Subject: My Interest in Working for Groupon Dear Ms. Jones, I am a sales manager with eleven years of experience working for Quaker Oats in Chicago. I am in charge of managing a staff of 120 sales people responsible for retail distribution in an eleven state area encompassing the Western United States. I have attached my resume. I was just checking to see if you might have any openings. I’m very interested in your company, specifically because of your recent growth and my belief that I can contribute to your further growth. I have experience expanding into new markets and I believe I would be a real asset to your team as you too expand. I would welcome the opportunity to meet with you at your convenience. Sincerely, Jeff Jones

You want to offer specific reasons for applying to that company. Pull from the material on their website or what you may have learned about the company through other sources. Reputation, company mission, and plans for the future all make good reason for being interested in one company over another. I highly recommend sending your applications to employers that are expressing general sense of interest. A statement of interest is not a job. It is a request to apply if you fit general qualifications. Many people don’t. You look at lots and lots of employers out there. Many employers have these statements of interest but people don’t really respond to them. Statements of interest are very common for professionals, professional firms which would be things like law, health care – nurses are always in demand of course – architecture, and things along those lines. Because the career pages of employer websites aren’t always up to date, it’s important for you to make general inquiries even if jobs aren’t listed. Your job search is in some respects a numbers game. One of the benefits of searching for jobs on employer websites is it really helps you to take advantage of that numbers game because you will get more opportunities to apply in various places because of the fact that there are so many places out there with jobs. As people who work in direct-mail marketing know, you get better results if you mail out 100 letters compared to if you sent out 10. If you sent out 100 letters, you wouldn’t get as good of a result as if you sent out 10,000. To some extent, it’s the same game with your job search. Finding employers and applying to positions is a numbers game. The more places you apply, the greater your chances of gaining an interview and getting hired. This is also a marketing game. You’re marketing yourself. You’re the product. You are what you’re selling. When you’re doing that, it’s very, very important that you’re getting yourself out to as many potential employers as possible in order to increase your odds of getting hired. I highly recommend general inquiry applications to employers even if they don’t have jobs posted. That one thing alone could change your career. It’s more than worth the investment of time that you’re spending listening to this job search information because when you apply to people, even if they don’t have openings, you make their job easier for them because a lot of people maybe ask, “Do you have this person?” They’ll bring that person over to whoever is asking. The administrative team will bring your application to whoever is hiring. Your résumé will be filed away. It’s a very, very smart thing to get a lot of applications out there, especially with employers where you have few privacy concerns. It’s just a smart job search method and something you should be doing. I’ve been criticized for saying this is a good idea but I’ve seen it work so many times that it’s something that I highly, highly recommend that you do. Those are the main things that I wanted to talk to you about. Understanding that unadvertised jobs receive fewer applications is very, very important. Another thing I want to make clear is it’s not a question of pride. A lot of people are so invested in themselves and their personal identity that they don’t want to be rejected from an employer. Who cares? It really doesn’t matter. Just because someone out there is selling a product and not everybody is buying it doesn’t give the seller a reason to feel bad. As long as someone buys it, the person selling the product or the company selling the product can do well. In this case, you are that product. Investigating employer sites has another benefit that isn’t specifically tied to tracking down jobs. When you read these websites, you can learn a lot about employers. You can get a good sense of that employer based on how information is updated, how well it’s written, and what information is offered. You can also learn a lot about the market this way. You will learn who the company works for or what kind of customers they appeal to. This can lead you to more and more employers. Following that trail is a very, very effective way to track down jobs. [B] Resources with Employer Contact Information Finally, the biggest point I want to make to you is your chances of getting an interview are much better when you use an employer site. Typically, it’s going to be easier with smaller employers and harder with larger. If you take a big company, typically everybody will have heard of them or for a large regional employer but there are a lot of smaller employers. Those smaller employers are going to be much easier. An example would be where I’m from, Detroit, there are a couple of very large auto companies there. If someone is looking for a job in the auto industry, it would make sense that you would look at the websites of those giant employers to see what jobs they have available. However, remember that there are thousands of suppliers that supply the auto companies. Just because there’s that big company there doesn’t mean that’s the only employer. There are thousands of suppliers. The idea is you learn about the big company and then think about who is working for that big company. That can also provide you with lots of leads. The issue is how to locate employers, and the best way to locate jobs from employer websites. There are so many resources out there, it is insane. Here are just a few: Hound.com. This site monitors the career pages of a substantial number of employers throughout the world for jobs. This is an excellent site that has won several awards for its depth. Jigsaw. This is an online company directory.  