, making connections, and getting inside company information. The irony is that, often, jobseekers become complacent once they get an inside track on job leads or they get continued sources of inside information about companies in which they are interested. They rely too much on what they come to know or whom they know to propel them forward, rather than merely using this advantage to leverage their position with a powerful message.
For this reason, to leverage leads available through networking, it is important to have a first-rate résumé for openers, along with a well-articulated Positioning Statement, and a polished presentation of the value proposition in the context of the target employer. After researching the open position and the company, it is a good idea to develop a message for a positive response and then managing the campaign for a successful outcome.
Thus, conceptually there are two orthogonal axes: one with the networking power and another with the messaging power. The weaker side of the networking power is the transactional network, with the relationship networking on its opposite pole. Similarly, on the messaging axis, a weak message is on the one end and a strong one on the other. This is a four-box model that shows how the two parameters can manifest their power with four different outcomes. Clearly having a relationship-based networking connection and a strong message are important to pursuing a dream job.
Strategy
What does this mean for those who are in the job market, either looking for a job or switching from an existing job and making a change? The implications are obvious: Before you start leveraging your networking contacts, it is prudent to make sure that your value proposition, messaging, and presentation to potential employers are confident and solid. Once you have vetted your messaging, using that message to round up the networking contacts can help not only get the right contacts, but also for those who are offering to be your networks target your message correctly. Let us now examine each of the four categories of job seekers.
Dream Catchers
Dream catchers have a strong message–not just a strong background–and a strong network. Those in this category usually have a good idea what they are looking for in their pursuits and it is articulated forcefully. Some know it from the get-go, some recognize it after they embark on their job-search campaign, working diligently to develop their value proposition and honing it until they get excited about what they have to offer. Often this convergence on a compelling value proposition can result from iteratively searching for the right opportunity and reflecting on one’s past, and then deciding how to best package a forward-looking message. One approach to communicating compelling value, at least initially, is to develop a forward-looking résumé with a strong value message.
The other dimension the Dream Catchers bring to the equation is their ability to network in a leveraged way. They have a broad spectrum of networking relationships. They are also keenly aware of how to leverage each segment of their networking universe to their own end in the most effective way. Additionally, Dream Catchers sustain the habit of cultivating their networks and expanding their pool of contacts in each zone.
Dream Catchers target their opportunities carefully, research their targets, and hone their message to get a target’s attention and then find someone who can give them the needed audience. Their messaging skills, interviewing techniques, and job-search process knowledge is highly evolved. This is not an inborn skill; they constantly learn new techniques and make a habit of taking risk trying out what works! This results in their getting their dream job in a relatively short time. Dream catchers are also masters of their own careers; they usually get what they are envisioning, regardless of the job market, economy, or other conditions.
Dream Chasers
Dream Chasers have strong networking skills but their messaging is weak. Their résumés are typically backward looking, unfocused, and their professional accomplishments are presented more in a Task/Responsibility format, showing little or no leadership presence in their storytelling. In fact their storytelling is limited to some statistics and assignments that describe their roles (“As a manager increased sales 15 percent”). Despite their weak messaging, their strong networking skills allow them to generate much activity and land interviews. But their lack of focus and compelling leadership messages prevent them from getting beyond the first round of interview. This is often because what they leave behind (their proxy) as their message does not make the same impact on others as they were personally able to make in the one-on-one interview. They are thus hamstrung by their message (résumé and other proxies left behind).
Job Chasers
A strong message but a weak network makes for a job chaser. For those in this category, they are seeking a fantasy. A fantasy is different from a mirage (see below). A mirage is an illusion; whereas a fantasy is a concoction of improbable (not impossible) events conjured up by the optimistic minds. Job Chasers also suffer a fate similar to those in Mirage Chasers. Why? Perhaps because they have limited contacts and networks, their message, despite being strong, gets lost in the statistical jungle of probabilities. Because they send their compelling message using mass methods as emailed résumés or mass mailings or even résumé blasting, getting their message read is left to chance. But, once they are able to get someone’s attention, their compelling message gets action, albeit from those at random and not the ones they intended or would have chosen to have their message read and acted on! Job chasers inevitably end up taking jobs that may not otherwise take, primarily because of their limited options in a tough job market.
