Connecting with the Hiring Manager – No Recruiters, HR or Gate Keepers

ResumeBear Blog

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Connecting with the Hiring Manager – No Recruiters, HR or Gate Keepers Posted: 09 May 2011 05:28 AM PDT LinkedIn is, without a doubt, one of the greatest tools for job seekers in finding potential employers. But, if you view it as your primary way of connecting with potential contacts versus a robust resource for information, you could be making your search more difficult than it needs to be. Let me explain what I mean as I walk you through this "how to" session. I want you to think of LinkedIn like your personal White Pages. The more first degree connections you have, the larger your phonebook. I've written before about my philosophy that out of quantity, quality is born. The tool I highly recommend to all my clients for building a vast 1st level of like minded networkers is OpenNetworker. After signing up with them, you will see your connections grow exponentially…as well as your ability to find the people with whom you want an audience. In my case, simply by signing up, my connections went from around 1000 about 24 months ago (which took me almost 4 years to build) to over 15,000 as of this blog…connecting me to over 20,000,000 LinkedIn users. What I am going to walk you through today is only one of the techniques I teach in my Job Search 2.0 Bootcamp.  Adopting this approach, I want to show you how you can get in front of more hiring managers and take control of what they are hearing and seeing about you: 1. Getting Started – Here are the basics that you need: • The name of the company, • The role (you can select more than one, if you are uncertain) to which you would be reporting. You are looking for decision makers here – not HR or recruiters. In the video, I walk through this step-by-step (there is more information on this below). 2. Searching on LinkedIn – Using this criteria, conduct a search on LinkedIn to find the right point of contact – who you would be reporting to in your ideal role. Write down their full name. If you are on the fence about who your ideal contact is, take down all the possible options you can find in LinkedIn. Tip: I recommend starting your search as broad as possible. Run it by company only, and then start adding in criteria like location, title or keywords. It's always better to cast a wide net to begin with and then narrow your search. 3. Googling the Email Format – Since you are going to be reaching out to this contact on your own, we are going to move from LinkedIn to Google. If you think you might have a good contact to use instead of making your own introduction, that’s fine. But, I recommend using my "Litmus Test" in the tip below before relying on someone else to get you in the door. You need to know exactly how good an advocate they are going to be. Tip: When trying to decide whether you should use a connection for an introduction or go it alone, use this easy litmus test. Ask your connection if they are willing to make a call to the contact you are trying to reach. If they are reluctant to do so and only offer to email – or worse yet, put your resume in front of someone in HR – politely thank them and go it alone. Someone with a solid relationship that bears weight won't hesitate to pick up the phone. Anything else is simply an introduction with no teeth and a missed opportunity to make a meaningful first impression. Using Google, add the "@" sign in front of the URL of the company in the search box. In the video, I use the example of Applied Robotics. You can see below what that search looks like. Post was Written by “Kevin Kermes, Founder of Career Attraction” www.careerattraction.com/free-stuff.

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