Do you dare call managers and CEO’s in a company?

…fast ye for me, and neither eat nor drink three days, night or day…and so will I go in unto the king, which is not according to the law: and if I perish, I perish.  (Esther)

Do you dare call managers and CEO’s in a company?

No ad is in the papers or on the internet. You want a job there.  So you look up their website and just send a resume.  Right?  Err, okay, but there is a better way.

Calling into the company can get you an interview and a job much more quickly.

Here is what often happens if you just send in your resume without calling:

HR gets the resume and automatically enters it in the database.  No job is available.  Two months later the job opens up.  They do a quick database search.  You might be able to do the job, but it has been 2 months and they have 187 fresh resumes to process.  They know they can just send those resumes to the manager without having to make any calls.  It is so much easier not to call you, why bother?

You see the opening and send your resume again.  The data entry clerk sees it is already in the database.  A flag is already set on your database entry saying you were checked out in this job search.  There is no significant change in your resume.  You are not considered for the job.

Think about it from the manager’s perspective. The ugly normal way is that he knows an opening is coming up.  He’s going to fire or promote someone.  Maybe they have a new project coming up and he’s budgeted for 3 more employees in 2 months. As soon as he tells the Human Resources (HR) department, they will ask him to write job descriptions (2 hours of work).  Then HR will advertise the positions and send him 187 resumes.  He will have his secretary wade through them.  He will then ask HR to call the 7 people he is most interested in.  HR will tell him only 5 can interview with him.  It is only going to get more time consuming from here on out. He hates the process.

One alternative.  He keeps in touch with likely candidates.  He offers those candidates a job and tells HR about his choice.  Which do you think he would rather do?

You need to be that likely candidate.  There is very little competition before a job opening is announced. The time to contact the hiring manager, CFO, controller, COO, or other person involved is BEFORE they need you.

Next week I’ll tell you two things you can do to be a candidate before the ad runs.

Something To Do Today

Write down the names of 3 companies you would really really like to work for.  Read this blog next week for what to do next.

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Next week:     What to say to companies

Intelligent use of recruiters