How Many Plates Are You Spinning To Find A Job?

Two Basic Truths about Job Search Success
Two basic truths about job search success are: you can’t do it alone and you can’t do it without tapping into your larger network. Far too many people rely on precious few resources to launch a search and often they are the least effective.

Tim’s Strategy is all about stretching your network and making sure that you use the most effective parts of it as efficiently as possible. If you are looking for work, whether you are an executive or an office manager, your success will come when your intelligent activity meets with the right circumstances.

The Painful Truth
So, what is the first thing you must do? Well, first you need to tell people people that you are in need of their help. Sounds simple, right? But for a significant number of job seekers this is extremely difficult. Whether you were fired, laid off or made a move on your own, it is not an easy conversation for the ego. Everyone has their own way to express it such as I’m “in-between”, “looking for something new”, “interested in a new challenge”, but the classic phrase for executives is “in transition”. I never liked that phrase much because it sounds passive (like you are a victim). To me, a successful search is smart, proactive and confident.

Identifying your Plates
As I said in an earlier post, your network can be broken down in micro networks that make up every facet of your life. In Tim’s Strategy, each of these micro networks can be valued, measured and spun at different speeds. But the first step is identifying them. Here are some of the key plates that I spun when I was “in between” in 2007:

- Neighbors (you never know how many hiring managers live on your street until you ask)
- Guys on my baseball team (I play in the So Cal MSBL – a blast!)
- Key recruiters (an important micro network if used carefully, more on this later)
- Web Search Engines (Monster®, Yahoo!®HotJobs®, Indeed™)
- On Line Networking Groups (Linkedin®, Marketing Executives Networking Group)
- Church (same comment about neighbors above)
- Career coach (not cheap but incredibly valuable – especially if you spend the $ early in your search
- Networking groups (CafeNet, McDermott & Bull’s Executive Network – each of these offer local networking opportunities in California)
- Parents of my kid’s friends (soccer team, 5th grade class, gymnastics, you name it)
- High school friends
- My fraternity brothers at Sigma Chi
- My spouse (if you are married or have a significant other, you have no better person to talk you up)
- Former co-workers (especially if you made a strong impression)
- Former vendors at prior companies (their stock rises if you land somewhere new)
- And on and on . . .

Once all the plates are identified, there are a couple of questions to ask which I will handle in detail down the road. Briefly, though: How valuable are these plates (i.e. micro networks)? Can they help you directly or indirectly? How motivated might they be to help you? And, importantly, how often do you spin them (e.g. ask them for help) to maximize their help without burning a bridge?

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