How to Search for a Job

Nick Corcodilos is one of my favorite sources for advice on job hunting. Leveraging his experience as a best-in-class headhunter, he lends his considerable talents to pulling back the curtain on the absurdity of corporate hiring — and the job-search industrial complex that has risen around it. He doesn’t pull punches and he’s almost always good for a smile or two as well. His weekly newsletter is a never-miss for me.

This week he continues his insightful critique of LinkedIn with illuminating examples of how people commit career suicide in a futile attempt to find a job. Buried in the article is a succinct recap of his method for how to find a job the right way:

You search for a job by identifying companies that make products or deliver services you’d like to work on. (See Pursue Companies, Not Jobs.) Then you figure out — figure out — what problems and challenges those companies face in running their business.

Most important, you carefully and thoughtfully pick a handful of your skills that you could apply to those problems and challenges, and you prepare a brief business plan showing how you’d use those skills to make the business more successful.

(Note that this does not involve reading job postings.)

Then you hang out with people who have business with the company, for as long as it takes to make friends with them, until they get to know you well enough that they’re happy to refer and recommend you personally to the manager whose department you could clearly help.

I couldn’t agree more. That’s how it’s done.

Follow Nick on Twitter at @NickCorcodilos. And don’t hesitate to subscribe to his newsletter — it’s always a gem regardless of where you are in your career and what side of the hiring process you find yourself.