Last night at a networking event, we kept running into college grads who are job hunting. What are they doing? Sending out resumes and drinking cocktails. They lack some clue in the area of job-hunting and networking. (Can you say Entitlement?)
In my experience, people usually don’t know that much about the company they are interviewing for. Hello? Google is your friend. In my day, we would get a copy of the prospectus to find out about products, services, branch offices, revenue. Today, the web has replaced that — and you don’t have to wait weeks for the mail to arrive.
When you are job-hunting you are marketing yourself to potential clients. You need a marketing plan.
- Who are you targeting?
- What is the message?
- Where are they located?
- How do you get in front of them?
I met an aspiring architect. I asked if she ever went to the AIA events. Her reply was a cross between “No, why would I” and “I’m not a member.” I said how about getting to the event early to greet the folks, volunteer, join as a student, call the Association for advice, or crash the event.
Now delivery of the resume has to be outstanding too. In the case of the architect, why not have it printed on blueprint paper? Send a candy-o-gram or one shoe (Just trying to get my foot in the door!).
Final points:
- Are you on LinkedIn.com?
- Do you have a website?
- Do you have an online resume?
- You should have a business card to give out with a URL to either your LinkedIn profile or your online resume.
- And your email address shouldn’t be cutebunny@hotmail.com either. Get a your.name@gmail.
(VistaPrints.com has an option for just about free biz cards. LinkedIn has a free option. A domain is less than $20 per year and hosting is less than $100 per year for yourname.com).
