Who do you want to work for? Do you know??

Who do you want to work for? Do you know???

In this blog we’re going to look quite specifically at figuring out where it is you want to work and how to go about it as well as a little tip about Search Optimising the CV based on how recruitment software works.

So, assuming you’re looking for a new role, and if you’re reading this I guess that’s a safe assumption, you should at least have developed some class of strategy to get your new job.

But, are you just being reactive, that is, keeping an eye on various jobsites, speaking to recruiters to see what’s out there and so on?

Is that really good enough? Are you content to be moved around by currents, effectively rudderless?

I’m aware that sounds a bit controversial but think of it like this; by keeping an eye on what’s out there and even emailing and visiting recruitment consultants, you’re fishing. Sitting on the bank waiting for a fish, occasionally putting some bait on the line and casting into the water and seeing what you catch?

I put it to you that you can do better and you should. You should put on the right clothes, select specific bait and wade into the water with a net and a big stick, tell the family you won’t be home for a few days and catch the big one!

This is what I’d call extreme jobhunting! What you’re doing here is effectively becoming very proactive in the search, being laser focussed on the exact role you want and full on going for it.

So, how do you go about it, taking control and direction of the jobsearch.

It’s always one of the questions I ask my clients. Where do you want to work? Are there any companies that you actively would like to work for? You’re at a crossroads in your career right now, why not take a different approach to the jobsearch and instead of focussing on what is going to pay the bills, use these circumstances as an opportunity for making your career a happier place!

So, to this end, make a list of the companies that you’d like to work for.

Is it Google? Is it Microsoft? Is it that excellent pet shop down the road?

Perhaps you’d like to work for a company that is opening up in Ireland, or a company in a different country.

Let’s say that you’ve now identified five companies that you want to work for.

There are a number of steps that you can take to get in front of the right person. Generally it’s unlikely that a simple phone call will work, you’re getting into the world of gatekeepers and people who say no for a living so don’t go there.

Here are the steps and I’ll expand on each:

Who is the main decision maker for the role you want?

What is their email address?

Tailoring the Cover Email and the CV

Background information and how to find it

Tracking and following up

Not taking no for an answer

So to address each point:

Who is the main decision maker for the role you want?

The very easiest and simplest way to do this is to firstly figure out the position or job title of the person that you’d report to.

Would it be Sales Director, Managing Director? HR Manager? Figure it out and write it down.

Now, put that title in inverted commas and the company name and city, Dublin, Cork, London or whatever into a search engine.

Chances are you’ll find out their names.

Alternatively you could use LinkedIn which if you’re not on, you should be.

If it’s not forthcoming, then you use the telephone and ask!

Now we need to find their email address.

This is generally very easy once you have the name as each company generally has a certain format of the name followed by the website address as no doubt you know. At mynewcv.ie we’re firstname at mynewcv.ie.

How do we figure this out?

Enter the web address, for example cpl.ie without the www into a search engine. The first page of results shows that it’s first name dot last name @cpl.ie.

If this gives you no joy you can use inverted commas, asterisk at cpl.ie close inverted commas into an engine.

Now we have the right person and their email address.

Tailoring the Cover Email and the CV

Assuming you’re familiar with the brand, you’ll have noticed that the website, and all sites follow this theme, or corporate brand is uniform across their business.

View the font used on their website and change your CV and Cover email to this font. This goes a long way towards mirroring their corporate image from the start and believe it or not, employees of this company, especially at a senior level, where you’re aiming view this font all day every day, so mirroring it is a great psychological advantage for your application.

If you don’t know what font is being used, feel free to ask us here or put it out to your social media network, crowdsource it! But more of that anon.

Bear in mind that you may need to reformat the CV because certain fonts change sizes etc, but take your time and do it right. Retitle the CV to Google CV or whatever and save it as such, this will help the reader to realise that you’ve taken the effort to approach them specifically and will bolster their good impression.

The Cover email should be simple and contain three things:
Why you’re writing

Why you’re good for the company and a

Call to action:

If you’re applying internationally, ensure to correct the documents to the local language or version of English, UK, Irish or American/Australian etc. A small thing but the fewer red lines on their screen the better. Remember, they won’t have the same spellcheck installed as you, so be aware of this, have the CV opened on a different machine than the one that you composed it on and this will give a good idea of how it will look when opened on the far side. If possible for this instance use PDFs as they hold formatting 100% but failing that save the Word document as RTF or Rich Text Format as it’s not as good but better than .doc. What ever you do, try not to use doc.x format as depending on the software on the other side of the desk, it may not open correctly or indeed at all, or may have to be converted taking about ten seconds which is a poor first impression!

Background information and how to find it

As above, we mentioned crowdsourcing. This is a chapter by itself however for this purpose and prior to sending the CV I’ll explain how to crowdsource to get some information on the company in question and how it can be useful.

