Work your career search from the “Top Down and Two Levels Up”.

These two key career strategies that will your help you get in-front of hiring managers and eliminate most of your competition.

The traditional job search method requires jobseekers to submit their resumes to general emails dedicated to receiving hundreds of resumes. The majority of online job postings or newspapers ads provide a dedicated general email or fax number to ensure that busy managers are not bombarded with resumes and do waste their precious time screening unqualified applicants.

But what if you are a qualified candidate?

Often, the people at the other end of these general emails or faxes are often not qualified to accurately screen or recognize various education or experience standards. Most screeners at this level utilize standard qualifications grids or use software designed to recognize key words within resumes.

This ‘Bottom Up’ approach to screening applicants ensures that only resumes with the right qualifications and experiences ‘move up’ the corporate ladder to management that will make the decision regarding who is interviewed and who gets hired. With no other choice, jobseekers feel at the mercy of this approach and try to move their way ‘up the corporate ladder in hopes of landing the job.

However, using this “bottom-up” approach is ineffective. Principally it’s too easy and simple to implement. It is what every jobseeker, including your competition does.

Just click a mouse and send in hundreds of applications to posted jobs each week; simple with minimal effort.

Yet this simple and minimal effort approach contradicts our strategies for other important things in our life; our health, our relationships our finances and our education. All of these things require; strategy, time, careful planning, thought and effort.

I guarantee if you’re; broke, unhealthy, unhappy, and don’t have a great job, then it’s because you are implementing the: “Easy, Simple and Minimal Time Strategy” approach to your life.

Try instead to working your career strategy from the “top down”. When you’re targeting companies, ensure to get the contact information for the highest level managers within the department for the position you want. It will take a little bit of ingenuity, diligence and some research to find the names, emails or phone number of the right managers, but I assure you this little extra effort will eliminate the majority of your competitors. Most of them will simply follow protocol and send their resumes into the general emails and wait. Like with all things in life, this little extra effort will give you a huge competitive edge.

Working your career search from the ‘top down’ will also provide another crucial advantage. It will give you the greatest opportunity to interview “two levels up” with management.

Even if your resume is selected with the ‘bottom up’ approach, then you will probably move one level to an interview. The manager at this level may present a hurdle, as your qualifications, education and experiences might pose a threat to their job security. If you are more qualified, educated or experienced then a manager at a similar level or one-level up may not showcase the new ‘hotshot to his/her sr. level management. I realize managers should hire people more talented then they are, but management theory in text books and management reality is quite different.

Working the job-search from the top down is far more effective. However, the top down approach will demand that you understand and speak to the mindset and needs of sr. management making the decisions to hire talent for their company’s competitive growth.

You must appreciate that sr. managers hire with only two reasons; either you make the company money or save the company money. That’s it. Directly or indirectly you must understand how your involvement impacts the bottom line. Too many jobseekers approach management with their past as the primary reason for their consideration.
But remember, the fact that you have a great education, accomplishments, experience and have great references are a given standards and most of your competitors will have similar or maybe even better experiences and qualifications.

So work you job search strategy ‘top down and two levels’ up and be clear on what you are planning to contribute to the company’s growth and their bottom line.

Minto Roy
President
CareersToday Canada
www.careerstodaycanada.com