All good rules, of course, but for most job seekers there are many pitfalls into which even the best may tumble, and very often do. Since our goal is to help you achieve your career goals, reviewing the following thoughts can help you emerge triumphantly when looking for a new opportunity.

• Use a P.S. (postscript) at the end of your cover letters. Studies found people typically read a P.S., even if they don’t read the entire letter. Therefore, if you intend to use a P.S., I suggest it be something truly worthwhile because if you’re going to draw attention to a fact, it might as well be a powerful one! A meaningful P.S. for a sales representative, for example, might be as follows:

• Effective networking may be the most valuable core competence a job seeker can hope to have. Remember, it’s not what you know, it’s who you know. Never underestimate the power of each person you meet. You may think someone is unimportant – but you never know how much power that person may have. Seemingly inconsequential contacts you make today may be your most important links to tomorrow’s opportunities. Then, of course, comes the second stage: Once a contact has provided assistance in getting you through the closed door, that’s when what you know takes on primary importance.

Since a job search is a marketing campaign, you need to seed all potential avenues that may lead to a fruitful conversation. Keep in mind that networking is a continuing process. Without being abrasive or aggressive, you need to politely call people back because out of sight is out of mind.

• Interview companies for your job – don’t let them interview you. In the final analysis, you don’t get a job…you pick a job. For most job seekers this is an important attitudinal distinction. Many of us forget that the decision to accept a position is far more critical for us than it is for the employer. If a corporation finds that they have made a mistake, they just have to go through the recruiting process again. For the individual, you have just invested “x” amount of your professional lifetime that’s gone forever and you now have another entry on your resume that has to be explained away. When you look at it from these vantage points, the “selection” you make beings to take on a totally different perspective.

• The best opportunities come to those who persevere. Every single one of us reading this column, with no exceptions, understood this perfectly at the age of five! At approximately the age of five, your mother and father gave you your first bike. You headed out to the driveway, you were surrounded by your three best friends, you tried to get on your bike and, assuming you were not born Lance Armstrong, you fell off your bike and skinned your knees. But, at the age of five, you knew what to do – get back on that bike and try again!!

Then we became businesswomen and businessmen. And we go around saying things like the single most outrageously stupid sentence ever uttered in the history of the English language: “Do it right the first time”. Give me a break! No one ever did anything even half interesting right the first 10 times.

The editors of Forbes ASAP said it more clearly: “If you’re not bloodying your nose in today’s warped-speed job hunting economy, we have a name for you – dead.”

• Don’t rely solely on Internet job websites. Sure, it’s easier than networking or conducting a targeted search, but far less effective. If you sit in front of your computer all day, search Internet job postings, and email your resume indiscriminately, you’ll end up with a “feel good” – you’ll feel like you accomplished something (and with a great deal of luck, you may have) but the reality is you’re basically sending out a needle into a haystack. Instead, if you spot something online, find out about the company and a get an “in” through an employee, vendor, or a sponsor who can get you through the gatekeeper.

• Target companies that fit your background and skill set, and then contact the person who will make or influence the decision to hire you. The following is a brief, customize email networking letter sent to 70 people, resulting in five calls for interviews.

Joe Hodowanes, a career strategy adviser in Tampa, Florida, offers a free resume and career analysis. Fax your resume to (813) 936-0201 or email it to jmwanes@jmwanes.com For questions, call Joe at (813) 936-0091 or visit www.jmwanes.com on the Web. All Job Search Advisor articles on this website are the property of www.jmwanes.com (J.M. Wanes & Associates). You may download
a copy for personal use. Redistribution without permission is strictly prohibited.
© 2005 J.M. Wanes & Associates.