The New Job Hunt: Becoming a Predator

Photo: Nebarnix

The volatile economy and shrinking job market show this job seeker exactly what capitalism means. The Internet proves to be his saving grace as he marches forward within his industry, looking for full time work.

After a long period of searching and many different efforts on my part, I was able to procure a full time position on the editorial staff of the Montgomery Advertiser, the area’s biggest local newspaper. I found this position through a combined effort of searching online, networking, and my own individual efforts above and beyond the interview process. I had been searching for a full time job for about 2 years.

The single most important thing that I learned about the professional job search process is that the people who have the jobs are the ones who are putting forth effort above and beyond clicking the apply button in the online ads. There is no such thing as sitting back and waiting any more. You have to make getting a job a full time job until you get one.

What led me up to this realization was the fact that I had to send out 200 resumes and call back numerous people numerous times to get the job that I did. They did not want me originally, until I showed them my persistence by continuing to call them back and also showing them my work ethic with YouTube videos and editorial pieces that I put up on a free WordPress blog.

I kept calling their attention to the videos and the blog. I am sure that they had a few candidates in front of me, but they were following me. They slowly started to listen, and the breakthrough was when one of the editors in chief left a positive comment on one of my blogs. From then on, she had my back and I was bumped up in the process. But I kept that blog up for 9 months before I got that attention.

Three pieces of advice for conducting a successful job search are:

1. The unemployment situation is worse than what any governmental agency is reporting, so you better pull out all of the stops. Work for that job like you were working for yourself. Anything that you think you should do to show that you are the one for the position, no matter how crazy it is, do it. I put out YouTube videos about local homeless people and did blogs about the same topics that were in the editorial that day to show that I had more writing skill than the person who was actually doing the blog currently.
2. Use the Internet to promote yourself. There is more than enough resources to give yourself an online resume and let people see all of the things that they might have missed in the interview. I for one am not a good interviewer, but when I came in to my first day of work my head editor said that the reason I was hired is because I showed a head for having a unique perspective on my YouTube videos and on my blog. If I had left that up to the 15 minute interview, they never would have known these qualities about me.
3. Find freelance work in your field to keep your skills sharp. There is no reason that you can’t get paid to do what you do best while you look for full time work. Use the Internet to stay sharp so that your mind stays focused and you don’t get depressed. Build your body of work. I used all of the freelance sites to stay busy so that when I got the call, I could perform immediately, no learning curve. Employers love that.

I took my own advice and was successful. You can do it too!

Originally published on CareerConfessions.com.