It is easy to use and recommended. DMOZ. An Internet directory. I like DMOZ a lot because they have a screening process that makes it difficult for an employer to get in there but once they are in there, you’re pretty much assured it’s a very good employer. You can search by industry and all sorts of things. Google at this point in time is related to DMOZ. Google gets its directory information from DMOZ. That’s something to keep in mind. Wikipedia. Wikipedia always has a lot of lists about top employers in different industries. One example might be if you were, hypothetically, a carpet installer in Illinois. There are probably a bunch of carpet associations for carpet installers or carpet workers. They will list members of that and member companies. The member companies would be a good source for you to find jobs. Manta. Manta is a good online source. Business.com. Business.com is a paid directory, meaning that people have to pay to be part of that directory, but not Wikipedia or DMOZ. Magic Yellow. Another really good source is called Magic Yellow which is the modern day yellow pages online. You can search by industry and they have website links. It’s very, very good. Yahoo. Dun and Bradstreet. This is a great database. Standard and Poors. Other resources include Thomas Register, Mergent Industry Review, Hoovers (part of Dunn & Bradstreet). As you can see, there’s a huge variety of sources that you can use to research companies. My overarching recommendation to you, however, is to go through each of these resources and find out which one suits you the best. Get comfortable and start using it to its fullest potential. [C] Building and Using Employer Lists Something that a lot of people do not understand that is very important is the way to research who those employers are. I’m suggesting that you systematically investigate and develop a list of who is going to hire you. A couple of years ago, I had an experience where my wife and I received a flier in the mail for a house that was for sale in our neighborhood. We went to the house at the appointed time. There were probably over a hundred people there. I’m thinking all these people showed up to this open house like we did but when the real estate agent sent out those fliers to everybody in the neighborhood, they didn’t say, “Let me just send out the fliers to the people that I’m confident and know with 100 percent certainty are buying a house right now.” They approached all of them. When you’re systematically investigating and developing a list of who is going to hire you, what you’re doing is no different than the real estate agent. You’re developing your future list of prospects when you find employers. To develop your list, use a service like Melissa Data, Info USA, Jigsaw, Hoovers, or all sorts of other sources. Most of these will offer you a free trial or something along those lines and you can get a lot of your data that way. You develop your list. Then you’ll have a bunch of names as the result. You will have companies plus names with the list you’ve developed. Once you have that list, it could be a large or small number. It could be twenty people depending on how broad you are or it could be more than one hundred people, or a thousand, or even five thousand. Services out there that have done this in the past typically will develop very, very large lists for people. There are lots of services out there that consult with people and develop lists. Typically, when these places develop a list, they’re creating a list of at least one or two thousand. When you target these employers, you need to understand that one of the things you’re doing is targeting them based on the geographies you want to work in plus your interest based on where you want to work. I want you to remember you can work wherever you want. I’m from Detroit. I decided I wanted to work in Southern California. That was after having worked in New York. I liked Southern California better but now I like New York a lot too. There are different places you can work. You need to make sure that in whatever search you’re doing, that you’re extremely open and making sure that you’re really looking at every potential geographic place that you can. The more places that you’re looking at, the better off you’re going to be. You really need to understand that the more opportunity you have, the more places you can look at. In a lot of cases, people want to stay close to home due to parents and other things along those lines. That certainly is okay and a good thing. At the same time, you need to understand that the more places that you’re looking, the better off you’re going to be because different geographic areas have more employers than others. It’s very common for people to move to New York because there are so many employers packed in a little scene in the city. You’re going to work where you want to. You’re going to have companies’ names on the list. You’re going to have them sorted geographically which is important based on where you want to work and by type of employer. The next thing you need to do is fill in the holes with your list. Find the company’s web