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Here’s a Powerful Little Job Search Secret
© Written By Jimmy Sweeney
President of CareerJimmy and Author of the new, www.Amazing-Cover-Letters.com
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There are two magical words that can transform your job search. Two words that can land you more job interviews. Two words that can bring you more job offers…
Those two magical words are, “Follow up.”
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My added wisdom to this tip is that you just don’t just “follow up”.
You have to have the paradigm of “follow up” well integrated into your Standard Operating Procedure. When I was “out”, I used Lucht and his workbook as ONE of my tools. (Best 100$ I ever spent.) But, it was changes to my SOP that made it easy to “follow up”. And a log book.
I feel that I have a terrible memory. (It’s probably too crowded with Jeopardy answers from my own good. Name the four states who capital begins with the same first letter as the state? Done!) SO I try to compensate. I was always logging in my “job search book”. Quick what’s the name of the receptionist at the job interview at XXXXXXX on July 17, 1996. Ms. Mary Stein. (I cheated I had that factoid ready.) But, I have decades of that kind of stuff from when I’ve been “out”.
Now I have everything in text files on my notebook, backed up offline. It’s search able and usable.
My SOP is to log everything.
I grabbed business cards and anything that was being handed out. See the trick was to do it contemporaneously. Even waiting until you were out of the building was too late. I used McKay’s 66 to put as much context around the people. Ms Stein was partial to blue flowers having one on her desk and was pictured with one in a photo on her desk.
Does it matter in the grand scheme of things? I don’t know.
Another SOP of mine was to have several pre-stamped thank yous in my attache case. After meeting with any one, I’d “debrief” at a local coffee shop and write those notes. I felt I was especially tricky in that I had different looking ones for multiple interview days. (I actually had five different stock styles.) And, I would compose a “unique” note to each target. I had “stock text” printing in my bag that I copied from generics with things like <insert question form interview here>. But each target would get a customized thank you. In at least one instance, I know that the three targets compared their notes. I didn’t get the job, but did get the feed back that they were impressed. Not impressed enough though to hire me. Argh!
It’s all about having an SOP to follow. Makes it easy.
Another SOP was to send a thank you to the receptionist with something non-generic. On a repeat appearance at XXXXXXXX, the nice Ms. Stein introduced me to the interviewer, as that “thoughtful fellow I told you about”. Didn’t get the job! Argh! But maybe she was the reason I got the call back, and I was just a bad interview. Who knows!?!
Bottom line: Use SOPs that make it “brain dead” simple to follow up.
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Reinke Faces Life 