It Easy To Get Hired
The number one criteria that today’s employer will use in deciding whether or not to hire an additional employee is, will this person add value to my operation and make my life easier? If you understand that and approach the employer in a way that is centered on it, you’ve significantly increased your chances of being hired versus someone whose approach is still attuned to yesterday’s workplace.
The way you communicate; your cover letter, résumé, brochure, and all the other print and electronic marketing tools you use have all got to be focused on this issue, and that will be a major factor in determining how successful you are in finding work. If you get an employer’s attention and determine that indeed they could use your set of skills, let’s say that potentially there’s an opportunity for a six-month contract. Make their decision even easier by suggesting that you ease your way into the contract, maybe one month at a time, rather than locking them into committing to the whole six months at the outset.
If the opportunity is for a long-term contract and you’re excited about working with the company, and you have no doubt that you can help them, you may even consider offering to work for a week for free to show them what you can do. Smart contractors have landed lucrative contracts using this approach.
Guess who gets offered the job?
We’ve identified the fact that in today’s workplace most of the work opportunities are hidden. One reason for this is that when companies decide they want to make a permanent addition to their staff, the first place they look to is their pool of contract workers, if that makes up part of their workforce. This makes sense since they know those people and what they can do and the contract workers in turn know the company.
If people who are only comfortable with a permanent job understood this, they would be much more inclined to consider contract work as a viable route to finding more permanent jobs.
Employee referral programs
Employee Referral Programs (ERPs), whereby current employees refer suitable candidates for in-house job opportunities, are becoming increasingly popular with employers, some of whom are meeting up to 60 percent of their hiring needs this way. In some cases, such programs account for almost all of the hiring done.
It is common for employers to offer employees a cash bonus for people they hire from their referrals. But the cash isn’t the only reason employees take part. They feel good about seeing people they know being hired, and they’re smart enough to know that it’s in their interest to only refer people they know are good and who they feel will fit within the culture of the company.
Hiring on the basis of employee referrals is a smart investment for the employer too, since it reduces the time involved in hiring new people and can substantially reduce the cost of recruiting. For people looking for work, being referred by an existing employee significantly increases the probability of their being hired compared to them approaching the employer on their own.
The growth of ERPs helps to explain why many employment opportunities are never advertised and proves yet again why it is so important to be connected to what is going on in the workplace and to be an effective networker. Some companies are sending college and university graduates they’ve hired who have worked out back to their alma maters as recruiters. Encouraging employees to be active in alumni associations and networks is also seen as a good way to find new hires. Employers are increasingly asking their employees to spread the word about new positions they need to fill via their personal Twitter and Facebook accounts. Some are also establishing company Twitter and Facebook accounts as a way to advertise new positions.
Trying before buying
Another reason contract work makes sense for both the employer and those who are looking for work is that it gives both parties a chance to get to know one another before making a more permanent commitment. Our working relationships are the only relationships in our lives that we approach with an attitude of making a permanent commitment before the parties involved know one another.
You can interview, test, and reference check all you want in considering a potential employee, but experience shows that it’s only after working together for a period of time that either party knows if they are compatible. This is another argument in favor of both sides entering into a contract work arrangement before committing to a more permanent one.
Computer-based job simulation technology is becoming an increasingly popular way for companies to attract and assess potential employees. L’Oreal, for example, uses job simulation scenarios as part of the screening process. According to a 2005 study by Rocket-Hire of New Orleans, close to 20 percent of companies are using this tool, and that percentage is expected to grow.
Such technology also allows potential employees to try on a job to see if it is a right fit for them. Although it is an effective tool to use at the beginning of the hiring/screening process, applicants must still do well in interviews, where companies will assess their personalities and communication skills.
Vocation Vacations is a company in Portland, Oregon, that gives people the opportunity to “test drive” their dream jobs. They do this by pairing up an individual with a mentor for a couple of days, during which the person gets hands-on experience in the field in which he or she wants to work. Participants pay anywhere from a few hundred dollars to a few thousand to experience life as a race car driver, dog trainer, fashion designer, Broadway producer, or whatever. Vocation Vacations has placed hundreds of people in the US and Britain into these dream job simulations.
The Need For Self-Promotion
One of the main factors that distinguish people who are succeeding in today’s workplace from those who are struggling in it is how well they understand the need for self-promotion and how effective they are at doing it. Some people, especially professionals who are over forty and who have lost their jobs, are really challenged by this. Some of them don’t see why they should have to do it; after all, they are professionals, accountants, engineers, etc., and they achieved success in their careers before they lost their job. Surely, they reason, their qualifications and experience speak for themselves.
Another reason for being uncomfortable with self-promotion could be your upbringing or your cultural background. You may see the whole subject as unseemly. Blowing your own horn is something you were taught was undignified, and this attitude may have been reinforced by blowhards that you’ve come across in your life.
The first thing you need to do is to understand what self-promotion is, in the context of doing it to find work. If you have an aversion to loud, self-aggrandizing people, that’s good, because that’s the last thing you want to become. Employers are not bullied, schmoozed, or coerced into hiring people; they will be just as turned off by this behavior as you are. On the other hand, they’re not mind readers, so you can hardly expect them to determine for themselves what your strengths are and how they may be of value to the company.
You need to be aware of another shift that has occurred in the workplace. In yesterday’s world, often your experience and qualifications did speak for themselves, so you could still succeed in looking for work with a fairly passive approach. Also you were probably responding to a newspaper ad where the requirements for getting hired were clearly spelled out. Finally, you were probably applying to a large company with a personnel or human resources department which had the time to assess applications that were not as well prepared as they could be.
That’s all changed. Remember, most work opportunities today are generated
