I took phone calls yesterday from job seekers across America. Together, we tried to brainstorm solutions.

We came up with some pretty creative ideas, as it turns out.

And I’m sure you can use at least one of them to get hired faster in this economy.

Here’s a mini case study from one woman I spoke with, and two Guerrilla Job Search solutions for you to adapt and adopt …

Sandy in New York called with two problems:

Problem #1: She is having trouble deciding which employers she wants to work for. (You, too?)

Solution: I told her to visit LinkedIn.com and click on the names of all the employers listed in her profile. This usually brings up a description of each company, along with the names of companies people work at before and after that employer — a fantastic way to discover more potential employers in any industry.

She can continue this exercise, of course, by clicking on company names of the people in her network, to learn more about career trajectories in her field … and get names of more potential employers.

Problem #2: Sandy needs to quickly learn more about social media tools like Twitter and Facebook, because these will figure prominently in any marketing job she takes.

Solution: Here’s a fast way to research almost any topic, so you can talk intelligently about it to employers. Go to Google and search for “INDUSTRY press release” and “INDUSTRY news release,” replacing INDUSTRY with keywords related to your next job.

Check out these example searches on Google — “social media press release” and “high-tech marketing news release” — to see what I mean.

There’s some chaff among the wheat, of course, but you’ll find a number of press releases, written by companies with news to announce, that are intended for newspapers, TV stations, and other media. This is often cutting edge information that’s too new for any book or magazine.

You can use press releases to research and prepare for a job interview (”Do you know what your competitor just announced yesterday?”) or to write a white paper and deliver it to employers, to showcase your knowledge of industry news and trends.

Every reporter, at some point, reads press releases to find story ideas. Now you can read them to show employers how “in the know” you are.

Note: If you’re reading this before 5:00 pm, Friday May 1, I urge you to listen to our Free Guerrilla Job Search teleseminar or download the transcript. It’s chock full o’ ideas like the two you just read that can get you hired faster than you ever thought possible.

Go get it now.

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Here’s a question I hear in one form or another almost every day: “I’ve been networking for months, but I haven’t found a job. How can I improve my networking efforts?”

Answer: I dislike the term networking because it’s freighted with unpleasant connotations for so many people who have had slow results — or no results — doing it.

Plus, “networking” is like “losing weight” or “saving money.”

Everybody knows how to do it. Everybody says they are doing it. But … so many people are overweight, cash-strapped, and jobless in America these days that maybe — just maybe — it would help to rethink the whole idea of networking to find a job.

So, here’s a thought experiment: Forget everything you know about networking. In fact, stop networking altogether for a week.

Instead, start helping other people get what they want. Give freely of your information, personal contacts, expertise, knowledge, time, etc.

Example: Pick 10 people you know who are connected to people you’d like to meet. Spend an afternoon researching the needs of these “top 10” contacts. You can even call them and ask, “What would help you do your job better?” Then make a plan to help those 10 people get what they want.

When you focus on helping others, your ego is removed from the equation, which makes you less self-conscious and more relaxed. That’s because, while not everyone can be a natural networker, everyone can help another person.

Done right, this is networking — helping other people so much that they’re happy to take your calls and send you job leads.

So, stop networking. Start helping other people get what they want. You will be networking, even though it may not feel like it. And you’ll be making giant strides toward your next job.

Note: This is exactly the kind of unconventional, realty-based advice you can get in our 10-week Guerrilla Job Search Bootcamp. If your job search is stalled, why not check it out? Registration ends at 5:00 p.m. Friday, May 1, 2009. Learn more here. (If that link is dead, it means we sold out early. Again.)

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This past week, I gave two speeches to nearly 1,000 people in my home state of Michigan (including 500+ alumni at an event for Michigan State University, my alma mater) and did a TV appearance on Channel 7 (interviewed by JoAnne Purtan, another Spartan).

See that brown box in front of me?

I used it to illustrate the “coffee cup caper” that my partner David Perry and I teach to clients in our 10-week Guerrilla Job Search Bootcamp.

While in Michigan, I fielded dozens of questions from job hunters of all ages. Which is what you might expect, given that Michigan has been carpet-bombed with rotten economic news for about 78 straight months …

Since time and my attention span are short here, I boiled those job seekers’ questions down to one with broad appeal …

Question: “How can I stand out in a hyper-crowded job market?”

Answer: Try unconventional, “guerrilla” job search tactics to get the attention of employers. Here are examples of tactics used by creative job seekers to land interviews — and jobs.

• One Michigan man mailed cover letters with two aspirins taped atop each. His opening sentence: “Your customer service headaches are over!” This message resonated with employers, who called to interview him.
• A Las Vegas man mailed a paperweight and cover letter to an out-of-state employer. The paperweight was a miniature of the “Welcome to Las Vegas” sign. His cover letter began: “Not everyone who lives in Vegas wants to stay in Vegas,” playing off the famous slogan, “What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas.” He was flown to an interview in California.
• One aspiring assistant basketball coach mailed the right hand from a store mannequin to the coach he wanted to work for. Rolled up and gripped in the plastic hand was his cover letter, which began: “I can be your right hand man.” He was hired.

Do any of these methods strike you as gimmicky or too offbeat to work in your industry? Fine. Don’t believe me.

Test and prove them for yourself. Try mailing something unusual along with your resume and cover letter to a company you have no intention of working for … like a sausage factory or a porta-potty cleaning service.

Then decide whether to go forward and use Guerrilla Job Search tactics when applying to ideal employers. 

Note: David Perry, Mark Haluska, and I will be leading our first (and last?) Guerrilla Job Search Bootcamp of 2009, beginning Monday, May 4.

You can learn more here. The deadline to apply is Friday, May 1. If the link is dead, that means we’re already sold out — sorry in advance, but that’s happened the last two times. Here’s the link again.

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I can’t believe I haven’t blogged about this until now.

But I was just reviewing an other-wise excellent resume from a prospective client for our Guerrilla Resumes service, and I culled this from the email I sent him:

When writing your resume, always do the thinking for the hiring managers who will read it.

That means you need to figure out — in specific detail — the highest possible value for the achievements you include on your resume. Let me illustrate with an example from an actual resume.

This bullet point is good:

• Achieved 99 percentile score from management

But it could be made better if you provide more context and are more specific about the value.

Why did you rank in the 99th percentile? Among how many people did you rank there? And why not say that you ranked in the top 1%, which is sexier — and means the same thing?

Very quickly, we can come up with something like this:

• Ranked in top 1% among 356 personnel for accuracy and productivity by management

See the difference?

If you force them to guess when reading your resume, busy employers will miss your true value. Every time.

So here’s a resume-writing rule to live by: Allow no unsupervised thinking by readers. Because, if you want it done right, you have to do it yourself.

Think this is a good idea? Wait until you see our new Guerrilla Job Search System DVD.

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I got an email yesterday from a Minnesota man who wrote: “I followed all of your advice but I have not gotten any job interviews. Do you have any other suggestions?”I took a quick look at his LinkedIn profile and found that he hasn’t followed all the advice I gave him.

It appears he hasn’t followed any of it, actually.

And yet he wants more ideas from me.

So, here’s my advice to him and anyone struggling to find a job: to get hired in this economy, you must execute the basics in your job search.

Here are 3 of them. How many are you doing?

(more…)

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