I was in a sales meeting years ago. This was my first job out of college. I had been selling pianos for maybe 4 years at this point. The owner of the company came in and asked us “Would you rather be lucky or good?”. I said “I’d rather be good”. He handed me a twenty dollar bill and said “good answer”. I learned a pretty valuable lesson that day, one that you’ve heard, and one that bears repeating. You make your own luck. People who win $200 million in the lottery bought a ticket. You can’t win if you don’t play.
Successful people don’t wait for things to happen – they make things happen. You can’t sit back and wait for your next job to be posted to CareerBuilder anymore. Unemployment is still at 10%. It’s worse in some areas of the country. To put it in carpentry terms, you’ll need to use every tool in your box. You’ll need to find some new tools. You’ll use your shoe to drive a nail. You’ll want to research what tools other people are using and incorporate them into your strategy.
An online strategy isn’t new, the job boards have been around for more than a decade. If you’re spending more than 15% of your time applying to jobs online is it getting you anywhere? Maybe its time to look at other ways to leverage the Internet. Build your LinkedIn network. Start following job search related trends on Twitter. If you’re searching for a job 40 hours a week (and you should be), only 6-8 of those hours should be spent in front of a monitor.
You have to implement a strategy that involves multiple channels. Have you ever heard that chance favors the well-prepared? Its another way of saying you make your own luck.
Rather than sitting in front of your keyboard….
- Join a professional organization that is related to your target position. Become active in that group – perhaps even taking a leadership role.
- Target employers that don’t have jobs posted right now. But you want to work for them, right? Find people on the inside that are willing to have coffee with you and give you some insight. Get to know the company culture, the players, and (most importantly) why they hire people. Be that person the next time a job opens there and make sure your contacts KNOW you’re that person.
- Find potential competitors to your target organizations. If I think someone is sharp and I think I may end up having to compete with them, well, they just might end up with a spot on my team.
- Hit the job clubs. Ironically people who are looking for jobs know where jobs are. Funny, huh?
- You’ve spent 6-8 hours applying for jobs online, right? You better spend at least that amount of time following up on those leads or else you’re wasting them. Make phone calls. Find people on the inside and send a hand-written card. Show up on their doorstep with cookies. Pitch a tent in the grass until they agree to talk to you. Ok, that’s over the line, but you get the point. Be persistent, but don’t be a pest. Even if they fill the job you applied for if they become a target employer and you refer to #2.
- Go to every job fair you can. Don’t expect to find a job, go in with the expectation that you’re simply going to build your network. Don’t just talk to the employers – spend some time networking with the other people who are there.
- Hand your business card out to EVERYONE. Your dentist. The waiter. Church. Ball Games. Strike up a conversation with someone everywhere you go. Make sure they know you’re looking and look for a way to help them.
This is just a brief list of things you can be doing. Be creative. Do a video resume. Author a blog. Set up a “Career Stand” at a busy intersection in an area where people can drive by and see you. Buy space on a billboard. Don’t wait, you need to get engaged. Don’t try to be lucky – there is no such thing – you need to be good.