Assuming you’re on Facebook, Twitter and or LinkedIn or even boards.ie or online forums you frequent what I strongly advise you to do is to ask your network about the company.

Post a status update or start a new thread saying: anyone here work for or know anything about working for company x?

You’ll be getting into the laws of unintended consequences here but here are the possibilities:

Someone you know either works there, used to work there or knows someone there.

You’ve told people you’re interested in working for this company.

Somebody will tell somebody else about you

Someone will tell you what it’s like

Someone will ask for your CV, tell you who the new hiring manager is and so on….

This is effectively using your social network to work for you. It’s impossible to gauge how well this will work, but what is 100% guaranteed is that you won’t get if you don’t ask. The whole point of this exercise is to take as much control as possible and follow your stated aim to work for company X or Y.

You can then use what you have found out, perhaps a new project upcoming within the company that you have had prior experience in, put it in the cover email, or indeed a current employee lets you know that they have an in house referral scheme and he/she will get €500 if they bring a new employee on board.

The best outcome here can be that you forward your CV to a friend and they pass it on internally.

Thinking across the desk again, put yourself in the position of the hiring manager. A colleague emails or hands you a CV of a friend or acquaintance of theirs. Unless they want to risk some seriously messy internal politics from their point of view they will at least review the CV and get back either to you or your friend with feedback.

Bear in mind that with all of this process it’s important to remember that there just may not be a place for you here, but as you’re sick of me saying in different ways, if you’re not in you can’t win!

Tracking and following up

Working off your initial list of say five companies, identifying the best person and contact details, amending your brand to mirror theirs and crowdsourcing for additional information, you are ready to send your emails.

It is vital and I cannot stress this enough, to track every contact you have with these companies.

You have to know when and to who and what exactly you have sent. This will avoid confusion and you must look good all of the time!

Use a spreadsheet, a hardback notebook, a word document, whatever you use have a system, saying all of the above and have it dated.

You may not hear immediately about your email, the recipient may be on holidays or very busy or may even delete the email, but you need to be ready to follow up.

In my experience one week is the optimum time to follow up.

Prepare and send an email, ideally forwarding the original without the CV this time politely asking if the hiring manager has had the chance to review the previous email and if they require any clarification on the initial email.

Also, take this opportunity to get closer to them, use your research to demonstrate that you are following the company closely.

e.g. I’m very eager to work for a company like X as I feel closely aligned to your key ethics and I love the product/service etc.

I wouldn’t use that exact quote but phrase it in such a way that doesn’t feel wrong to you, but you must get that sentiment across. And log and track everything.

Now here’s the really tricky part.

I suggest that if you get not satisfaction or feedback, then keep going. Call the hiring manager, send them another email until such time as they give you an answer. Never lose the positive tone and the demonstration of passion and constant research.

Which ties in nicely to the final point;

Not taking no for an answer

You get no response or you get a Dear John response as was so eloquently put by a client of mine recently. I normally use a ruder expression but you know what I mean.

Is that it? Do you close the door on this company that you really want to work for?
If the answer is yes, that you walk away and say, oh well at least I tried…then I put it to you that you weren’t actually that interested in the company in the first place. Start again and this time, name the company that you do really want to work for.

But if you get a no, that at least is a response, you’re not being ignored. Depending on the nature of the contact your response must be for more information, that is to ask “when would be a good time to get back in touch”?
What advice would you give me about certain courses to do or specific industry experience would I require to be considered next time? Would you be happy for me to contact you in three months?

And a million other responses all saying, I hear you when you say that you have no role for me now and why that is, however I’m not giving up as I really want to work for this company and I want to know what steps I should take to be considered next time.

Also, try and keep abreast of what’s happening locally in this company. Use LinkedIn to see who is working with, joining and leaving this company.

Get in touch if you need some help with this, how and why to do it.

Use Google alerts to be automatically emailed each time this company is mentioned online. Join their Facebook group, follow them on Twitter and use your real name.

Get yourself super familiar with their brand and if possible begin conversing with people who work there, irrespective of what department they are in.

Email and general electronic contact is great for this kind of thing. I recently saw a documentary that included a given artist talking about something. I Googled the person and emailed them with a question. Before I knew it I’m Facebook friends with this artist and we keep in touch regularly. Same goes for politicians and celebrities. It’s really easy to do, and people don’t get freaked out by random people like us contacting them in this way as they know they can just delete the contact.

Calling on the phone every day or hanging around their houses is definitely not recommended but you should effectively cyberstalk the people in question.

To conclude and recap; if you know who you want to work for and you’re serious about doing so, you have no excuse in not putting yourself forward in as intelligent and focused way you can.

This company are unlikely to ring you and offer you a job. Offer them a great employee!

I hope all of this makes sense, but please email me at sales@mynewcv.ie for clarifications and also if there’s anything else I can advise on in this whole area.