Interview Success Zone

INTERVIEW SUCCESS ZONE: Today’s interview is with a master in enterprise and personal marketing systems. C.J. Hayden, all the way from California, USA, is the creator and author of an amazing 28-day marketing system that I use and will soon be facilitating:
Get Clients Now! (TM) and co-author of the ultimate job search system Get Hired Now! (TM)

INTERVIEW SUCCESS ZONE: Welcome to Interview Success Zone CJ. , and thanks for taking the time out to share with our readers your years of marketing expertise.

C.J. HAYDEN: Thanks, Jason, I’m pleased to be here and appreciate your kind remarks about my books and coaching programs.

INTERVIEW SUCCESS ZONE: C.J., as you know I spend many hours a week as a career transition coach for a well known international outplacement company. Many of my clients and indeed readers of Interview Success Zone, frequently ask themselves and me, “What more can I do to find job vacancies?”.

With a career in sales and marketing, I personally believe that the root cause of the lack of traction (and indeed at-traction), is poor or non-existent marketing on the part of the job-hunter. This is not their fault of course. Many of my clients in fact have been in their job for 20-25 years, and are ‘rusty’, to put it mildly when it comes to the world of interview success, and job searching. The interesting thing also is that the businesses also do not market their own vacancies. Your book refers to the fact that 85% of available jobs are never advertised. Clearly, the job-search world has changed. Can you share with our readers a few components of a successful job search?

C.J. HAYDEN: Jason, people often ask me how they can find more job openings, and the first thing I tell them is that they may be looking in the wrong places, or at least, not enough of the right ones. The approach most jobseekers take is to apply only for open positions — those they see advertised or posted somewhere. But given these recent statistics that 85% of jobs are never even advertised, they’re missing out on most of the possibilities.

What jobseekers need to do is look for positions that haven’t been advertised, and to find those, you need to actively market yourself to companies and hiring managers directly. You have to approach an organization where you would like to work, find the right person to talk to, and present yourself as a candidate for the job you want to have — without waiting for them to tell you that job is open.

Most companies find that they don’t have to advertise their open positions, because they get plenty of good candidates from within the organization, from the personal networks of people who work there, and from people who are applying to work there without waiting for an open position to appear. When they advertise, they are often besieged with far too many applicants for them to handle. So they prefer to fill positions without making them public whenever possible.

Now there are some companies and government agencies that have a policy of posting all open positions. But even that is often not so helpful. Many of the organizations that post positions publicly still end up filling those jobs with people already on the inside track. So what you need to do as a jobseeker is get on that inside track.

The most effective ways of finding more job openings are asking people you already know, networking with new people in your industry or field, and applying directly to organizations where you would like to work, whether or not they are advertising a position. The least effective ways of finding openings are using the want ads in the newspaper, browsing job sites on the Internet, and posting your resume on job boards. Only 2-4% of jobseekers report that they found their job by using an Internet job site. That ought to tell you right there it’s not where you should be putting in your time.

INTERVIEW SUCCESS ZONE: Thanks C.J. . What common themes have you come across, when talking to job seekers before they launch themselves into your Get Hired Now!, training program?

C.J. HAYDEN: I find that a lot of jobseekers are stuck in some very similar places. Many times the whole idea of looking for a job is so overwhelming that they just don’t know where to start. Maybe they haven’t had to look for work in many years, or they haven’t sorted out exactly what sort of job they’re looking for. Or they see all the places on the Internet they could potentially be spending their job search time. How do they choose where to begin?

Another place people are stuck is that there are just too many things for them to do. Maybe they are already working full time and don’t have many free hours available for jobseeking. Or they’re not sure whether they should spend time improving their resume or going to netoworking events. They can’t figure out how to prioritize and manage their precious job search time.

Or the third place people get stuck is that they find it’s very difficult to stay motivated. When you are putting yourself out there and not getting interviews, it can be very demoralizing. When there’s no one looking over your shoulder, it can be easy to procrastinate about jobseeking activities. When you interview and don’t get the job, it’s hard not to take it personally.

These are the three most common places I find people’s job search has bogged down.

INTERVIEW SUCCESS ZONE: That’s very interesting. Are there some obvious ‘easy kills’ or baby steps that job-seekers can take to start to boost their confidence?

C.J. HAYDEN: Most people conduct jobseeking as a solo activity, but I think it’s much more productive, and can even be fun, when you consider it a team sport. There’s no question that a job search can be frustrating and stressful, and you need to have some extra support. Very often your spouse, your parents, or your current co-workers are not the most helpful people to discuss your jobseeking efforts with. I suggest to jobseekers that they consider either joining a job search support group, finding a job search buddy, or working with a career coach.

When you have a group or a buddy or a coach, you have other people on your side, to cheer you on, listen to your troubles, provide you with some needed perspective, and reassure you that everything is going to work out. That’s one of the most powerful steps you can take to keep your confidence up and increase your motivation.

INTERVIEW SUCCESS ZONE: If 85% of all available jobs are not advertised, how are job-seekers meant to know that their dream-job is just waiting there to be filled? Doesn’t this attitude on the part of employers demonstrate how important it is, as I believe it is, for job seekers to make direct contact and follow up with employers, rather than using a recruitment agent or headhunter?

