I'll tell you my story and if you can, tell me what I should be doing that I'm not....So what should I be doing? If you were in my position what would you do to try and find work with the skills I have?
Sorry it took me a while to respond, but I've had very little access to the Internet these last few days.
When you visit a company, how much research do you perform in advance? Do you study their website, search the Internet for customer comments, visit them ahead of time as a potential customer, speak with people in town to get a sense of their reputation, study their financials to know how much cash they have, how much they are growing, where they hope to expand, learn the names of the key company officers, and so on? Good sales people get up early every day to do this so they understand a potential customer's needs before considering how their products could best meet those needs. As someone looking for work, you too are a salesman: You are selling your services.
I'm making up a scenario to try to make the point. Let's say that you seek a job advertised at a local bookstore. You visit the store to find how it's organized and laid out. Previously, you researched online and found three local colleges whose students need books, but you notice that these books are not available at the bookstore. You talk to some students and find that they pay a very high price for books at a university bookstore (they can't wait for books to arrive from an Internet supplier). Next, from your contacts, you determine that it's possible to get the books at a better price from a little-known supplier overseas. You contact one of the three local colleges, persist on the phone until you track down the decision-maker, and learn that she'd be delighted to have another bookstore set up, free of charge, in some available space in the Student Centre building for two weeks at the beginning of each term. You also learn that new students receive an information packet that lists stores where they can buy books, and your local bookstore is not on the list. None of the advertisers on that list offer any kind of loyalty discount, which would attract students. And so on, and so on.
What have you done?
- Learned about the store and how it could improve
- Learned about a real need that the store could meet
- Used your contacts to find a cheaper source of books
- Demonstrated your initiative by contacting a college and relevant decision-makers
- Learned new ways in which the bookstore could reach customers who are guaranteed to spend money
- Delivered value to the store owner before you ever walk in for an interview
If the bookstore has been bombarded with 200 CVs from local candidates, all in the same format and with the same content as sent to 100s of other bookstores, and then you walk into the store with a 2-page idea for generating new revenue based on your personal knowledge and experience, who do you think will get the job?
