It is important for you to know how to use professional networks for hidden jobs at your targeted organization. Following right strategy will open up new door of opportunities. Your proactive steps will also hep you to avoid competition and maintain your confidential search for right opportunities.
The goal or final objective: Opening the communication channel with the decision maker or Influencer for hidden job opportunities.
Step by Step Action Plan
You can divide the action item as follows:
- Find the right decision-makers
- Find the professional social network to contact decision-makers
- How to approach contacts on the social network to explore job opportunities
- What to communicate on the message
- How to reply to positive or negative responses.
The Strategy To Find The Right Decision-Makers
The first step is to decide what type of jobs you are planning to apply. Then go to LinkedIn and search for similar kinds of employees at your target organizations. They may have mentioned the name of their department. Then put the name of the organization, name of the department as the keyword in the LinkedIn search field. You have to look for the Vice President or President of the division. The result will give you a good idea about the individuals heading those departments. Vice President of the division or line of business is the key decision-maker and approves the budget for hiring. You have to develop connections with the right audience at any professional social networks to find hidden jobs.
Different approach for different size of the Organizaiton
Depending upon the organization, your target audience can change. Fortune 500 or very large organizations may have multiple divisions employing or hiring your kind of resources. Most of the time, those big organizations have decentralized in their decision-making process. They contact their HR department for hiring needs. They’re strategic business units (SBU) with their own Profit and loss responsibilities. That means they are quite protective of their line of business and resources. They want to make their decision and budget for hiring based on their business objectives in mind. It is quite common to see the similar nature of work being done by different divisions within a large company. This is good for you as you can target more than one decision-maker in the big organization. They have independent decision-making processes and have significant communication gaps.
The scenario could be different from small and medium organizations. The majority of small and medium enterprises use a centralized decision-making process. Thye shared the same resources to execute work for more than one department. They have a centralized budget and open to share resources with each other. They are much more aware of each other’s need for new hiring. That is because of the size of the organization and close coordination between all the departments. They have heavy interdependencies between the department to manage the cost and deliver business results. You have to be careful in sending an e-mail to more than one or two decision-makers. There is a possibility of sharing of information between different departments.
How To Contact The Decision-Makers
The second step is to contact the decision-makers. You need to personalize your communication with the decision-makers. There are a few advantages of sending social connection requests or direct messages through the social network site. It will give a personal touch by showing your profile, photo, and a brief overview of your professional background. The link to your social profile will also show the recommendation and endorsement from your colleagues and ex-colleagues. The connection request message through social media will have a significant impact on the person you are sending the invitation.
LinkedIn is the go-to professional network site for all professionals. You can also use Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and other social media sites for social connection. The choice of social media for network development depends upon your industry. Most of the professionals in the creative industry use Instagram, Twitter and Facebook to connect and express themselves. LinkedIn is the most useful and best connection tool for job purposes. You can send the invitation or direct messages introducing yourself. You can go through the Social media presence for job hunting articles to prepare your professional networking profile.
Which Social Network to Focus
Let’s focus on LinkedIn as one of the most preferred professional social networks for hidden jobs at your target companies. The objective is to connect with the decision-makers or influencers. This will lead to opening the communication channels through professional networks to find hidden jobs within their organizations.
How To Approach on Professional Networks for Exploring Hidden Jobs
This is the third step to the use of professional networks for hidden jobs. There are two thoughts on the content of the network invitation mail. In the first approach, you can send the network invitation mail. Here you can express your intention for an opening in their organization. The second approach is to send a personalized invitation for adding them to your network. In both the case please update your professional profile on social sites. You can go through the social media presence for job hunting link to update your social profile for maximum impact.
The Direct Approach
The first approach will try to achieve the objective of connecting with the executives open to discuss with you for job opportunities. It shows that you are upfront with your intentions. They can go through your social profile to understand your background with a specific objective in mind.
You can have three responses on the mail; the first set will accept your invitation and will respond to you with a response on opportunities. The 2nd set will accept your invitation but will not respond to your query on openings. You can send another follow-up e-mail after they accept your invitation.
The third set of people will not accept the invite because of various reasons. You can ignore the non-responder. They may not have opportunities at this time or they do not have the authority and willingness to help you. They are basically of no use to you for securing an interview with their organization. It is better to nurture and focus on sets of contacts who have accepted your invitation.