C.J. HAYDEN: Using a recruiter or headhunter can be a useful adjunct to your personal job search activities in some cases, but you can’t rely on them. Many jobseekers don’t realize that recruiters work for the companies who have the open positions and not for you as a jobseeker. They aren’t going to try and “place” you somewhere. Instead, they’re going to evaluate you as a candidate for the positions they happen to be handling at that time. If you are a good fit, they’ll present you — along with several other candidates — to the employers they represent. If you aren’t so good a fit for the positions they are trying to fill, you’ll never get an interview.

You are the only one who really cares if you ever get another job, so you need to be in the driver’s seat. That’s the only way you’re ever going to find a job you’ll actually enjoy in a place you truly want to work. Imagine if you were looking for an apartment. Would you sit at home waiting for someone to call and tell you they had an apartment for you and take whatever they offered? Of course not. You would go out and look at several apartments, and compare them to each other. If you were new to the area, you’d explore different neighborhoods, too, to see which one you wanted to live in.

This is exactly how you need to go about your job search. Go out and look around at different companies or different positions in your field. Find out more about them through company websites or media coverage. Talk to people who work at those companies. How do they like working there? What’s going on in the company? Might there be a good place there for someone like you? Who should you talk to about the possibility of working there? You have to take control of your own job search.

INTERVIEW SUCCESS ZONE: That sounds like good advice. How do you feel the current recessionary environment is affecting how employers go about hiring, and how can job seekers take advantage of this? Are there some ‘magic words’ or approaches that can be used to improve them ‘closing the sale’ and getting chosen for the position?

C.J. HAYDEN: In a recessionary economy, it’s more important than ever to focus on finding unadvertised positions, because competition for each job can be more intense. In many cases, what you say in the interview is much less important than how you got there. When you land an interview because someone that hiring manager trusts referred you for the position, you have an advantage before you ever open your mouth. So using networking and referrals as a way to find out about open positions and set up interviews is a powerful approach in a tough economy.

Once you’re in the interview, put most of your attention on making a personal connection with the person you’re talking to and coming across as likable and flexible. That often counts for much more than what you actually say. Finding a job is all about people. It’s the people you know and people you meet who will help you the most in getting a job. So worry less about what you say and put more emphasis on making a human connection with people. That approach will benefit you in all areas of your job search.

INTERVIEW SUCCESS ZONE: Why is having a structured marketing system, like Get Hired Now! (TM) towards job searching so important? Can’t job seekers just ‘play it by ear’ as each day goes by?

C.J. HAYDEN: First, there are the problems I already mentioned — not knowing where to start, finding there’s just too much to do, and losing motivation. Most jobseekers fail to find work quickly not because they aren’t qualified or because there aren’t enough jobs available, but because they aren’t looking for work in the most effective ways. They’re spending too much time in “analysis paralysis” or stop-and-start frustration or losing track of what they meant to be working on.

All of those issues can be addressed by having a structured system like Get Hired Now! to tell you what to do first, help you manage your time, and keep your motivation up. What the Get Hired Now! system does is help you choose the most effective approaches for your job search, based on your unique situation and personality. Then it provides a step-by-step job search system that includes planning, tracking and accountability. It helps you organize and prioritize all your job search activities into a daily and weekly plan. You can use the system by yourself, or with a group, buddy, or coach to help with your job search.

INTERVIEW SUCCESS ZONE: Well, that’s pretty convincing. How can readers get hold of more information, and learn about your different marketing systems?

C.J. HAYDEN: Get Hired Now! (TM) is available as a book at: www.gethirednow.com What you can also find there is a list of our licensed Get Hired Now! facilitators around the world. You can take the Get Hired Now! (TM) program from one of those facilitators, or hire a facilitator as your coach to support you as you work through the program. You can also bring the program to your company, association, or networking group, so you can work through the program together with others. For people who are more interested in getting clients than getting a job, I also have a companion book and system called Get Clients Now! (TM)
and you can find out about that at www.getclientsnow.com (TM)

INTERVIEW SUCCESS ZONE: C.J., On behalf of all Interview Success Zone’s readers, please accept my warmest thanks again for all your help and advice.

Next time at Interview Success Zone, I will be interviewing a presentations and pitch specialist, Beth Harvey, who will be sharing her top tips on making an impression when pitching your skills and ideas to an employer. If you want to be notified when the next blog post is put up, you can either subscribe to the RSS feed, or if like me, you don’t know what that means, just go to http://www.interviewsuccesszone.com and type in your details there. You’ll receive three FREE emails with job search tips, as well as then being notified of changes to the Interview Success Zone Blog.

If there is a topic that you are interested in learn about that will make a difference to your job search, leave us a comment, and we will write an article on it in the future.

Until then, remember 85% of the jobs available are still waiting for you to find them - keep looking under those rocks! Happy Job Hunting!

Jason

P.S. If you visit C.J.’s website Get Hired Now!, you can request your FREE copy of the Get Hired NOW!™ Special Report: “How to Find a Job in 28 Days or Less”

Jason
Interview Success Zone

Find out more about my interview success ebook at: www.InterviewSuccessZone.com