For the sake of this discussion a cold call is a call to a person who you don’t know and who you have not been referred to by someone who will let you use his/her name to break the ice or give you an introduction. It is a call to a stranger who has something you need which in the case of a job search is simply information or a foot in the door.
All experts agree that over the next couple of years 80% of all jobs will be part of the “hidden” job market. Contrary to what recruiters and some large expensive coaching firms will tell you they are not connected to the hidden job market. Recruiters will fill only about 5% of all jobs. The hidden market simply meens that the jobs are not advertised, published on any job boards or company sites and as mentioned not given to recruiting firms. These jobs are filled with candidates known to hiring managers.
How do you access this hidden market? There is only one way; networking. There are two types of networking. One is cold call networking as defined earlier and warm call networking which is calling people you know or people referred to you by people you know seeking advice, leads, direction etc…
Many experts will tell you that cold call networking is just about the least productive method of job hunting available to you, just below spending all your time searching job boards and just above walking up and down the street knocking on employer’s doors. These same people tell you that the most productive job search task is warm call networking, calling people you know. To people who believe this I ask what happens when you run out of buddies or when you want to penetrate a target company but don’t know anybody associated with that company or people who know somebody who is? You have two choices; give up networking or just forget about the target company. Start cold calling.
Every client I have worked with after being on the market for several months had run out of people to call and were just bugging the same people. They were back to job boards and recruiters. After I got them on a well focused and targeted cold call networking plan their activity increased so dramatically they had trouble managing it all. 80% of those clients were working within two months and most of them are working in jobs that started with a cold call. It takes guts, nerve and hard work but if done right cold call networking/marketing can be extremely productive and you never run out of people to call. Read about it, study it, practice it or hire a good networking coach and get back to work. You will make new, valuable connections, find the job you want and learn a skill that will benefit you for the rest of your life. On the other hand you could just keep calling friends until they are no longer friends.
Stay tuned for tips on who to call, what to say & ask and how to get good at it without much pain.
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