Stop Looking for Jobs, Instead Look for Employer

Hi Friends,
Due to the Chinese New Year and holiday season I was not writing for a while and here I am back and indeed please sit back as I got lots of good stuff to share.

Now, stop looking for jobs, but, Choose Your Ideal Employer.
This could be the most important thing that you must know : how to find your dream job.
Why? Because here you are going to turn the traditional job search completely on its head. Instead of looking for jobs the way 99% of other job seekers do, you are going to look for employers.
While other job seekers are competing against each other, sending out cover letters and résumés for a limited number of advertised job openings … you are going to create your own private job market among employers you choose -- a job market in which you have NO competition.
In this blog, you will learn how to create a list of 20 employers you want to work for, attract them like bees to honey, and make those employers call YOU for interviews -- even if they aren’t hiring right now.
The four-step method that follows is not only based on my experience, it also draws on years of advice from recruiters, employers and experts on human potential. This method has worked during The Great Depression, during every recession since then … and it will help you get hired today, too!
Here’s a quick outline of the four steps we’ll cover...
You are going to do the following:
Step 1) Create a list of the Top 20 employers you want to work for, with the names of decision makers who can hire you.
Step 2) Write a one-page sales letter (NOT a cover letter!) that offers value and solutions to employers, in a way that practically forces them to meet with you. No résumé needed!
Step 3) Mail your sales letters.
Step 4) Double the number of job interviews you get by making a simple phone call to make sure your letters were received and read.
Ready? Let’s start with …

Step 1) Create a list of the Top 20 employers you want to work for, with the names of decision makers who can hire you.

You know, most people put more time into writing down a shopping list for the grocery store than a list of employers they want to work for. Totally illogical, isn’t it? I mean, why be happy working just anywhere? Why not work for a company that excites you?
Instead of blindly sending out résumés to companies you’ve never heard of before, it’s far better to first select potential employers that meet YOUR criteria and then contact them with an offer to help. Which is what you’re going to do here.
To be specific, you’re going to build a list of 30 companies to contact. You ought to be able to identify 20 potential employers in one week. If not, you should modify the type of job you’re looking for. (You could go as high as 50 or even 100 employers but, 30 is a manageable number that won’t overwhelm you.)
Now, how do you select your 30 ideal employers? There are many ways, each of them is valid. I would suggest using a combination of the following, listed in order of effectiveness.
Let’s look at the best I know …
#1 Ask yourself.
First, simply ask yourself, this question: Which company would I love to work for?
Write down every name that comes to mind. Trust your initial answers and allow nothing to stop you. Just keep writing. You may get one name, 10 names … or no names. But you have to ask yourself the question first.
So, which company would you LOVE to work for? Start writing!
#2 Ask your friends, family and neighbors.
Whom do you know is happily employed? Think of the 10 people you know who have the best jobs, working at the best companies. If possible, keep going and list 20, 30 or more names.
What companies do these people work for? Write the names down, even if you’re not sure whether those companies hire people like you. That doesn’t matter right now -- we’re simply gathering information.
Then, call each of these “happily employed” people and tell them that you are researching the job market, that you admire the company they work for, and that you’d like to buy them a cup of coffee in the next 14 days to learn about their employer. You should have no trouble setting up 10-20 informal interviews this way!
#3 Ask the Internet.
You knew that Google would come into play eventually, right? OK -- now’s the time ☺
Go to Google and search for phrases like “best employers to work for”

