A 10-Step Guerrilla Job-Hunting Program - Part 1

Recruiters find people for jobs, not jobs for people!

Last year, a major job board (not LinkedIn) asked me to put together a video program for their job seekers. Since my approach was so different than what they imagined, and since I referred to LinkedIn so often during the program, they trashed the whole project. For those who are willing to forgo the CW and try some out-of-the-box techniques, I resurrected the project here. You only to need to watch to the first intro video to give you a sense of why getting a job these days is more like an obstacle course than a professional business process.

Here’s a quick summary of the first part of the program. (I’ll post the back half next week.)

One: play the job-hunting game to win. Most job seekers don’t know the real rules or the fact that there is a hidden job market. Understand that once a job is posted in the public job market, skills and experience dominate who is interviewed and ultimately hired. If your skills and experience aren’t a perfect match, you’ll need to find a job in the hidden market. Here past performance and future potential determine who gets hired. (This important idea is covered in the intro video.)

Two: get referred if you want to work with a well-networked recruiter. Recruiters find people for jobs, not jobs for people! And to do this, the best recruiters spend most of their time getting referrals of highly qualified people. Many of these people don’t have the exact skills and experiences, but recruiters can often arrange interviews with hiring managers if the candidates are highly referred. If the person hasn’t been referred, the candidate needs to have the exact skills and experiences listed on the job description. That’s why networking is so important if you want to work with recruiters, especially if you're not a perfect fit on skills and experiences.

Three: implement a 20-20-60 job-hunting plan. Only 20% of your efforts should be spent on applying directly for a job via a job board. (I wouldn’t retract this comment. It’s the other reason the job board canned the project.) Unless you’re a perfect match, don’t apply directly. Instead, use the job posting as a lead to find someone who can refer you to the hiring manager or department head. LinkedIn is great for this type of research. Another 20% of your efforts should be spent on making sure your resume is found by recruiters looking for a perfect match to an open job. Most of your time (the other 60%) should be spent networking. The best way to do this is to find people who can fully vouch for you to refer you to some of their close associates. You’ll need to meet these people, and ask them to refer you to their associates. If you do this a few times you’ll soon have about 40-50 people in your network. Once your network gets this big you’ll start hearing about job opportunities in the hidden job market.

Four: give your resume a 10-second workout. A resume is NOT a life history. Its only purpose is to be found, to be read, and to get you a phone call. In the public market, if you’re not a perfect match on the skills listed, it’s unlikely if your resume will be even found or read. LinkedIn shows you the probability of making it to this round when you review a job posting. For example, I just noticed I’m in the top 50% of 185 applicants for a VP Marketing job I’m totally not qualified for. Don’t apply directly unless you’re in the top 10% or in the first group of 50. If you make it this far, a recruiter will initially give your resume only 10-15 seconds to determine if it should be read in depth. To see where you stand on this “wow!” factor, give your LinkedIn profile and/or resume a 10-second review circling or highlighting those things that stand out. If it’s not of the “call me right now” stuff, you’ll need to redo it.

Five: understand the real job. Recognize that a list of skills, experiences, and academic requirements is not a job description; it’s a person description. This is good news if you can do the work, but are not a perfect match on the skills side. Knowing the real job will help you get an interview using the back door and then help you ace the interview once you’re in. Here’s a list of questions you can ask the recruiter or hiring manager during the interview to figure out the real job. You’ll then need to describe some comparable accomplishments to be considered a serious candidate. To get the interview though, you’ll need to demonstrate you’ve done comparable work to what’s described in the posted job description in some unusual way. For example, a marketing analyst recently told me he prepared a competitive analysis to land an interview in a new industry. I’m now working with an HR manager who landed the job with absolutely no HR experience, by demonstrating that managing five drug stores required more HR experience than was listed on the spec.

Getting a job without the skills and experience listed on the typical job description is not easy, but it’s not as hard at most job seekers make it. The worst way is wasting your time applying to dozens of open spots. Instead, pick 6-8 that seem like reasonable opportunities and network your way in through the back door. These five steps will help you get started, and the next five will give you a good platform to begin a full-fledged guerrilla job search. Most important, though, is to be different, network like crazy, and don’t give up.

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Lou Adler (@LouA) is the CEO of The Adler Group, a consulting and search firm helping companies implement Performance-based Hiring. He's also a regular columnist for Inc. Magazine and BusinessInsider. His latest book, The Essential Guide for Hiring & Getting Hired (Workbench, 2013), provides hands-on advice for job-seekers, hiring managers and recruiters on how to find the best job and hire the best people. You can continue the conversation on Lou's LinkedIn Group Essential Guide for Hiring Discussion Group.

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