Tell People Youre Job Hunting Without Seeming Desperate - Personal Branding Blog - Stand Out In Your Career

Tell People Youre Job Hunting Without Seeming Desperate - Personal Branding Blog - Stand Out In Your Career Youre on the search for a new job, and you know the best path to your next one is to reach out to your network to see if they can help. But how can you tell people youre looking for a new job or a career change without seeming desperate? Here are a few dos and donts to follow. DO set up informational interviews with people in the field you want to work in. These can be with friends and associates, but try to expand beyond that group. Ask those friends and associates who they know, and if they can recommend anyone else to meet. DO ask them for an introduction between you and the other person. This will establish some credibility on your part, because your friend or associate is vouching for you. DONT just email that person out of the blue, and say my good friend Steve told me to call you, especially if 1) Steve is not your good friend, and 2) Steve never told you to call. The last thing you need is for the other person to call Steve, who will reveal your lie. DONT ask the informational interviewee for a job. Thats not why youre there. Youre there to gather information, not to circumvent their companys candidate hiring process. Youll be seen as shady and manipulative if you pull that stunt. If they have an unpublished opening and they decide to hire you, thats different. But dont be sneaky and underhanded. DO make social media connections with hiring managers and the people youre likely to work for. Weve gone on and on about this before on this blog. Hopefully youve been listening. DONT blanket everyone in your address book with a generic email. For one thing, you dont have that kind of relationship with all of them. At best, your email will be a minor annoyance. At worst, you could throw a wrench into your job search machine, especially if you accidentally wrote to your current boss or a tattletale coworker. DO email people on an individual basis. Write each person one at a time and explain what youre looking for. This will help you tailor your message and be more specific about what youre looking for and how they can help. DO call up companies and ask them if theyre hiring for a particular role. A friend who works at an HR trade association says this strategy works way more often than youd think, and hes surprised more people arent doing it. Find out whos in charge of the department youd like to work for, call and introduce yourself, then ask if you can send a copy of your résumé. DONT worry that that last piece of advice contradicts #3. It doesnt. Its one thing to call someone out of the blue inquiring about a job, its a completely different thing to lie to someone about why you want to meet with them. Your job search, just like the rest of your career networking, is about the personal touch. Its not about automating and making your life easier. Its carrying water, a bucket at a time. This is your career were talking about, not the launch of a 7-page ebook. Treat it seriously and work hard at it. Follow these steps until youre done. If you havent found a job yet, youre not done. Author: Erik Deckers  is the owner of  Professional Blog Service, a newspaper humor columnist, and the co-author of  Branding Yourself: How to Use Social Media to Invent or Reinvent Yourself  and  No Bullshit Social Media: The All-Business, No-Hype Guide to Social Media Marketing, and  The Owned Media Doctrine.