During my coaching career, I once heard from a jobseeker who had tried out a piece of advice she heard in a jobseeker workshop. She’d had a phone interview with a company’s internal recruiter about 4 weeks previous to the workshop and hadn’t heard anything from the company since. She wrote: “That afternoon, I called the recruiter and although he did not pick up the phone, he returned my call the next morning. I was able to tell him that I was not just interested in the position I had applied for; I had also selected this company as an employer of choice and just wanted the opportunity to be part of this great company. He was very interested, but he told me he did not think the pay fit my goals at the present time.”
End of story, right? Not this time. “A few weeks later, I received a call from the same internal recruiter saying the position had been upgraded… This time, he thought I would be a great fit – and the hiring manager wanted to speak with me. Since then I have had four interviews, three phone interviews and one personal interview.” She got an offer and as far as I know, is still with the company.
“Not surprising,” says Brad Raney, the author and speaker who delivered that advice at the workshop. Raney has written several books on how to create the attitude that gets you where you want to be.
He believes that most jobseekers should flip the script; they should target the company instead of a specific job. “Spend all your research time on finding the company whose culture is a great fit for you,” he says. “Don’t worry about whether they have any openings posted that are a fit for you – in fact, don’t worry about openings at all. Look for your company of choice, then build a strategy to find people you can connect with and learn from.”
You can find people who work at the company through volunteering or attending community events. You can also find them through connections on LinkedIn, but personal contact works best. Make a connection and ask them about their work and their experience at the company. Express your genuine interest in what it’s like to work there. You can be honest and say “The company might be on my short list of companies to work for, so I’m interested in hearing what it’s really like to work there.”
One of two things will happen. You’ll either start to hear things that take the company off your list (bad management, financial woes or layoff rumors) or you’ll start to create champions on the inside who can deliver leads to people and opportunities. Brad Raney laughingly calls it “professional stalking.” “You call or email every few days until you get to speak to someone or they are definitely not interested,” he says. “Eventually, you’ll meet someone who can help you find an inside connection.”
As the candidate who wrote to me proved, the current opening is less relevant than your attitude toward the company itself. Flipping the script may be the remedy if your job search has stalled.
Your Work, Your Way 