Part 17 (1/2)

And let me reiterate: thank-you notes must be prompt. E-mail the thank-you note that same night, or the very next day at the latest. Follow it with a lovely copy, handwritten or printed, nicely formatted, and sent through the mail. Most employers these days prefer a printed letter to a handwritten one, but if your handwriting is beautiful, then go for it.

Don't ramble on and on. Your mailed thank-you note can be just two or three sentences. Something like: ”I wanted to thank you for talking with me yesterday. It was very helpful to me. I much appreciated your taking the time out of your busy schedule to do this. Best wishes to you,” and then sign it. Of course, if there's any additional thought you want to add, then add it. And when you're done, remember to sign it.

What If I Get Offered a Job Along the Way, While I'm Just Gathering Information?

Not likely. Let me remind you that during this part of your networking, you are talking to workers, not employers.

Nonetheless, an occasional employer may stray across your path during all this Informational Interviewing. And that employer may be so impressed with You, that they want to hire you, on the spot. So, it's possible that you'd get offered a job while you're still doing your information gathering. Not very likely, but possible. And if that happens, what should you say?

Well, if you're desperate, you will probably have to say yes. I remember one wintertime when I was in my thirties, with a family of five, when I had just gone through the knee of my last pair of pants, we were burning pieces of old furniture in our fireplace to stay warm, the legs on our bed had just broken, and we were eating spaghetti until it was coming out our ears. In such a situation, you can't afford to be picky. You've got to put food on the table, and stave off the debt-collectors. Now.

But if you're not desperate, if you have time to be more careful, then you respond to the job-offer in a way that will buy you some time. You tell them what you're doing: that the average job-hunter tries to screen a job after they take it. But you are examining careers, fields, industries, jobs, and particular organizations before you decide where you would do your best and most effective work. And you're sure this employer would do the same, if they were in your shoes. (If they're not impressed with your thoroughness and professionalism, at this point, than I a.s.sure you this is not a place where you want to work.) Add that your informational interviewing isn't finished yet, so it would be premature for you to accept their job offer, until you're sure that this is the place where you could be most effective, and do your best work.

Then, you add: ”Of course, I'm tickled pink that you would want me to be working here. And when I've finished my personal survey, I'll be glad to get back to you about this, as my preliminary impression is that this is the kind of place I'd like to work in, and the kind of people I'd like to work for, and the kind of people I'd like to work with.”

In other words, if you're not desperate yet, you don't walk immediately through any opened doors, but neither should you allow them to shut.

As I said, this scenario is highly unlikely. You're networking with workers. But it's nice to be prepared ahead of time, in your mind, just in case it does ever happen.

A Final Word: Bridge-People

(Formerly Called Contacts, Links, or Friends)

When you've found a place that interests you and you want to get an interview there, what will save your neck is this kind of person, whom I call ”Bridge-People.”

When you're trying to get information about a place, the informants who will be most useful to you will, again, turn out to be bridge-people. They know you; and they know them. They thus bridge the gap between you and a job. Bingo! You learn about the job. You end up getting the job. That is how most jobs get filled. Thanks to that bridge-person.

You can't identify a bridge-person until you have a target company or organization in mind. But when that time comes, here's how you go about identifying bridge-people:1 1. The website, LinkedIn, is your best friend here. Each employer you want to pursue should have a Company Profile page. (Unless the company is just too small.) Identify what place you want to approach, and look up its Company Profile page; go there.

2. Start with the company. Ask LinkedIn to tell you the people in your network who work for the company you are targeting. Then sort that list. You can sort it by employees there, who share: a. A LinkedIn group with You b. A former employer with You c. A school with You d. An industry with You e. A language with You f. A specific location with You 3. Then go to your school. On that same Company Profile page, look for your school-if you ever attended vo-tech school, community college, college, university, or grad school, ask LinkedIn to tell you who among your fellow alumni work for the company or organization you are targeting.

4. Then go to the company activity. On that same Company Profile page, ask LinkedIn to tell you new hires (who), departures (who), job-t.i.tle changes, job postings, number of employees who use LinkedIn, where current employees work, where current employees worked before they worked for this company, where former employees went after they worked for this company, etc. Insightful statistics!

