One of the common comments that clients have said to me at the successful conclusion of their career transition is to say the best thing they learned from me was to keep good records. My usual thought is, “That’s IT? Nothing about my incredibly brilliant insights into how you pitched yourself, conducted your search, developed new targets, etc.?”
I figured out a long time ago that one of the very few things you can do in the always nebulous, frequently demoralizing search is to try and control as much as you possibly can – when control is not at all easy to establish. So much of search is due to the vagaries of markets, uncontrollable events in organizations, some insensitive behavior on the part of hiring managers, and, unfortunately, much more.
Maintaining great records helps you remember all the people with whom you’ve interacted, know the referral sources, remember suggestions and new referrals, note subjective reactions, and then be able to review everything every day. A measure of control. What you never want to happen is get a call at 10pm some evening to schedule a possible interview, and you have no idea who the person is and have no way to find out how you know them. Or, you want to review your notes regularly and make sure you’ve followed up, maintained relationships by keeping your contacts “warm,” and, obviously, follow up on a suggestion that might turn out to be significant.
Some have gone overboard in this respect. Many of my Executive MBA students, business school alums, and private clients automatically turn to Excel and create sophisticated databases, and sometimes spend way too much valuable time on maintaining the database – rather than getting out there and doing the essential relationship-building.
A client of mine, whom I’ve known for many years, recently shared some techniques with me, in the hope I might in turn share them with others. He was so good and adept with the technology and administration of data that, while much of it looks complicated to many, once in place it worked extremely well for him. His system was not a time killer. He wrote to me at the conclusion of a successful search and outlined his techniques in detail – not only record keeping, but several other suggestions for job searchers. I am grateful to him for his efforts in sharing.
I thought it might be worth it for readers to consider some of his highlights – but please recognize that some of these techniques are not for everyone. See if any of these ideas might work for you:
1) Apps/Products
Cloze ($20/month, $13/month for a year) – automatically picks up relevant records/files you have in Google Drive, Evernote, Gmail, etc. Evernote is a special case; it will OCR all of your documents and photos. If there’s an article I clipped or a business card photographed, it will pull those into the record for the relevant person or company.
Cloze has a bunch of “smart suggestions” features. It can remind you to get in touch with people. When it detects a new phone number, email address, etc. in a contact’s email signature, it will ask if you want to change it, and then will do so if you agree. Among many other features (some of which you will not want), there is a browser plug-in to pull profiles from LinkedIn directly. Big time saver.
Stickies - I like this little app that puts virtual yellow (or another color) sticky notes on your screen. They stay "on top" but can be collapsed. Available in the app store, but is also automatically downloaded on Macs.
Things 3.0 from Cultured Code - This is, in my opinion, the best "to do" application available for the Mac. And I've tried quite a few of them. It is expensive because there is an app for Mac, iPad, and iPhone and each is a separate purchase. But I can't live without it. Available in the app store. (NOTE ADDED 10/4/2018 - I switched to Omnifocus 3.0. This new version is a major update and puts it ahead of Things for the time being.)
2) Online job postings
Google’s relatively new job search service is pretty good. Once you find the search criteria you like, I suggest taking the search string and converting it into a link you can bookmark and rescue.
I also find job postings on Indeed, LinkedIn, and Glassdoor to be useful. I don’t bother with the email notifications. They tend to get overwhelming.
You will find that many companies use the same handful of systems for submitting online applications. But, for each company using one of those systems, you need to create your own user account. Make it easy on yourself and use the same password for every online job board. Not the greatest security, but otherwise too complicated to deal with.
3) I can’t overstate the importance of the following tactics
Find a potential hiring manager, do a bit of research on them, and reach out to them directly. I’ve had significant success with this approach.
You might be surprised at the responses you can get from reaching out to strangers asking for help (or market research, or due diligence). Of course, research is an essential part of preparing for contact.
Don’t take no for an answer. I have gotten interviews after receiving a rejection simply because I kept trying.
My client had a lot more to say about other technology, in addition to what he mentioned above, and used it with great effect. I thought that it might be too much to include here, but I hope you get the idea. Again – not for everyone, but definitely worked for this client (and several others).
No matter how you do it, accurate and continuous record keeping is an essential piece of a successful search.