The underlying theme here is this: to find the best companies to work for, all you have to do is, ask. You can do all these research at home starting today. Don’t stop until you have a list of 30 possible employers.
Once you have this Top 30 list, you’ll need three bits of data for each company:
1. Company name, with full mailing address
2. Phone number
3. Name of a hiring authority/decision maker
You can get the first two bits from the company’s own Website or from your local Yellow Pages.
The third item you need is the name of a hiring authority -- a decision maker who can offer you a job. Because you are going to write a sales letter to that person in the next step.
To get this name, check the company Website. There are two kinds of decision makers, depending on the size of the company you want to work for.
If you’re writing to a small company, one with less than 50 employees, you can write directly to the president. The biggest problem in running any business is getting the right people, so the president of any good company will always be looking for new star employees.
The good company presidents I have met with, researched and spoken to will always try to meet qualified candidates who write and ask. And they have created jobs on the spot for people who made a strong case for hiring them. Again, these are presidents of good companies -- employers you want to work for. Any president who doesn’t want to find out about potential star employees is, by definition, not someone you want to work for.
Because star employees are usually proactive by writing a letter to ask for a meeting, you demonstrate that YOU are proactive. And this will mark you as the kind of go-getters that employers want on their team. See how this eliminates your competition?

If you’re writing to a larger company, one with more than 50 employees, you want to find out who your boss there would likely be, then write to THAT person’s boss. Avoid contacting your potential boss directly in a larger company?
Why? Because that person may feel threatened by the initiative you show in finding, contacting and asking him/her to meet. They may think, “This person has got a lot on the ball. If I hire this guy, he’s going to take my job in two years. Better not call him.”
So, you want to go over their heads and write directly to the boss of your future boss. This is likely going to be a vice-president or general manager of some sort.
To find the name of the right person to contact, the best method is to ask your network of contacts the following question: “I want to work as a Customer Service rep at the Ace Novelty Company. Who would my manager be and who that manager reports to?” That second name is the one you will want to contact.
If you still can’t find that information after asking the people you know and visiting the company Website, no problem. All you have to do is call each company and ask for the right name. Relax! This is NOT a cold call! It takes just 30 seconds and there is zero chance anyone will yell or hang up on you.
What you do is call the main number and say the following to whoever answers the phone:
“Hello! I’m writing a letter to the head of your BLANK Department. Could I have the correct spelling of that person’s name please?”
For BLANK, insert the type of job you’re looking for: Customer Service, Marketing, IT, Accounting -- whatever. All you need is the name of the person in charge of that business unit, because this is the person you’re going to write a short letter to later.
Now, that you have a list of 30 potential employers, with their mailing addresses and the name of a hiring decision maker, you’re ready to “bait the hook” and make them eager to interview you.

In summary:
___ Create a list of the Top 30 employers you want to work for.
___ Collect the following data for each of your Top 30 employers:
___ Company name, with full mailing address
___ Phone number
___ Name of a hiring authority/decision maker
NOTE: There is work involved here but it is worth it.

You can either take it easy, do what you’ve always done and hope the results improve by themselves, or you can try something new, set yourself apart from 99% of other candidates and get hired faster for the job you really want.
Which is the better option for you? You decide.

Work very hard for that dream job. It is worth it.

Career Expert, Greater Asia

I Dare Say "You are Lazy"

When our Prime Minister Lee warned of job losses in the year ahead…The world is entering the most serious economic crisis in 60 years and Unemployment surges to 5-year high as employers cut workers for eighth straight month and companies that have retrenched include world giant corporations like Philips, DBS, Motorola, IM Flash, Citi Banks, Western Digital etc...

I still obeserve that many un-employed people are not working hard. What do I mean by that? Do you know that looking for a job is a full time job? Well what is a full time job then? A full time job is one typically start at 9am till 6pm officially and more often than not, employee stay up till 7 or 8 pm. It is not uncommon for some to worked till 10 pm to rush for a project completion or deadline. I have know of IT professional work through the night just to get the system up and running.

So, how many people that you know that are unemployed are working this hard. My observation is nil. It is just not happening. Why? It is the belief that nothing much can be done and they will try and if they get an interview that is good and if they do no get one, it is nothing much they can do. I like to stir in you that it is 100% not true. There are many thing you can do to increase your chances for getting the interview and finally getting hired. Do come to my seminar www.eniconsult.com and you will learn more.

Many do not realize that the chances of getting a job will reduces as the individual get unemployed longer. It is the law of nature. Newton law states that "Every object in a state of uniform motion tends to remain in that state of motion unless an external force is applied to it." (now you know I am an engineer by training".

