My new boss is a smart lady. And she covers all bases. So when I referenced my blog in my new hire announcement, she checked it out and then she ixnayed the sentence with the comment that I hadn't updated my blog since August. Too true.
Time to change that!
I will continue with the tale of the Eliza in future posts but today will digress with an observation about how similar job hunting is to marketing.
As a 20+ year marketing veteran, it is no surprise that I've had a number of different jobs at a number of different companies. What may be surprising is that this is the first time I've actually had to go get a job. And it is a truism that to get a job you have to market yourself. But since I’d never gone out and gotten a job, I didn’t realize how exactly like marketing job hunting is. Let me explain.
My first professional job way back in the late 80s - the best job ever - I got the old-fashioned way - via my step-mother's connections. I was there for a good number of years in a bunch of fun roles that seemed to fall into my lap. Sure I had to interview for some of them. And provide writing samples. But really it wasn't the same because it was all internal referrals.
After nearly 10 years I got some good advice that if I was going to focus on marketing & business development in professional services, I really needed to go to an accounting firm. I'm not sure exactly how I found my next job, but I think it found me. Or maybe I found it and applied and got really lucky because I had the exact skills they wanted (I knew what a proposal was!). Anyway I made the move to the big time.
So there I am, working away for a few years and I get a call from a recruiter. Voila! I am recruited to another firm. That was such a flattering experience. And again, pure luck.
In that next job I took ownership of my career and remade myself a couple of times. Had the benefit of great colleagues, great training programs, terrific challenges, fun work, a few really excellent managers and a couple of good opportunities. And then they hired an outside consultant to reorganize and they hired a bully to be the boss of me and they made it really expensive for me to stay. So I took my package and left.
But not before I got a call...from a former colleague about an exciting new opportunity....Has anyone else had such dumb luck in their lives?
On I went to my next job (the last one before this one). Did great things. Met great people. Worked for a great man. Learned a whole lot. They got acquired, we had a strategic parting of the ways, I left. Sad face.
Alas I was adrift without a lucky call for the first time in my career and in the worst economy since the Great Depression. There were a lot of people unemployed. I'm in NYC and we had our great recession the year before the rest of the country and thanks to the bailout the city's economy was revving back up. So there were jobs. But I figured since no one was calling me, I had to be aggressive.
I wrote tailored letters. I called people. I leveraged my LinkedIn network. I took people out to lunch. I shared ideas and insights with possible employers. I followed-up religiously. I updated my LinkedIn profile. I mined job boards and websites. Nothing all that unusual for a job search, right? But what struck me through it all was how like a marketing campaign it was. It really hit me when I sat down to create a list of firms I wanted to target. Oh yeah - light bulb moment.
Once it clicked a few things happened. I knew what do to. I knew it would take a while. I didn't take silence or rejection personally. I knew the more opportunities into the funnel, the more likely I’d get appointments…the more appointments, the higher the probability of an offer.
Now I’m not offering this as a fool-proof plan or panacea for getting a job. I know I was lucky. I found opportunities that were exactly what I wanted to pursue and was successful in getting one. I’m not saying if you do this, you’ll get a job.
What I am saying is that it was a rare experience for me to actually test what I do with a real life subject (me) to see what it takes and how it all works together to market something (or someone). It really isn’t rocket science.
And it really does take good blocking and tackling.
And you must have a well-defined brand with a clearly articulated message.
And you must communicate, communicate, communicate.
A plan, complete with target list, also helps. And so on and so forth.
Everything that I (and people like me) always advise our clients to do—
Have a goal, create a plan, execute
Craft a story and tell it (frequently)
Launch multiple arrows in a semi-coordinated fashion
It’s all true. And that's how marketing and job hunting are similar.
I've said it before and I’ll say it again. Marketing is about connecting buyers with sellers in the exchange of something of value.
There’s an old adage in marketing – something about half the spend is wasted but you can’t tell which half, right? There’s also a recent Nobel Laureate who won for the not so surprising insight that the employment market is inefficient (it’s too hard to connect employers – buyers – with job searchers –sellers). Both marketing and job hunting are inefficient but you’ll never find a buyer or a job if you don’t do any marketing.
p.s. did you see how many times I used the word "luck"? Marketing, job hunting and life all take a little magic. There is no if / then paradigm or alogrithmic model that ensures success in any area. It does help if you like what you do and have fun with it. That's what I did when I was looking for a job and that's what I'm doing now.
p.p.s you know what's really interesting? As I re-read my post I see that my career reads likes a series of different marketing strategies: first there's relationships, then there's referrals, then there's entering a new market with a unique solution, next is a bit of reputation, then it's back to relationships until finally I actually had to do some marketing. Most of my professional services marketing colleagues will recognize that pattern!