The Indirect Approach
The second approach is to send an invitation without expressing your intention of soliciting their help in securing a job at their organization. You are trying to take two steps to achieve your objectives. The second approach is to connect them through social networking sites and establish a direct connection with them. Once they are your direct connections then you can send them an e-mail to express your interest in a job at their organization.
The advantage is that you will have relatively more acceptance of your request for connection than the first approach. The disadvantage is that you have to go through the fresh connection and send them a message for job opportunities. You can use the elimination process to select the best decision-makers from the newly minted connection and send them messages. This approach will give you more control to select the best audience to get your message.
What To Communicate On The Message
This is the fourth stage and needs special attention. You have to be mindful of what to include in the message. It has to be a brief, professional, clear expression of intention, and your expectation from your contacts. The LinkedIn network invitation has 300 character limits and you have to use the limited space to achieve your objective.
The Screen Size and Length of Your Message
One crucial fact to consider is that most of your recipients will check the messages on their smartphones. Your objective is to keep the message brief. So that they can see the full text on their smartphone without the need to scrolling down. In case more than 300 characters text, the message on the screen should be interesting enough for them to scroll down to read all the content. This is the opportunity for you to attract their attention and keep them engaged to go through the complete message and take action.
If you want to share long website links to highlight your professional experience then you can use bitly.com. You can use free services provided by Bitly to send a short link to your work to impress your contacts. It will reduce the length of your text. It will also provide an easy link for them to visit from their mobile phone.
The Clarity of Your Message
There are few things that your recipients would like to know from your message.
- What help do you want?
- Which position in the organization is suitable for you?
- Why are you a good fit for the organization?
Be specific about the exact position and nature of jobs that you are interested in their organization. In case you have some information on suitable job opportunities in their organization then let them know about that position. Let them know that you are suitable for that opportunity. They have their own priority and you have a small window of time to convey your message and motivate them to act in your favor. They can only help and take action if you let them aware of all relevant information on the job. The relevant details are the name of the position, location, department, and your matching qualification suitable for that position. That information will make their life easier. They will feel more confident in recommending you to the hiring manager or introducing you to the hiring manager.
You can use the same content to send them a direct message through office e-mail. Let them know that you have approached them through the social networking site. This mail can be more informative than the social media message. But the basic concept remains the same. Your premium space is the screen space of the mobile phone. That limited space is the key to persuade the recipients to act in your favor.
Do Not Forget to Update Your Social Profile
Please do not forget to add your social networking profile link to the signature of the text of the e-mail. Always keep your professional network profile up to date. Update information on your background, achievements, and recommendations from your ex or present colleagues.
How To React To Positive Or Negative Response From Your Network
Your professional attitude or ethics will reflect on how to react to positive or negative responses. Keep two e-mail draft copy ready for your response.
Positive Response
Your connection can indicate a possible job opportunity. They may ask you to send your resume or contact one of his colleagues or subordinate to open the discussion. You can thanks them for the support in your job search and send them customized resume highlighting your skills and experience suitable for opportunity at their organization.
In case your connection asked you to contact her colleague or subordinate then send a thank you note to your contact for her support. Then use the original message as the e-mail trail to send a separate e-mail to the colleague/ subordinate referred by your contact and keep your contact in CC. The e-mail will force the new recipient to act on a high priority as it has been referred to by her manager or colleague. The original e-mail trail will give background information to the new recipient. In this mail, let the referred person know that you have been referred by her colleague or manager to contact her regarding the job opportunity. Please attach the customized resume highlighting your experience suitable for the opportunity and asking for the best time for a discussion.
Most of the time you can expect a response from the referred person within 24-48 hours for a discussion.
Negative Response
The negative reply from your contact is also important to respond in a professional manner. Always thanks them for the response. They have gone through your e-mail and have not ignored you. That means they have invested some time to look at your profile and evaluated your profile for their opportunities. If they do not have openings then request them to keep you in consideration for future opportunities. Just keep in mind that you are looking for a job and providing your expertise to improve their organization. You are letting them aware of your skills and experience which can benefit their organization and they have to hire you to take the benefits of those experiences and skills. This is a fair trade.