Generating suitable job leads is one of the most difficult and important stages of the job search process. You can be the best interviewee in the world but you will not acquire job offers if you lack appropriate opportunities. Since the job search process is ultimately a numbers game, more suitable job leads in your pipeline will result in more opportunities to interview and to subsequently generate job offers. Below is a 7-step approach to successful job lead generation.
1. Identify Your Target Market
Identify 20 targeted companies in your desired geographical regions and industries that may have a need or problem that can be successfully met by your expertise. To identify these companies, you can use business directories like Dun & Bradstreet, lists such as Fortune’s “100 Best Companies to Work For”, company review sites such as Glassdoor.com, and so on.
2. Identify Your Potential Prospects
Determine the senior executives who are in charge of your targeted business unit for your 20 companies; for instance, the CMOs if you are seeking positions in marketing. These are the individuals who can make hiring decisions or at least refer you to the appropriate hiring managers depending on your experience level. The quickest way to acquire this information is to dial the main number for each company and ask “Who is in charge of X (the department you are targeting)?”
3. Prepare Prospecting Scripts
Create call and/or email scripts to use when you contact previous and/or current employees (including hiring managers) of your targeted companies. These scripts should include an introduction, purpose, WIIFT (what’s in it for the individuals you contact), responses to common objections or rebuttals, and/or closing. If you want to gather information about a company from current and previous employees, you could state: “Hello my name is X and I’m a fellow X member who is thinking about pursuing opportunities with your company. The reason I am contacting you is to ask a few questions to determine if I should begin my pursuit. Do you have a few minutes to talk? ”
4. Prequalify Your Potential Prospects
Contact previous and/or current employees of your targeted companies to determine (if possible) which hiring managers are “qualified” based on having a need for your expertise, sufficient monetary resources or budget, and/or the authority to make hiring decisions. You can locate these employees from an advanced search on LinkedIn and other sources. During these discussions (and from external research), also gather information about the company’s stability, culture, work-life balance, employee profile, and so on to determine which targeted companies are ideal for you.
5. Determine Initial Contact Medium
Determine the ideal medium (based off of your comfort level) for contacting hiring managers of your targeted companies about hidden and/or advertised jobs. Ideally you should contact hiring managers by phone and/or email after receiving referrals from trusted sources. However, you could also contact hiring managers via direct mail and/or cold calls.
6. Make Contact with Your Prospects
Contact your targeted hiring managers using your scripts and the information you gathered to locate suitable hidden opportunities and/or to see if there is a fit for suitable job postings. For example, you could state: “Hello X, my name is X and I was referred by X who strongly believe I am the ideal IT manager (or ideal candidate for X job posting) for X, X, and X. The purpose of my call is to discuss this further. Do you have a few minutes to talk?”
7. Plan Your Work and Work Your Plan
Develop a daily, weekly, and monthly job lead generation plan and reserve the necessary time to efficiently meet the plan’s objectives. Periodically, determine what is working and not working regarding lead generation and make the necessary adjustments.
I strongly suggest you listen to Ford Myer’s “How to Get the Job You Want - Even When No One’s Hiring” which was a Featured show or one of BlogTalkRadio (BTR) Today’s Picks. This show was really good. Click here: http://tinyurl.com/yz98zc2 to listen to this podcast.
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