address, search that website, and get the contact information for where to send your resume or application. That might mean an e-mail address or a street address. There might also be an online form. Investigate the company, not to discount places that you may be applying but to give yourself information. An example would be your list produces a company called ACME Power Tools in Lake Forest, Illinois. I’m just giving you a hypothetical. I don’t know that there would be a power tool company in Lake Forest. It’s a very nice suburb of Chicago. With that information, you go to Google. This may be all you get. Remember you’re going to have a list of potentially a thousand employers. You enter ACME Power Tools and the city into Google. It gives you the address, which you’ll have, and it will also give you the website. Once you’re on the website look for a tab called Contact, Careers, Employment, or Work Here. You will likely see a list of job openings. That’s also where you’ll find the information you need for submitting resumes. Be sure you are sending your application to the right person if there is more than one. It can be very helpful to build a spreadsheet where you can list all of potential employers with contact information. Include the web address, names of contacts, appropriate e-mail addresses, and any phone numbers available. I also recommend listing the type of application form, for example, an online form, an e-mailed resume, or something sent via US mail. How you structure this is up to you. I recommend using Excel. Some people are more comfortable using a Word document. Now it’s time to get to work. What does that mean? It means apply to jobs. If you’ve found a job opening that fits your skills, follow the employer’s instructions and apply. If there’s no job opening, realize the company is one that is in your industry and you may have a good fit for. Apply anyway to the contact person listed on the website. If there’s no contact person for your specific department, meaning they don’t say in any information anywhere how to apply, apply to any of the people listed. There may be jobs on the site that don’t match what you’re looking for. Say you’re an attorney applying to ACME Tools for an attorney job. There’s no attorney job listed but there’s a contact person. It’s always good to apply to that contact person. Another trick that has been known to work is to apply to the CEO or owner. The reason this works is that, if a company is large enough, the CEO or owner is unlikely to be reviewing your résumé when it comes in. That might sound like a bad thing, but it can work for you. Here’s how: If your résumé is directed toward the CEO’s office, typically someone else, an assistant of some kind, is going to open his or her mail. When the assistant opens the CEO’s mail, that mail is going to be sent directly to the correct person through the CEO’s office. Once the correct person gets it and see that it’s coming through the CEO, he or she is more likely to take action. So if no one else is listed for receiving applications, go ahead and send it to the CEO. Here’s something else to consider: when you email a résumé to a company or apply through its system, someone may review it or someone may not. In some office somewhere, people are sitting there receiving these emails. They are not necessarily excited to keep opening them. They may be getting dozens, even hundreds, of resumes. They’re completely overwhelmed with various applications for these jobs. Because of that, you really need to make sure that when you’re applying to jobs through these employers that you get your application seen. Email may get it seen but it may not. But also consider sending a letter. In some offices, a letter is more likely to get seen. It’s not always easy to find a mailing address for employers, but when you can, it’s a good idea to send a letter. Faxes also get noticed. A fax is typically printed. Often it goes into a little bin that circulates throughout the company until it is delivered to the person’s desk. This is one more way to get noticed. Using all these methods in combination get you seen. Is that overkill? I don’t think so. I think you look like you’re enthusiastic about the job. People love enthusiasm. I recommend more rather than less. You might opt not be comfortable using all of these methods, but certainly continue two ways if not three.

• 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 manner as everyone else. This is very common in the job market. People go to large websites and apply for jobs. They use the same recruiters. They look to others to understand what they should be doing, and how they should be conducting their job search. What I would propose is that you fight a heavy ground battle to find a job. You should fight a heavy ground battle, because it will help you win and get a job where you otherwise might not. For example, if you are fighting on “deadly ground” you will be competing based on the strength of your resume alone compared to other resumes the employer has seen, and the timing of when the employer has seen your resume. The problem with this is that you are not giving yourself any discernible edge compared to other applicants, beyond what you already have. Instead, you are simply competing “face-to-face” with other applicants for the same job. The one with more firepower will win. In most cases you are likely to lose. One of the most upsetting things to any form of established order is guerilla warfare. It is something that we read about and hear about in the news on a daily basis:

• Humvees getting blown up on roads in Iraq.
• People flying airplanes into buildings in New York.
• Soldiers popping out of bushes and killing American troops during the Vietnam War.