5. As for connecting with the bridge-people whose names you discover, currently LinkedIn requires you to have one of their paid members.h.i.+ps, rather than the free one, to send a note to someone who's not a direct connection. But if they're still working at the company, you can phone the company and ask for them. Or you can search for their contact information through a larger search engine (Google their name!).

6. If you come up blank, both on LinkedIn and all the other places you search for names, such as family, friends, Facebook, etc., (no bridge-person can be found who knows you and also knows them) you can advertise on LinkedIn, for such connections. They have ”ads by LinkedIn Members” available to you, for modest cost (so far!). You can also browse LinkedIn groups, and join those (ten at the most) that seem most likely to be seen by the kinds of companies you are trying to reach. However, don't just join them! Post intelligent questions, respond to intelligent ”post-ers” that you think make sense. In other words, attain as high visibility there as you can; maybe employers will then come after you.

Bridge-people or not, never forget that people are crucial to your job-hunt. Fish swim in water, humans swim in a social context. We are social animals. Social in our work. Social during our job-hunt. Never job-hunt alone, if you can help it.

1. I am indebted to my dear friend Susan Joyce for these ideas. She is at job-hunt.org (”put the dash in your job-hunt”).

Do not pray for tasks equal to your powers.

Pray for powers equal to your tasks.

-Phillips Brooks (18351893).

Chapter 9.

How to Deal with Any Handicaps You Have I know what you're thinking. If you got a job-interview (or interviews), and got turned down, you're thinking that there is some handicap (hidden or obvious) that is keeping you from getting hired.

Maybe you were thinking this, even before you went in for an interview. (You turned to this chapter straightaway, didn't you?) You're thinking, I'm getting turned down (or I will be turned down) because: I have a physical handicap or I have a mental handicap or I never graduated from high school or I never graduated from college or I am just graduating or I just graduated two years ago and am still unemployed or I graduated way too long ago or I am too beautiful or handsome or I am too ugly or I am too fat or I am too thin or I am too old or I am too young or I am too near retirement or I have only had one employer in life or I have hopped from job to job all my life or I have been out of the job-market too long or I have been in the job-market far too long or I am too inexperienced or I have a prison record or I have a psychiatric history or I have not had enough education and am underqualified or I have too much education and am overqualified or I am Hispanic or I am Black or I am Asian or My English is not very good or I speak heavily accented English or I am too much of a specialist or I am too much of a generalist or I am ex-clergy or I am ex-military or I am too a.s.sertive or I am too shy or I have only worked for volunteer organizations or I have only worked for small organizations or I have only worked for a large organization or I have only worked for the government or I come from a very different culture or background or I come from another industry or I come from another planet.

If all of this were true, there would be only three weeks in our life when we are employable!

Okay, but let's get one thing straight, from the beginning here: you can't possibly have a handicap that will keep employers from hiring you. You can only have a handicap will keep some employers from hiring you. No matter what handicap you have, or think you have, it cannot possibly keep you from getting hired anywhere in the world. It can only keep you from getting hired at some places.

As I said in chapter 4, ”There are millions of separate, distinct, unrelated employers out there with very different requirements for hiring. Unless you look dirty, wild, and disreputable, and smell really bad, if you know what your talent is, I guarantee some employer is looking for you. Even if you're crazy, there's some employer crazier than you. You have to keep going. Some employers out there do want you, no matter what the others think. Your job is to find them.”

You Cannot Generalize About Employers

As far as your handicap is concerned, all employers divide into just two tribes: employers who are interested in hiring you for what you can do; vs. employers who are bothered by what you can't do.

No matter how many times you run into the latter kind, once you discover their att.i.tude, you should just courteously thank them for their time, and ask if they know of any other employers who might be interested in someone with your skills. Then, gently take your leave.

And speaking of courtesy, always remember to write and mail them a thank-you note that very night, no matter how mad or frustrated they may have made you feel.

And then keep going, day after day, week after week, month after month, if necessary, until you find the other kind of employer: the one who only looks at what you can do, not at what you can't.