Landing an appointment – Part I
This three part series (Part II, Part III) is based upon material provided by and conversations with an old friend of mine, John Burke. In the tough times that we need alternatives to the traditional submission of a resume.
Sending an unsolicited resume with an appropriate cover letter is seldom the most effective way to crack a target employer (particularly if there is no job posted); your resume is likely to get lost in the shuffle, discarded by an errant key word search, or simply fail to meet the fancy of a first tier HR administrator. You’re out before you’re invited in.
We all know that when on the hunt for a project or position, nothing happens until you actually meet with the decision maker. Our initial efforts should be totally devoted to securing appointments with multiple employers. At this point in our careers, we don’t actually need more interviews, we need appointments for exchanging information with interested executives. We need to alter our mindset from one of an applicant to one of a consultative vendor.
By framing your strongest competencies as the solution to Executive’s most ubiquitous issues, the appointment is ultimately controlled by you, the available expert. You are expected to ask the questions, rather than recite interviewee answers. The hat changes from applicant to vendor and your contact becomes a customer, rather than an employer.
That transformation alone makes it easier for you to get in.
As a vendor, you would never consider approaching the pertinent “buyer” of your services by submitting your credentials to the Human Resource department; as gatekeepers, their job is to screen you out unless there happens to be an open position for which you appear to be an absolute perfect match. Now that you represent yourself as a solution, all you need is the power to get appointments.
There is an insightful book called The Power To Get In, by Michale A. Boylan, that goes into some detail as to how to attain this power. I’ve used Boylan’s principles for years with great success and am not ashamed to admit that he’s the genius who created this winning strategy. It works something like this:
The first task is to take your resume and distill the information into a one page profile that describes what you do well. The document should have no resemblance to a resume: no objectives, dates of employment, chronological listing of employers, not even any titles or where you graduated – if it looks anything at all like a resume it will never see the desk of the intended recipient.
Good luck to all
Barry
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