In fact, ‘terrorists’ seem to be all we hear about these days. Virtually every day I pick up a paper, I read about one terrorist or another blowing something up, or killing someone. Terrorists are everywhere and it is something that defines our world. Terrorists, by definition, are people fighting guerilla wars. The United States is currently fighting guerillas in Iraq and Afghanistan. Before that, we were fighting guerillas elsewhere. We will always be fighting guerillas. Why do you think we keep reading about guerillas? The reason is that guerilla warfare works. Anytime you fight someone in a way that breaks the rules they are accustomed to, it forces them to develop new rules, and you introduce elements of surprise and uncertainty. Both of these make it very difficult for your opponent. In American textbooks, one of the things young children study at a young age, is the guerilla warfare that American colonists used against the British in the American Revolutionary War (1775-1783), also known as the American War of Independence. At the start of this battle, the British military was widely considered the strongest military in the world. Prior to this battle, Britain had defeated France in the French and Indian Wars and thus, secured a place as a world superpower. In contrast, the Americans largely consisted of hunters, merchants, and farmers, who only volunteered to fight when the battles got close to their homes. The British troops had been taught to fight facing their enemies in open fields side by side. This military etiquette was something originally developed by Frederick the Great. The British also wore bright red uniforms into the fight. Under the British style they would walk shoulder to shoulder and when they got close, say 50 yards, they would level their musket and fire at the colonists. However, the colonists began fighting “Indian style”, hiding behind trees and firing at the British when they were lined up like this. American settlers were completely outnumbered by the British and if they had fought in a conventional manner they would have probably never won a battle. In order to win, the American settlers organized small groups of men who would fight small battles and then quickly retreat. In the American Revolution, the Americans would fire on the British while hiding in fields, from behind trees and other locations. This made the Americans hard targets. They would kill a few British and then retreat. In larger battles, the British would line up to fight while the guerillas would attack the flanks of the enemy and then retreat. They would ambush supply wagons, British messengers, and settlements of British Loyalists. These guerilla tactics are widely believed to have helped America win the American Revolution. They caught the British completely off guard and were criticized by them for not fighting fairly in the war. The colonists learned to fight this way mostly from fighting with the Native Americans. According to John Ferling, author of Almost a Miracle, The American Victory in the War of Independence:

“The colonists learned how to minimize the chances of an enemy ambush, sometimes employed a hit-and-run style of fighting, often utilized a mobile strategy, and not infrequently adopted terror tactics that included torture; killing women, children, and the elderly; the destruction of Indian villages and food supplies. . . . In time, warfare in the colonies came to be associated with a manner of fighting that England’s career soldiers variously called ‘irregular war,’ ‘bush war,’ or simply the ‘American way of war.’ “

Also, the typical belief of the British was that war should be fought in a “gentlemanly” way. In this belief, hiding behind bushes, targeting officers and so forth was not a strategy that the British believed in. However, the colonists did not agree, and they fought differently. Officers in the British army were considered more like gentleman than soldiers, and they were used to the comforts of life in England. They were given these comforts even when marching near the battlefield. The Americans ultimately ended up winning the war, of course, and the United States was established as a country. It is ironic that the Americans owe the establishment of their country to fighting as guerillas, yet we are currently fighting guerillas in various areas around the world. We are being fought against in the same way that we once fought. When you are looking for a job, one of the most intelligent things you can do is search in a guerilla-like fashion and fight the battle on “heavy ground”. In fact, nothing is more important than adopting this strategy when beginning your job search. A central part of my job search philosophy and one of the reasons I have been so successful as a recruiter in the past has been due to the fact that I helped my candidates get jobs on “heavy ground” rather than “deadly ground”. In every single year I recruited, I brought in over $1,000,000 in fees. It did not matter if it was a recessionary year or a good year; I never failed to bring in fees like this. I say this not to brag but to show you how important I believe a “heavy ground” battle is. I do not have a lot of the traditional skills that typical recruiters have. For example, I am more “academic” than social. I am also not the greatest networker. I also do not have great sales skills. But I have always understood the importance of fighting on “heavy ground” and if there is a secret to my success, this is it. I will explain this below. In the legal job search realm, many attorneys are led to believe that recruiters who submit candidates to law firms without openings are “unethical” recruiters. Because this is so drilled into attorneys and young attorneys, many of these attorneys never get this out of their belief system once they become recruiters. Before they will try and submit any attorney to an employer, the recruiter will first verify whether or not the law firm has an actual opening for that specific type of attorney. This is the way virtually every recruiter out there operates in the legal field. They only submit people to law firms that actually have openings. When I first started recruiting at BCG Attorney Search, it very quickly occurred to me that this did not make any sense whatsoever. The reason is because once a law firm had an opening, all the other recruiters in a given city would start submitting every candidate they could to the opening. They would also call a ton of attorneys in the city and start submitting all of the candidates they could possibly submit. The law firm would very quickly receive the majority of the qualified candidates in the city and have their pick among them. Generally, they would pick the attorney with the best qualifications out of the hundreds of candidates they had the opportunity to examine. The odds of any individual attorney getting the job were very slim. Whenever