Career Advice Podcasts & Job Seeker Network
The PMN: Personal Marketing Newsletter
Research is a critical step of the job search that people often overlook. Without learning about the companies that you want to apply to, you're telling them that you don't really want the job. Conducting research allows you to: gain key insight about a particular company and the industry, uncover hidden job leads, and discover cool companies you may want to target using a direct mail approach.
Here's a case in point.
In the pre-Internet days of 1993, I was looking for a new job in the marketing field. I had graduated college a year earlier with a B.S. in Marketing, and the area of Connecticut where I lived was considered the "Marketing Consultant Capital of the World." I knew I was in a prime location for my job search. The library became my home for several days while I gathered as much information as I could on the marketing companies in my area. I used industry magazines, the phone book, and newspapers. I looked for anything related to marketing companies in my target locations. I was determined to work for one of them.
I compiled a list of about eighty different marketing firms I thought I could work for as well as the names of their presidents. Many of them were small companies. When I couldn't get the name of the president, I called the company directly and asked. Then I set about creating a direct mail campaign with a new résumé concept I had been working on. Working from my list, I mailed my résumé directly to each of the contacts I had found. Within a six-week period I had secured seven interviews. That's a success rate of about 11% - pretty good for direct mail standards of the day. I received lots of complements on my approach to seeking work with them. On my last interview, I was offered a position as a research associate for a small marketing research firm.
The Internet would have made my direct mail campaign a much easier one if I had access to it back then. Today, there is so much information on the World Wide Web it can be daunting. But if you know where to search, you can end your job hunt that much faster.
Below is my "Personal Marketing Newsletter." It was the new résumé concept I conceived while targeting my list of companies. I mailed eighty of these and received seven interviews.
Here's a case in point.
In the pre-Internet days of 1993, I was looking for a new job in the marketing field. I had graduated college a year earlier with a B.S. in Marketing, and the area of Connecticut where I lived was considered the "Marketing Consultant Capital of the World." I knew I was in a prime location for my job search. The library became my home for several days while I gathered as much information as I could on the marketing companies in my area. I used industry magazines, the phone book, and newspapers. I looked for anything related to marketing companies in my target locations. I was determined to work for one of them.
I compiled a list of about eighty different marketing firms I thought I could work for as well as the names of their presidents. Many of them were small companies. When I couldn't get the name of the president, I called the company directly and asked. Then I set about creating a direct mail campaign with a new résumé concept I had been working on. Working from my list, I mailed my résumé directly to each of the contacts I had found. Within a six-week period I had secured seven interviews. That's a success rate of about 11% - pretty good for direct mail standards of the day. I received lots of complements on my approach to seeking work with them. On my last interview, I was offered a position as a research associate for a small marketing research firm.
The Internet would have made my direct mail campaign a much easier one if I had access to it back then. Today, there is so much information on the World Wide Web it can be daunting. But if you know where to search, you can end your job hunt that much faster.
Below is my "Personal Marketing Newsletter." It was the new résumé concept I conceived while targeting my list of companies. I mailed eighty of these and received seven interviews.
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© 2012 Created by Chris Russell.
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