For Volunteers, Networking & Training
Corrections or additions?
This article by Kathleen McGinn Spring was prepared for the January 15, 2003 edition of U.S. 1 Newspaper. All rights reserved.
Are You Job Hunting? Or Running Job Hunt Inc.?
The new year is beginning for job hunters much as the
old year ended. Telecom is still in full retreat, executives are in
no hurry to upgrade their IT infrastructure, and companies in all
industries are busy devising clever new ways to do more with fewer
employees. In short, it’s no fun to be out there looking for a new
job.
With competition for jobs so fierce that even retailers are enjoying
the unaccustomed pleasure of picking and choosing among the dozens
of candidates who want to staff each of their sales clerk positions,
the unemployed need every trick they can muster to land the few great
jobs out there. They also need a way to keep depression at bay while
the job hunt goes on.
In his new book, “Princeton Management Consultants’ Guide to Your
New Job,” Niels Nielsen offers tactics for landing a great job
— and a unique strategy for keeping spirits up along the way.
He urges the unemployed to ditch the whole job hunter persona and
to become interim entrepreneurs. Forget about looking for a job. Instead,
he counsels, consider yourself a businessperson looking for one really
good client.
Nielsen speaks and signs copies of his book on Thursday, January 16,
at 7 p.m. at Barnes & Noble. He is founder and principal of Princeton
Management Consultants, a firm with offices at 99 Moore Street that
specializes in advising companies on human resources issues. He is
also the founder of Jobseekers, a support group for those looking
for work, which meets on Tuesdays at Trinity Church in Princeton.
Jobseekers has just celebrated 20 years of helping the unemployed
work toward new jobs.
Nielsen flips the job hunt on its head, and along the way strips it
of its supplicant attributes. His approach is invigorating, leading
to an embrace of cunning planning and turning away from conventional
— and generally fruitless — tactics, including most resume
mailing and cold calling. Here is the thinking behind his plan of
action, as well as some practical advice on putting it into place:
Become an interim entrepreneur. You will be most successfulat finding the ideal job if you treat your job search as if you arestarting a business, with yourself as the interim entrepreneur whoprovides the best products (skills and experience) to the right customer(your next employer) at the right price (compensation). The differencebetween the start up business and you is that the start up is lookingfor many customers; you are looking for only one.Offer your services. When you’re in job hunting mode,you are a supplicant. You take every rejection personally. If youdo that, you run the risk of believing yourself undeserving of a decentjob, and that shows as a lack of confidence when you are interviewing.As an entrepreneur you understand that you are selling a service thatyour prospect may or may not need at the that moment. That makes itmore professional and a great deal less demoralizing when you don’tget an interview or a job offer. Then you move on to the next prospect.Get set up to conduct the business of finding a job. Thefirst thing you need to do is to set up a dedicated home office space.Then prepare a financial plan. Like it or not, it is going to costyou money to find a job, but you should see that as an investmentin your future income stream.Define the services you offer. Most people start a jobsearch in the middle. They write their advertising (cover letter andresume) before they define what services they are offering and whotheir prospects are. That’s a huge mistake, because you can’t possiblymake a persuasive sales pitch if you don’t have a clear image of whatyou’re selling to whom.Many people are scattershot when they are looking for a job. Theythink if they send out enough resumes, answer enough ads on job boardsor help wanted ads, sooner or later they will hit something. Ratherthan scattering your resume among anonymous prospects, target individualemployers who have specific needs only you can satisfy.Write down your strategy. Treat a job search the sameway that a business owner launches a new product or business. Defineand write down your job-getting strategy and your short and long-termgoals. Know what your near and long-term goals are and how you aregoing to achieve them.You may have to change your business model, that is, your career.Reinvent yourself by upgrading or repackaging your skills, creatinga new version of yourself, or embarking on a whole new career.Identify your best “products.” The best predictorof future success is past success. Describe all your past accomplishmentsin a way that demonstrates the benefits you can bring to prospectiveemployers. Prepare a product catalog from which you can create youradvertising (cover letter and resume) and your services (interview)as a top performer.Formulate your marketing strategy. Start from the premisethat you are doing business-to-business marketing. Do market research,define your market concept, package your services and yourself, andget the word out through the distribution channels.Price your services. What to charge for your servicesis an elaborate and complicated issue. There is an enormous arrayof salary plans, incentives, stock ownership programs, employee benefits,human resources policies, and perks to consider and negotiate.Prepare your advertising. Now — and only now —that you know what you are going to sell, to whom, and at what price,are you ready to prepare your advertisement materials: cover letter,resume, E-mail newsletter, and website.Ace your sales calls. Remember this: an interview is