Welcome Monday, right?
Before you dig into your email looking for that invite to an interview, stop!
Open up your calendar first! See what activities you’ve got going on for the day. Now, if you see you’ve got large chunks of unscheduled time, beware! How are you going to use that precious time? It will slip by without much to show for unless you assign yourself work. What kind of work? The proactive kind.
Stop Defaulting to the Job Boards
It is way too easy to log into Indeed and search for jobs that may have become available. Save that activity for the end of the day. Proactive work means you are doing outreach and lead generation. This is the tough stuff we generally don’t like doing because…
I say we, because I don’t like doing it either. I am much more comfortable logging into Twitter or sharing great articles I’ve read that may help my followers and friends, but I’ve got to stop. Each minute I spend NOT generating leads is costing me money. It is costing you money too. How long can you afford to be unemployed? Time is ticking!
Back to your lead generation. How do you do this? You pull out your marketing plan (read what it is here) and see what target companies you need to infiltrate. Who do you need to know inside companies you are interested in working for? (Not sure how to identify target companies? You can read How To Find Target Companies)
Dive Into LinkedIn
Now, go to LinkedIn and search for that company. See who works there. Look at the faces and names of people. Do you recognize any?
See which people are second degree connections and see who the common connection is in your network. These are the people you will need to reach out to. You will simply ask them for an introduction to the person inside that target company.
I suggest you do this outside of LinkedIn. Requesting an invite to connect through LinkedIn is tricky and not necessarily intuitive. Most requests I’ve seen are poorly executed. Regular email is less complicated. A phone call can be even better!
Finally, take notice of the LinkedIn groups the company insider belongs to. (Pssst: you may want to join those groups too!)
If you do this during your unscheduled time, I think you will feel like you’ve made greater progress.
What’s stopping you?
Hannah Morgan speaks and writes about job search and career strategies. She founded CareerSherpa.net to educate professionals on how to maneuver through today’s job search process. Hannah was nominated as a LinkedIn Top Voice in Job Search and Careers and is a regular contributor to US News & World Report. She has been quoted by media outlets, including Forbes, USA Today, Money Magazine, Huffington Post, as well as many other publications. She is also author of The Infographic Resume and co-author of Social Networking for Business Success.
