Someone just sent me a job posting and asked me to distribute it to all the job seekers I know. "Make sure and tell them," he added in a note, "that resumes will only be accepted through noon tomorrow." That's the 2009 job market -- positions open up and close again at lightning speed.
These days, you've got to jump on job openings when you hear about them. If you wait a couple of weeks to send a resume in response to a job you're interested in, the window of opportunity may already have slammed shut.
In a market like that, you can't assume that you'll hear about every promising job opening while it's still available. You've got to have other people serving as eyes and ears for you. Those other people, of course, are your friends, relatives, neighbors, and colleagues. But what's the best way to enroll your posse in your job-search army?
Here are five tips to get you started.
Update Your Profiles
If you're unemployed, make sure that your LinkedIn, Facebook, and other social-networking profiles make your job-search status perfectly clear. It's not enough to say, "I'm job-hunting." You need to tell your crew what you do, exactly. On a LinkedIn headline (that's the text box just under your name), you can say, "Consumer-Products Market Researcher ISO Next Challenge."
Don't assume that all the people who know and love you are up to speed on your professional adventures. I adore my mother-in-law, for instance, but the last time I checked she was under the impression that I work in a library. Spell out your skills and your next, desired position.
Put It in Your Signature
Make sure your outgoing email signature helps to keep your correspondents in the loop with your job-search news. Under your name, you can add a note that says, "I'm in the market for a Software Quality position in the Raleigh-Durham area -- I've got 10 years in technology and 6 more in pharma." The people who know you may not feel qualified to match you up with positions they become aware of, so your helpful mini-bio will make it easier for them to do that.
Blast out the News
Send an email blast to all of the friends and colleagues in your address book, letting them know what you're looking for job-wise and what you've done so far that will qualify for you for your next assignment. Don't be shy; there's no reason why your kid's Scoutmaster or your hiking-group mates wouldn't be interested in helping with your job-search outreach as much as your old workmates would. Don't send your resume to these folks, though; that's overkill, and if they come across a situation where your resume will be needed, they'll be sure to let you know.
Update Your LinkedIn Contacts
You can use the Profile Update feature on LinkedIn to alert your first-degree connections to your job-hunting status. Once you update your headline (see Tip One, above) click on "Notify Your Network" to send out a blast email to your first-degree connections. (If you have more than 200 of those, you'll have to choose the 200 who most badly need to hear your news.)
Check in Face to Face
Nothing beats face-to-face networking during a job search, and nothing trumps the power of your old-boys-and-girls network. As much as I love meeting new people, it's the tribe that knows you and can vouch for you that's most likely to keep you top-of-mind when promising job openings come across their desktops. Check in with every old friend, former colleague, vendor, customer, and partner you can get hold of and schedule a lunch or coffee. Face to face, you'll do more in-depth networking than a quick email update can allow, and it's great moral support for a job seeker to catch up with old friends, too. I recommend at least one coffee date, lunch date, or walk around the park per week.
Don't think of your job-search networking as a series of transactions -- you're creating glue, and glue is what will cause your name to spring to mind when one of your job search army members hears about a job opening up a day, week, or month from now. You're planting seeds -- so get out there and start planting, pronto!
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