Mindshare Marketing

As many of you may know, I am still enthralled in my job hunt.  I have been searching job boards, activating all my old networking contacts, and even speaking with headhunters.  None of my methods have been successful thus far, so I sat back to reevaluate my strategy the other day.

I was approaching my job search the way the world wanted me to.  Job boards filter out resumes so HR professionals can save time by not reading every application.  Networking contacts try to help you the best they can, but referring you to that old supervisor might be too much of an imposition for them to offer.  Headhunters can be useful, but they only work as hard as you do.  None of these are cut-and-dried solutions that will find you a job easily, you still have to do most of the work.

I picked up a book at Borders titled How to Land Your Dream Job,written by Jeffrey J. Fox.  He takes the position that a job seeker is a salesperson trying to sell a single product through cold-calling.  When I took a step back, I realized how right he was.  I’ll still continue using my traditional methods, but I think his “impact” method will be useful as well.

Rather than sitting back and waiting for job offers to flood my inbox (highly unlikely), I will be pro-actively researching companies for which I would like to work.  I will study their past and present and evaluate their products and marketing efforts against their corporate identity and strategy.  Then I will, following Mr. Fox’s well-written suggestions, write “impact letters” to these companies alluding to my recommendations for building their business.  I hope that, by writing two to three letters per week, I will be able to pass by the gatekeepers and make that all-important sale: me.