My first professional job way back in the late 80s - the best job ever - I got the old-fashioned way - via my step-mother's connections. I was there for a good number of years in a bunch of fun roles that seemed to fall into my lap. Sure I had to interview for some of them. And provide writing samples. But really it wasn't the same because it was all internal referrals.
After nearly 10 years I got some good advice that if I was going to focus on marketing & business development in professional services, I really needed to go to an accounting firm. I'm not sure exactly how I found my next job, but I think it found me. Or maybe I found it and applied and got really lucky because I had the exact skills they wanted (I knew what a proposal was!). Anyway I made the move to the big time.
So there I am, working away for a few years and I get a call from a recruiter. Voila! I am recruited to another firm. That was such a flattering experience. And again, pure luck.
In that next job I took ownership of my career and remade myself a couple of times. Had the benefit of great colleagues, great training programs, terrific challenges, fun work, a few really excellent managers and a couple of good opportunities. And then they hired an outside consultant to reorganize and they hired a bully to be the boss of me and they made it really expensive for me to stay. So I took my package and left.
But not before I got a call...from a former colleague about an exciting new opportunity....Has anyone else had such dumb luck in their lives?
On I went to my next job (the last one before this one). Did great things. Met great people. Worked for a great man. Learned a whole lot. They got acquired, we had a strategic parting of the ways, I left. Sad face.
Alas I was adrift without a lucky call for the first time in my career and in the worst economy since the Great Depression. There were a lot of people unemployed. I'm in NYC and we had our great recession the year before the rest of the country and thanks to the bailout the city's economy was revving back up. So there were jobs. But I figured since no one was calling me, I had to be aggressive.
I wrote tailored letters. I called people. I leveraged my LinkedIn network. I took people out to lunch. I shared ideas and insights with possible employers. I followed-up religiously. I updated my LinkedIn profile. I mined job boards and websites. Nothing all that unusual for a job search, right? But what struck me through it all was how like a marketing campaign it was. It really hit me when I sat down to create a list of firms I wanted to target. Oh yeah - light bulb moment.
Once it clicked a few things happened. I knew what do to. I knew it would take a while. I didn't take silence or rejection personally. I knew the more opportunities into the funnel, the more likely I’d get appointments…the more appointments, the higher the probability of an offer.
Now I’m not offering this as a fool-proof plan or panacea for getting a job. I know I was lucky. I found opportunities that were exactly what I wanted to pursue and was successful in getting one. I’m not saying if you do this, you’ll get a job.
What I am saying is that it was a rare experience for me to actually test what I do with a real life subject (me) to see what it takes and how it all works together to market something (or someone). It really isn’t rocket science.
And it really does take good blocking and tackling.
And you must have a well-defined brand with a clearly articulated message.
And you must communicate, communicate, communicate.
A plan, complete with target list, also helps. And so on and so forth.
Everything that I (and people like me) always advise our clients to do—
Have a goal, create a plan, execute
Craft a story and tell it (frequently)
Launch multiple arrows in a semi-coordinated fashion
It’s all true. And that's how marketing and job hunting are similar.
I've said it before and I’ll say it again. Marketing is about connecting buyers with sellers in the exchange of something of value.
There’s an old adage in marketing – something about half the spend is wasted but you can’t tell which half, right? There’s also a recent Nobel Laureate who won for the not so surprising insight that the employment market is inefficient (it’s too hard to connect employers – buyers – with job searchers –sellers). Both marketing and job hunting are inefficient but you’ll never find a buyer or a job if you don’t do any marketing.
p.s. did you see how many times I used the word "luck"? Marketing, job hunting and life all take a little magic. There is no if / then paradigm or alogrithmic model that ensures success in any area. It does help if you like what you do and have fun with it. That's what I did when I was looking for a job and that's what I'm doing now.
p.p.s you know what's really interesting? As I re-read my post I see that my career reads likes a series of different marketing strategies: first there's relationships, then there's referrals, then there's entering a new market with a unique solution, next is a bit of reputation, then it's back to relationships until finally I actually had to do some marketing. Most of my professional services marketing colleagues will recognize that pattern!
