Do Your Job Search on Heavy Ground

For the past several years I have been interacting with people who are looking for jobs on a daily basis. I have also been working with recruiters, who find people jobs. After many years of working with various people, it often occurs to me that those who get the best jobs do their job search in an unconventional way: The best thing is to avoid doing what everyone else is doing when it comes to looking for a job. By far, the most effective strategy for getting a job is to look where other people are simply not looking. People who do things differently from everyone else often get the best jobs. I have seen this so many times it is difficult to believe. There are many unemployed people who believe a job search should be done in a certain way. Often, the people who learn to do things in a different way get the best results. In the Art of War, Sun Tzu defines eight types of ground on which combat can occur. In terms of your job search, two of the most interesting are Deadly Ground and Heavy Ground.

• An excellent and very effective way to win any war is to go undetected into enemy territory before attacking. You use the element of surprise to win the war. This is what Sun Tzu called “Heavy Ground.” Sun Tzu believes this is the best kind of battle. This is considered a battle of “art”.
• In Deadly Ground, two forces meet face to face to fight and there is no means of escape. The battle is one of brute force and there are generally going to be heavy casualties on both sides. Sun Tzu believes this is the worst kind of battle. A deadly ground battle is without “art” and allowing this to happen reflects poorly on the commander of the troops.

In a Heavy Ground battle, a weak force can paralyze a much stronger one. Most people are taught to march in “unison” and do things in the same [Read more]

Jobs from Employers and Employer Websites

When looking for a job, as with anything you do, you get rewards only when you put work into it. Researching employer websites is not the easiest type of work to do. It requires more effort than simply going to a job site, as you may be accustomed to doing. Nevertheless, this is very important, and these are methods you can use to track down jobs pretty much anywhere. It will be worth your while to search employers’ websites for jobs. The small investment that you take right now in learning about this can really end up changing the course of your career. Because so few people follow the process and understand this process, if you follow these guidelines you will set yourself apart. What it comes down to is research. I once knew an attorney who never lost a case. He was known for researching every single detail in his case files, and that’s what gave him the advantage. That really is the same thing with your job search. The more research you’re doing, the more likely you are going to win when it comes to finding a job. I am a huge proponent of looking for jobs online on employer websites. Anybody can do this. Whether you’re sixteen years old and looking for your first job or forty-five and a sophisticated attorney, you can benefit from this process. The rewards are extreme. When you look at jobs on employer websites, you are probably seeing unadvertised jobs. They’re not going to all be unadvertised, but a significant portion will be unadvertised. That means you’re not going to see these jobs on a major job site or in the newspaper. The job is coming direct from the employer, which is direct employment. That gives you a major, major advantage. If you’re applying for jobs that aren’t advertised, as I mentioned earlier, there are going to be fewer applications and fewer people knowing about them. Your goal in your job search is to maximize your self-interest. You want to apply for jobs that aren’t getting a lot of applications. That’s going to make a major difference for you. Another thing about employer websites that’s so exciting is the variety of employers with websites. In terms of the employer websites that my companies monitor for jobs, we’re looking at between 50,000 and 100,000; there are 50,000 really good ones and an additional 50,000 that are not as good. If you were to look at all of the employer websites available, you would be looking at well over a million sites. The reason is that today, virtually every company that has employees has a website, and a good portion of those list job opportunities. Because there are so many websites out there, when you start really drilling down into those numbers, you’re going to see an incredible variety of opportunities. Another benefit of applying to a job through an employer website is that there’s no middleman. Your application goes directly to the employer, whereas when you apply to jobs through a recruiter, that recruiter acts as a filter for the résumés before they ever reach the employer. The recruiter will only send the résumés he or she thinks that employer wants to see–and that may or may not include yours. Job sites also act as middlemen. The résumés sometimes go into a box that employers have to log in to if they want to look at the list of applicants. It doesn’t always reach the employer directly. When you’re applying to jobs on employer website, there are no middlemen like that. It’s also important to remember that posting on a job site can cost an employer up to $500. That’s a hurdle that gets in the way of the job being distributed, and anything that gets in the way of a job being distributed ultimately is going to harm your chances of getting that job. If there’s no middleman, that means that you’re more likely to find out about that job, more likely to be hired because there’s no fee, the employer is more likely to see your résumé–and all of that works in your favor. When you go to an employer site, you are really exposing yourself to a much greater variety of jobs because there are more jobs out there on employer sites than anywhere else, much, much more. The drawback, of course, is that these jobs are scattered across a huge number of sites, which means it’s very, very important that you understand the methods I describe for researching these jobs. When you apply to a job on an employer site, the employer is more likely to think you’re interested in that company specifically than if you’re coming through any other resource. That’s because you have taken the time to go to the employer’s website, log in to find the career section of the website, and then apply. That shows a lot more interest than simply clicking on a posting you happened to come across on a job site. They’re going to look at you a little bit more favorably, especially the smaller employers because they’re not receiving a lot of applications. They believe that if you tracked them down, whatever the industry is, you must have a real desire to work there, and that is a positive thing. The call for applications on employer websites is not always obvious. If you go to the website of an engineering firm, for example, they might not say, “We’re looking for a mechanical engineer with 30 years’ experience.” They may say, “We always have an interest in seeing qualified engineering candidates with the following backgrounds.” These are general statements of interest requesting applications for jobs that aren’t advertised. When you apply to those jobs, you can tell them, “I understand you’re always interested,” and that sort of thing. Again, this shows you are interested in working for that particular company, and employers appreciate that kind of consideration. [A] Big vs. Small Employers You really should know the market that you’re in. Most of my career, I’ve been involved in the legal industry. If you take an area like Los Angeles County, for example, a huge area, there are literally thousands of law firms. When most people think of looking for a job, they [Read more]