Never Apply for a Job Again!: Break the Rules, Cut the Line, Beat the Rest (16 page)

CareerGuy Tip: Good research contacts are two levels above your own position.

So, if you are an accounts payable manager, you’ll want to approach controllers; if you are a sales manager, you’ll want to approach VPs or CEOs; if you are a new graduate with a marketing degree, you’ll want to approach marketing managers or chief marketing officers.

There are several reasons why you want your contacts to have altitude:

1. A higher-level person generally has a wider level of expertise, knowledge, and/or savvy.

2. A higher-level person has a wider view of trends both throughout the industry as well as within their particular organization, whereas a lower-level person will be more involved in the minutia of the moment.

3. A higher-level person will have a broader awareness of upcoming projects and directions that the department or company as a whole will be pursuing, whereas the lower-level staff will be more focused on what needs to be done
today.

4. A higher-level person is more apt to be senior enough (in age or experience) to understand and appreciate the value of professional relationships and the role of mentoring, whereas a lower-rung worker may not be as politically astute.

5. It’s a lot easier to get passed down than up if your contact wants you to meet others he thinks can further help you within his own organization.

For these reasons, you’ll target the higher-level professionals in your fields of interest for your research interviews. Again, not necessarily the president or CEO; just two levels higher than the level at which you would see yourself operating.

As we discussed in the final questions development portion of Principle #3, when you have an authentic and engaging interest in something, it’s never a problem to put together 20 or more questions about that subject. So, that’s what you do. Write down exactly what it is you want to know about that area, field, technology, cause, and so on, to design your research projects. This will be easy, and will give you the basis for information-gathering that will provide the necessary knowledge you need, as well as the contacts to support a stealth transition.

Principle #5: A Friend in Need Doth Repulsion Breed

I hear you saying, “Okay, I can go out and ask a lot of questions, but how is that going to get me a job?” To answer that, let’s revisit the gist of Principle #2, An Ounce of Research is Worth a Pound of Job Search: JUST FORGET NEEDING A JOB!

As a matter of fact, when you really get into this mindset and play this well, if someone actually begins to talk to you about an actual job opportunity within your research area, you’ll respond calmly, without any nervous twitch or gleeful overexcitement at all: “Oh, an opportunity? Sure, well, I was really just seeking some answers, but sure, if you have something you’d like to discuss, I’d be happy to talk about that. Would you like to set up another time, or would you like to discuss it now?”

This isn’t about being aloof. It’s about being focused and knowing your own value, so you don’t come across as beseeching.

In other words, if you’re really focused on passionately discussing those things which truly interest you—which will be contagious, completely infecting the people you meet with—and coming from that joyful exploration rather than
need
, you’re going to show up more attractively. People will naturally want to help you and, even as you assert that it’s not about getting a job, they’ll actually be more proactive in funneling opportunities to you!

But you can’t come at it with that end in mind. You must
really
drop the “I need a job!” desperation. It may be counterintuitive for you, but years of experience have proven that it works.

CareerGuy Mantra: Approach from need, away they stampede. Approach from joy, the world will employ.

Approach from joyful inquiry and three things occur. First, when you take away the protective armor that many people wear—which shields them from the needs of others that they are afraid they can’t fill—their natural tendency to help you will spontaneously emerge.

Second, when you’ve eliminated all indications of desperation, you’ll just naturally appear as more appealing to them: like the belle of the ball who confidently, though not smugly, embodies her own value.

Third, when you speak to an area of passionate interest for you that relates to their expertise, it’s like you’re singing their song, and the natural enthusiasm that arises creates an emotional bond between the two of you.

Let me give you an example of how shifting your mindset away from neediness shifts your energy, which, in turn, shifts the opportunities attracted to you. A client of mine was a high-level, VP-marketing type. We completed his preliminary career inventory work, so he understood his unique value and patterns of success; we even personally “branded” him in an authentic yet catchy way, so that his verbal presentation of himself made him stand out from others, as did his branded resume.

He then proceeded to stealth forward as I instructed him—strictly to research certain topics interesting to him and to build relationships. The only problem was that he still allowed survival-mode desperation to seep into his conversations. His hints of beseeching weren’t overt, but a tone of fear-based neediness limited the results he was achieving. He wasn’t getting referrals based on his research (which we will discuss later), and he definitely wasn’t hearing of opportunities.

