How To Get Interviews In 2017

interview-prep
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Resolve to take an active approach to getting interviews and meetings in 2017. My most successful clients don’t wait passively for the opportunity or ad to show up or the recruiting firm to call. They actively find people in a position to hire them within their target organizations, and then go for it; they write emails and follow up with phone calls to get meetings with these people. In other words, don’t just drift around in the ocean, hoping the currents will take you to an island of your dreams. Find that island and actively swim to it!

By taking an active approach, you are way more likely to both get what you want and get it faster. Let ads and recruiting firms, the passive search, take up roughly 20% of your valuable job search time. The rest of the time, engage in this proactive outreach. You may have heard of the “hidden” job market; access to this market, and a corresponding increase in interviews, is gained by taking this active approach.

Have Many Things In The Works

At the end of the day the job search is a numbers game; many things will fall away through no fault of your own. Just get in front of people, regardless of whether or not you’ll be having an interview. Of course, you have to find the right people first (LinkedIn is a great place to start), and then communicate well and say the right things in these meetings.

At The Five O’Clock Club, where I co-lead the Club’s career coach certification program, we use a numerical benchmark for this kind of outreach. We tell clients to aim for having six-to-ten “things” (i.e. meetings) in the works with people in a position to hire you or give you a consulting opportunity. You get six-to-ten things in the works by reaching out to the right people, i.e. those who could potentially hire you, via emails and phone-call followups, whether or not there is an opportunity now.