I was working with an attorney, my objective was to ensure they got a job. I knew from experience that if my candidate was competing against numerous other people seeking a job at the same law firms, their odds of getting the job were going to be severely limited. Therefore, I started looking for jobs in unconventional places. For example, one day I read the San Francisco Daily Journal and an article quoted the partner of a small law firm to the effect of: “I have been in this business for 25 years and I have never seen more activity. We are so busy we have set up desks in the halls.” I immediately sent two attorneys, who had been trying to find a job for over a year to this law firm. One was a man who had not practiced law for five years because he had been discovered to be a polygamist and no one would hire him. He was a very talented attorney, however; this was widely known in the legal community. The other attorney I sent over to the law firm was a woman who had been sexually stalked and harassed by a professor in her law school. The law school had fired the professor and, unbeknownst to her, the law professor ended up getting a job at the law firm where she was scheduled to start working after graduation from law school. Incredibly, when she showed up to work at the law firm, the man was her boss again. She ended up quitting and later suing the firm, after the former law professor tried to break into her apartment one evening. Because of this lawsuit, which was widely known in the legal community, this woman was considered a pariah. Both of these attorneys were eventually hired again, and today have very successful careers. The law firm I sent them to had never used recruiters. Most recruiters would never have sent the attorneys there, because most recruiters would have required the firm have official openings. The law firm hired these attorneys, and it was because I used a “guerilla” tactic. By having these attorneys compete on “heavy ground,” they got jobs. Had they applied in large law firms, their prior issues would have come out, and the firm would have simply chosen a “safer” alternative. Doing your job search on “heavy ground” means applying to places to which others are not applying, finding openings others do not know about, and even sending your resume to places without current openings. For example, there are certain law firms that always look for certain types of attorneys, whether they be in intellectual property, litigation, or corporate. In addition, smart job seekers will often seek out jobs in smaller markets instead of larger markets when the market gets tough. They will be competing with fewer people. This is just good strategy. The smartest thing you can do in your job search is find “heavy ground”. In the job sites I run such as EmploymentCrossing.com, I always list the old job listings that companies and firms have posted in the past in a separate section of the website. The reason I do this is because I know that if they have had a certain opening in the past they might have an opening in the future–or even right now. It is smart to apply to places that have had openings in the past concerning your area of expertise, even if the place does not have an official opening right now. Most people do not visit this portion of the site, though, because they are only interested in current job openings. Big mistake in my opinion. Someone may have left the employer and there may be a job opening that has not been advertised yet, or they may simply need more people like you. You are much better off applying for this job right now (and without any competition) than applying for the job later, after it is posted publicly. We call this the EmploymentCrossing.com Archives, and I believe it is one of the best job search secrets out there. When you do your job search on heavy ground, you are not competing with others. I am a firm believer in doing targeted mass mailings to get jobs. A targeted mass mailing means you send your resume (via mail) to companies or firms which are likely to be interested in someone like you. You send it via mail because everyone else is sending emails. You apply to places that do not currently have openings. If the firm brings you in for an interview, you most often do not have any competition for the job because you have not sent your resume to the employer in response to any actual job opening. A couple of my other companies, such as EmploymentAuthority.com and Legal Authority.com, also help attorneys. They are incredibly effective. I do not think there is a more effective way to get a job. I also love another site we have called Hound.com. This site posts jobs from employer websites. Jobs on employer websites are typically not advertised. When I see sites like CareerBuilder and Monster advertising on the Super Bowl, I am not impressed. What this means is that the employers will be receiving hundreds of applications, and it is going to be much more difficult for you to find a job amongst all the competition. You need to apply to places that are not getting a lot of applicants. Since people typically do not congregate on the career pages of employer websites, this is a great way to get a job. You are going to have far more success and get more interviews and job offers from looking for jobs on employer websites than on major job boards. These heavy ground ways of getting a job are often criticized by the establishment and the “order” who believe everyone should get a job in the same way. They are called “a scam” or other similar names by people who do not understand their force. I have been personally criticized a great deal for the job search methods I promote and stand behind. The British criticized the colonists for the way they used to fight and called it “ungentlemanly” and so forth, looking upon it with disdain. The colonists fought on heavy ground and they won. The same thing happened to the Americans when they met the Vietnamese in Vietnam: The Americans lost to their opponent, who fought on heavy ground. My goal is for you to succeed in your job search. Your job search needs to be fought and conducted on heavy ground. You are going to have far more luck and success doing a job search on heavy ground than fighting on deadly ground. I have based my entire career around this, and if you understand the incredible force of working on heavy ground, it will never take you long to find a good job. THE LESSON When myriad candidates are applying to limited positions, practicing unusual tactics in your job hunt will prove far more helpful than following the established routine and waiting for positions to come to you. Much like in military strategy, well-planned and unconventional moves can help you conquer your goals without suffering significant losses. You can land an excellent position by focusing on companies’ needs, rather than depending on job and recruiting advertisements.