Hence the faster the unemployed get up, create massive action and take charge to find a job, the chances will be much higher than someone who take a break, take it slowly and let nature take it course.

Without saying more, the resume (or CV) and the application letter will hence be the most important document you ever written in your whole entire life. Not the proposal you give to your boss or customer. Not even the thesis you wrote to get your master or phD or MBA! But facturely how many people learn from the expert how to write a resume (cv) or application letter. There are many books avaiable too but be carefully because most of them are just theory. I will explain this more in my next posting.

Till then, work very hard to get emmployed! It should be a full time job with over time!

Career Expert, Greater Asia

Getting Hired Fast - You choose the job not the job choose you!

Here I will help you decide what job you’re looking for then you can proceed to find it! No one succeeded in finding somthing which they have not decided what is that.
Note: if you already have a clear idea of the job you’re looking for, these exercises will still reinforce your goal. Remember: you can’t hit a target that you can’t see, so it’s vital to know exactly what job you are looking for.

Two critical action steps for you:
1) Choose your three most marketable skills to use in your next job (not 4 skills or 15, since you must convey a tightly focused picture to employers of what you can do for them, and nobody can be expert in 15 skills).
2) Choose the best, most in-demand jobs that require those three skills, so you know what to look for;
For this two-step process, you’re going to use three simple resources that won’t cost you a penny: a ballpoint pen, pad of paper and a large job search Web site, such as Monster.com or jobsdb.com

Step 1) Choose your three most marketable skills to use in your next job.
About 95 people out of 100 hundred will have a hard time answering this question: “What are your three skills that you want to use most in your next job?”
In other words, what three things do you do best and most enjoy doing?
If you have trouble answering that question, don’t be afriad. Many people are at the same state as you not knowing what they enjoy doing.
Now here’s the good news: we’re going to quickly and easily define your three favorite employment skills, the ones you’ll use in your next job.
Ready? Let’s go!
RIGHT NOW, on a sheet of paper, write down as many skills as you can that you enjoy doing. Do not censor yourself -- there are no wrong answers. Just write for 60 seconds and come up with as many as you can.
Finished? Good.
If you’re like most people, you wrote anywhere from three to 10 or more skills. Things like: writing, training people, customer service, managing others, public speaking, etc.
Again, there are no right or wrong answers, so don’t worry if your list looks strange or if some unexpected skills turn up.
Now, do the following exercise, which can generate surprising insights into your personality. You are going to rate each skill against the others. You’ll easily determine your top three skills this way.
Here’s how.
Take your list and match the first skill up against every other and put an X next to the skill you enjoy more in each pair that you’re looking at. Your list and rankings may look like this:
writing - X train people (I’d rather train people than write, so train people gets an “X”)
X writing - customer service (I prefer writing to customer service, so writing gets an “X”)
X writing - managing others (I’d rather write than manage others, so writing gets an “X”)
writing - X public speaking (I enjoy speaking vs. writing, so public speaking gets an “X”)
Then, pair the second skill with those you haven’t matched it with yet, and repeat the exercise, like this:
X train people - customer service,
X train people - managing others,
train people - X public speaking,
Do this for every skill until you have matched and rated each one against all the others. Then, total up the number of X marks for each skill. The three skills with the most X marks are your three favorites.
Easy, isn’t it?
Now that you have your three job-search skills picked out, you can move on to Step 2 …
Step 2) Choose the best, most in-demand jobs that require those three skills.
This will help you quickly figure out which jobs to look for.
Here’s where you’ll use a Website like Monster.com as your resource. You’re not looking for jobs at this point, only information. You want to get new ideas for the types of jobs you could look for using the three skills you identified in step 2 above.

