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Step 5 in Part 2: Maintaining what you have built when your job search is over.
Techniques
for Tapping into the Hidden Job Market?
MAINTAIN
- Keep Your Network Alive
Maintain that
network you have built! Don't let it die just because you have a
job and don't think that you need it any more. You need it, forever!
It's your doorway to the Hidden Job Market.
The beauty of
the network that you've now established is that, as you advance
in your career, so will many of the other members of your network.
So, you will move up the career ladder together, helping each other
along.
Maintaining
Your Network:
- Stay active in your social networking. Don't stop Tweeting or participating on LinkedIn, just because you have landed your new job. Help others, if you get a chance, and stay in touch. Stay visible. Keep managing your personal brand. You never know when you're going to need that network again!.
- Focus on
making your network continue to grow - consciously try to meet new people, outside of
your new employer's organization.
- List
everything you did and everyone you met (who learned your
name) during your job search. Count up the number of names
and determine how much larger you can make it in the next
12 months, be reasonably agressive (if you met 50 people,
adding 5 people is only 10% growth, less than 1 new person
every 2 months, which should be easily achievable). Don't
make yourself crazy, but don't make it so easy that it doesn't
get done.
- Look
at the number of things you did (meetings, articles, associations).
Prioritize them according to how useful they were to your
job search. Focus on the ones with the biggest payback to
you. Discard the ones that were more effort than they were
worth.
- Make time
for at least one "networking" phone call a week
to someone you met in your hidden job market campaign (one of
those people from your list above). Find out how they are doing
and see if there is anything that you can do for them. Meet
them for a cup of coffee or lunch or an association meeting. Share
news and insight. Have fun!
- Keep that
personal resume Web site up to date, but indicate on it that you
are not in the job market (see the bottom of the sample
ASCII resume).
- Stay in those
professional/industry organizations! Use the priority list you
developed (above) to determine the ones to keep active and the
ones that go "on the back burner." Add the ones that
you just plain enjoy.
Go to the conferences, workshops, seminars, and monthly meetings.
Stay on the committees, if you can (at least one of them). You
will continue your professional growth, and maintain those
important connections. Some employers will pay for your membership,
too. If not, and the meeting cost is high, pay for it yourself
(as an investment in your career) if you can afford it. If you
can't afford it, ask one of your colleagues if you can attend
a meeting as their guest.
- Continue
writing, teaching, and speaking. You will be more successful professionally
if you can write well and are comfortable speaking in front of
groups. So, consider this professional growth as well as professional
networking.
- Continue
to meet with members of your job hunt support group, probably
less often. As they land their jobs, you will gain insight and
connections into other organizations, expanding your network even
more. When everyone has a job, continue meeting periodically (maybe
monthly or quarterly), and have everyone bring a guest once in
a while (quarterly?) so that the network continues to grow.
Picture yourself
calling up your colleagues from an association's program committee
the next time you launch a job search, and asking them if they know
of any good job openings. Or, even better, picture yourself receiving
a phone call from a member network asking you to accept a job at
their company! It happens!!
If you want to read an excellent book on the subject, track down a copy of "never eat alone" by Keith Ferrazzi. It's available in bookstores, Amazon, Kindle, etc., and it is excellent.
Good luck
with your job search!
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About the author...
Online job search expert Susan P. Joyce has been observing the online job search world and teaching online job search skills since 1995. Susan is a two-time layoff "graduate" who has worked in human resources at Harvard University and in a compensation consulting firm. In 1998, her company, NETability, Inc. purchased Job-Hunt.org, and Susan has been editor and publisher of Job-Hunt since then. Follow Susan on Twitter at @jobhuntorg.
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