As much as I coached him to “de-desperatize” himself, he continued to show up in meetings as the equivalent of an online-matchmaking-site newbie: desperate and needy for a “relationship.”

One day he said, “Darrell, through all the introspective work we’ve done, something has become clear—I have entrepreneurism in my blood! My father was an entrepreneur. His father was an entrepreneur. My brothers and sisters are all entrepreneurs. So I’ve come to this conclusion: To heck with corporate jobs—I’m going to start my own business!”

He went on to purchase a couple of franchises and was happier than ever. But what matters most, and the point of the example, is that the moment he stopped “needing” a job, some interesting events occurred.

With his job search now completely behind him and out of his mind, he began receiving calls from folks he had met during his stealth campaign. He also started to receive unexpected calls on the branded resume he had placed on the Internet. Now without any attachment to landing an interview, he returned calls and discussed frankly the opportunities people presented to him, exploring the industry’s and company’s direction, and so on. Basically, he engaged in a lot of unattached chit-chat (a.k.a., non-desperate research).

In one instance, he told a hiring manager over the phone, “In all honesty, the role and compensation you’re describing is simply far below anything I’d consider, so I don’t want to waste your time by coming in.” The hiring manager, probably not used to such detachment from a candidate, responded that he would be more than willing to raise the compensation significantly if he could find someone of a high caliber that warranted it…and basically pleaded for him to come in for an interview.

CareerGuy Tip: The only thing between you and the world appreciating your value is your neediness.

He actually did go in, and opened some further doors for himself, but that’s beside the point. What matters is that when he “de-desperatized” himself—removing all neediness from his conversations, demeanor, and actions—the world responded immediately to this new self-perception of his value.

His internal-world
sense-of-value
shift caused an external-world
awareness-of-value
shift. He called me to say that he finally understood what I had been trying to impart for so many months. Without
need
glaring through everything he did and said, and by simply focusing on research and building authentic relationships, the world was practically begging him to come out and play.

Think about this principle in your own life, when it comes to anything you have feverishly sought (a romantic relationship, a promotion, special recognition) versus things you have coolly and calmly “attracted.” It’s the same lesson in all instances: What we think we need, we tend to push away because we are less our real self. We are trying too hard. But, when dropping the mask of need and standing in our own value, we can even find ourselves pursued.

“You need not leave your room. Remain sitting at your table and listen. You need not even listen, simply wait, just learn to become quiet, and still, and solitary. The world will freely offer itself to you to be unmasked. It has no choice; it will roll in ecstasy at your feet.”

~Franz Kafk a

Perhaps Kafka takes it a bit far in terms of career transition— because you definitely need to be out there meeting people rather than at your table! But the spiritual energy to which he alludes is absolutely relevant: You want to meet others, while in full awareness of your own value and self-sufficiency, in a collegial rather than needy way. That is why your emphasis is to get answers to your research projects rather than hit folks up for a job.

Everyone is your friend until you see it otherwise. As a matter of fact, one of the best definitions for a friend that I’ve used in presentations for years comes from Webster’s Dictionary: One who is not hostile! That really opens up your list of available friends to connect with, doesn’t it?

Principle #6: Call Me Expert, I’ll Open My Door

You may be wondering how you will actually set up these research project meetings. Easy! Just put yourself back in college when you were doing a case study, or some other time in life when you wanted to find out about something merely for the sake of learning.

First, you find people involved in that subject area, and then you make a request to meet! If you are really in the research mode/mind, this won’t occur to them as weird at all…and you will come across as someone they will genuinely want to help with any information they have. It works for 22-year-old students looking for a first-time career, and it works for 50-year-old executives exploring new options.

Let’s not discount the experts who may already be surrounding you in life. Besides the outer, unknown experts, a critical ingredient of an effective stealth campaign is tapping into your current network of relationships. For sure, you
want to expand your network far and wide with all of the authorities and higher-ups in their respective industries. But don’t discount the throngs of people
in your world right now
who have information, knowledge, contacts, and relationships
that you have no concept of
simply because you have not tapped into them effectively.

CareerGuy Tip: Right now, at your very fingertips, are contacts, knowledge, and relationships that could move your career forward.

In a thorough stealth campaign, you always want to harvest from your own fields first…because the fruit of the harvest is so much closer and just waiting to be scooped up. Even if you think you have already scoured your current relationships for all the helpful input, advice, and connections they can offer, I promise you that you haven’t—because you haven’t used an effective method.