Let’s say your three favorite skills are writing, training and managing. Go to Monster.com and look for the “Key Words” box near the top of the page.
I typed in the first two skills above: writing and training, and did not check on any category or location, because I wanted to generate the most results possible for jobs posted nationwide. Remember: we’re brainstorming here, so the more jobs listed, the more ideas we can generate.
Experiment with different combinations to see where this leads you.
Among the openings I found were such job titles as Manager of Medical Writing, Training Coordinator, Full-time Tutor, and Communications Specialist.
That’s quite a range! It certainly gives me plenty of ideas about what jobs to look for. When you do this exercise, it will generate ideas for you, too, to help you choose your dream job from the widest range possible.
Plus, when you start searching for jobs based on your favorite, most-marketable skills, you will quickly get a sense how many jobs are available and at what salary level.
So, expand your search terms and your thinking until you hit it. It’s that simple.
This exercise will help you save weeks or months of frustration looking for jobs that simply aren’t there.

And here’s the best part: once you clearly define the job you seek, wonderful things start to happen …
Remember when you bought the car you drive now and it seemed like suddenly, every third person was driving the same vehicle as you? It had always been out there on the road, but now you saw it more, because you were more receptive to that particular style and color of car.
It’s the same with your job search.
Once you know exactly what kind of job you seek, you will suddenly start to see job openings where you never saw them before. Ideas and employment leads will come to you, almost as if by magic. Just wait and see!
That’s it for this section. Congratulations on taking that first step toward your next job!
Action Steps
Let’s write down what you’ve come up with:
1. You’ve identified the three skills you want to use in your dream job. Write them below:
i. __________________________
ii. __________________________
iii. __________________________
2. You’ve used Monster.com to brainstorm job titles that use those skills. Write below the 5 job titles that appeal to you the most:
i. __________________________
ii. __________________________
iii. __________________________
iv. __________________________
v. __________________________
Congratulations! You now know the skills you want to use and the jobs that will let you use them. You know more about yourself than approximately 80% of all job seekers.

There is alot for today. Stay tuned.
Act With Passion

The Career Expert, Greater Asia

Stop the traditional way and do it differently in 2009

If you have been in tune with my blog, it goes to show you are trying to learn something new. You are ready to do away with the traditional.

Stop the standard typical job search approach!
"We must always change, renew, rejuvenate ourselves; otherwisewe harden."- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe {1749-1832 German Poet & Scientist}
That’s why you’ve got to try something different. Something NOT typical.

Because, if what you were doing in your job search was working, then you would be working in a new job now, right? But you’re not.
Because the traditional job search is a struggle. It’s a frustrating waste of time. Why do the same things and expect different results!

Let me help you get hired faster for your dream job. Here’s what you’ll learn in the next few postings:
• Get crystal clear on the job you seek (it’s simple, yet most people cannot do this)
• Build a list of employers you want to work for (most people choose employers with less thought than they give to choosing a new car!)
• Stop sending tons of cover letters and application letters.
• Get employers’ attention by offering to solve their problems (most people simply ask for a job, which will get you sent right to the “black hole” of Human Resources -- and good luck to you then)
• Get more job offers by starting work before the interview (most people show up woefully unprepared and do nothing memorable at all in the interview)

Act different!
The Career Expert, Greater Asia

p/s If you interested in the FREE Career Seminar we conduct, send us an e-mail to GettingHiredFast@ENIConsulting.com

Career Expert

Quick story for you ...

I've have been a search consultant more commonly known as headhunter since the 90s representing successful multi-national companies to search and recruit top matching talents. Companies like Intel, Honeywell, General Electric, Dell etc....

In fact my Client said that I am the only HEAD HUNTER they know that sit in the interview with both candidates and the interviewers. This gives me unfair advantage to know how a candidate will be considered, screened and finally interviewed.

Having the firsthand information, I have the upperhand to provide hard core sure win formula to increase the candidate chances of getting the job.

Hence along the way, I have also coached many like yourself to find job fast through giving them proven successful resume writing tips and must do interview preparations and job searching strategies. Many of them find it very useful and insightful.

Tune in for more at my up and coming blog where I will be sharing with you A-Z Job Search Plan that you can use.

Act more!
Career Expert, Greater Asia

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