Mirage Chasers
A weak message and a weak network lead to mirage chasing. A mirage is an illusion. It is a manifestation caused by a combination of circumstances that conspire to create an ongoing perception of something worth going after. Those in this category need no elaboration. They do not take the trouble to strengthen their résumé, either because of their unawareness of it, or lack the motivation to create a compelling résumé. Sometimes it is a resource problem. Because of their limited writing skills they do not see the need to invest in getting professional help to make their résumé and other outgoing messages compelling.
Those in this category are also called the “Terminally Unemployed” because if they are out looking for a job, they remain in that state for prolonged periods of time and they do not change their behaviors despite repeated and predictable defeats. Those already working and looking for a change because they intensely dislike what they do, suffer the same fate. Despite this repeated and predictable outcome pattern, they continue doing more of the same. Sometimes when they get rewarded for where they are–not for what they do–as their company’s stock going up and their getting a monetary benefit from it, they hibernate and rationalize how good things are for them, and, when conditions go back to where they were, they restart their job-search efforts. Once again the same way as before!
The networking skills or motivation to “go social” on the job-search front does not appeal to them. They shy away from networking events because they perceive that they have nothing to give or that they feel that they would be imposing on others. Some are even embarrassed to admit that they are looking for a job. The phrase “Mirage Chasers” is coined to convey that in a tough market their efforts to job search are fruitless to point of being feckless. And yet, they often take solace in diligently sending résumés to open positions as a matter of duty. As a result they remain unemployed for a long time. If the economic conditions are good, they often languish in a job that they do not enjoy.
A Prescription
In a given population of jobseekers, the Dream Catchers are a minority. As the job market gets tough, most resign to the reality that, since there are fewer jobs, they must wait longer, take what they can, and work harder at the process of job search. Nothing could be further from the truth. When conditions get tougher and economy gets challenging, there are fewer jobs, but there are more opportunities. Those who can identify these opportunities and find articulate ways to create messages that capture the attention of the employers will have an edge. Finding the right networks, leveraging the contacts, and then acing the process to land the dream job further enhance this edge.
The following prescription is offered to anyone who wants to be a Dream Catcher:
- Review your message: Résumé, Positioning Statement, Cover Letter, and everything that is transmitted, including your verbal messaging, in the campaign.
- Do not rely on what you intend to convey and how you translate that into verbal messages to actually convey it. Show your message to others who can critically vet its impact. Keep checking the validity of the message until it conveys what you intended in the first place. Keep checking on ways to improve the message.
- The written message, the oral message, your body language, and everything else you communicate in your campaign have to be in harmony. It is difficult for people to look at themselves as deliverers of messages, especially about themselves, and realize the misalignments. Others can spot them quickly, especially during an interview and other critical interactions. But, by then it is too late to change, even if you knew what it was that you must change.
- During an interview nearly 90 percent of what is communicated is nonverbal. With so much of what is communicated is unknown, most fail to understand how it is that after giving all the correct responses to interview questions, they failed to make the cut. Find someone to coach you in the interviewing process. In a tough economy getting an interview is rare. Protect your investment by making the effort to learn what you should be doing differently.
- Network to find information about companies that are hiring. Then use that information to research and develop messages that allow you to leverage that attention-getting contact into a winning interview to land a job.
- Learn about the person you are interviewing as much you do about the company, its competitors, and the job. Getting a job offer has as much to do with your Competence as it has about your Chemistry and Compatibility (the Three Cs).
- If you do not have a ready answer to an interview question, fortify the answer you already provided when you send the Thank you note after the interview. Such a response shows that you are willing to come up with the right answer, given time, rather than someone who gives whatever is available.
Landing a dream job is not only for dream catchers, it is for anyone who has a dream. Have your own dream and catch it; now you know how!