asales call. You need to know how to sell your services in the interviewand how to ask for the offer.Nielsen is quite sure that those who follow his advice willland a good job, even in this dismal economy. But, he emphasizes,that is just the beginning. Do not use the first days at the new jobas a rest break from the arduous job hunt. Rather, he writes, “hitthe ground running, find out what your employer expects, and startdeveloping a new game plan for meeting and exceeding your employer’sexpectations. Basically, it’s time to deliver what you sold.”Top Of PageFor Volunteers, Networking & TrainingIn the nonprofit world, just as with for-profit businesses,”who you know” is as important as “what you know.”That’s why an annual conference for volunteers, Community Works, emphasizesnetworking as well as information-giving. It opens with a lively networkingsession and the registrants’ contact list is one of the most usefulhandouts that conferees receive.The sixth annual Community Works conference is set for Monday, January27, from 5 to 9:15 p.m. at Princeton University’s Frist Student Center.Cost: $25, including a box supper. Call 609-924-8652, fax to 609-924-4361,or E-mail: mlsprin@aol.com Registration deadline is Monday, January20.Following the networking will be a keynote address by Regina L.Thomas, New Jersey’s secretary of state. Marge Smith, formerhead of the Princeton YWCA, is the founder and organizer of this event.Co-sponsors are the university and the Rotary Club of Princeton.So as to make the best possible use of everyone’s time, the conferenceorganizers arrange for participants to eat their boxed suppers duringthe first of the two workshops. This year there are 19 workshops tochoose from, everything from how to write a grant to how to get yourorganization’s picture in the newspaper. Workshops are assigned ona first-come, first-serve basis, and the deadline for pre-registeringis January 20.Richard Quandt of the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and MichaelBzdak, chair of the New Jersey Council for the Humanities and directorof corporate contributions at Johnson & Johnson, give tips to grantwriters. Claire Sheff Kohn, superintendent of Princeton RegionalSchools, offers “Strategic Planning for Boards and Organizations.”Sallie Goodman, director of Public Presentations, tells howto “Jazz Up Your Presentation.” Lisa Paine, former vicepresident of marketing for Waterford Crystal, gives a market researchworkshop. A newspaper panel — including Kathleen McGinn Springof U.S. 1 newspaper, Ida Furente of the Times of Trenton, andFrank Wojciechowski, a Princeton Packet photographer — willexplain “How to Get Your Picture in the Paper.”Stephanie Bray, development director at Thomas Edison StateCollege, has perhaps the hardest job. She teaches “The InformedAsk: How to Ask for Money in Tough Times.”Participants can attend two of the 19 workshops. Send $25 registrationto Rotary Club of Princeton, 78 Montadale Drive, Princeton 08540.Top Of PageTuition BreakMercer County Community College has announced that itis extending its in-county tuition rates to students from Plainsboroand Cranbury. In making the determination, the school notes that Plainsboroand Cranbury, which are in Middlesex County, send students to MercerCounty schools for grammar school and/or high school. Cranbury youngstersattend schools in the Princeton system and Plainsboro shares a schoolsystem with West Windsor.The savings work out to nearly $30 a credit. In-county students pay$79 a credit, while out-of-county students pay $107.50 a credit. Thetotal savings for students earning a 66-credit associate’s degreeis $1,881. Most credit courses start the week of Tuesday, January21. Call 609-586-4800.Top Of PageNew CoursesStarting later this month, residents of Somerset andHunterdon counties have the opportunity to take courses leading tobaccalaureate and graduate-level certificates and degrees right intheir own backyard through partnerships with Fairleigh Dickinson University,Kean University, the New Jersey Institute of Technology, Rutgers University,Seton Hall University, and Stevens Institute of Technology.Course offerings include grant writing, epidemiology health care,business organization, introduction to pharmaceutical manufacturing,and infant and child development. All classes are held on RaritanValley Community College’s North Branch campus. The spring semesterbegins on Monday, January 27. Call 908-526-1200, ext. 8557 for moreinformation.Top Of PageDonate PleaseMercer County Community College’s Foundation seeks sponsorsfor its Saturday, March 8, Golden Oldies dinner dance at the PrincetonHyatt. Tickets are $200 ($100 is a tax deduction), and sponsorshipsrange from $1,500 (including two tickets) to $10,000. Music will beby the Fabulous Greaseband, and there will be a cocktail receptionand silent auction. Period dress or black tie.The evening honors Al Koeppe, president and COO, PSE&G; Donald Tretola,PSE&G regional manager; and alumnus Scott Kent, area manager of WawaInc. Call 609-586-4800, ext. 3607.Opera Festival of New Jersey offers $225 or $500 VIP level ticketsto a Russian Winterfest on Friday, February 8 at the Princeton Hyatt.Sponsoring a table costs $3,000 for a table of 10, $5,000 for Stravinsky’stable, $7,500 for Prokofiev, and $10,000 for a Tchaikovsky table.The evening includes a VIP caviar and vodka reception, silent andlive auction, dinner, entertainment by Margaret Lattimore, and dancing.black tie.The evening honors festival founders John A. Ellis, Michael Pratt,and Peter Westergaard plus founding corporate sponsor Merrill Lynch.Dress is black tie.Previous StoryCorrections or additions?This page is published by PrincetonInfo.com— the web site for U.S. 1 Newspaper in Princeton, New Jersey.
