I found my first job with the help of an on-campus recruiter, and with a local Boston-area recruiter. I found my second job through the newspaper. I’ve found all my other jobs (all of them, including my consulting engagements) via my network, which does include recruiters. That’s about 25 years of jobs.
Louise Fletcher has a great post about companies responding to online applicants, Is there Anybody Alive Out There? Sure, companies are not responding, so what’s a candidate to do? Network.
Candidates: Let me echo Louise’s advice: If you’re not on LinkedIn, join now. Stop reading and go there, join, fill out at least part of your profile, and then come back here. Find the people you’ve worked with before, invite them. Recommend a few of them. The more you recommend, the more likely they are to recommend you. (I’m not affiliated with LinkedIn. I receive no money from this endorsement.)
Is this a pain in the tush? Yup. And, it’s worth it. I know that some of my recommendations have made a difference in people calling me for consulting engagements.
If you’ve been working for more than 3 or 4 years, you’ll need your network just to find good recruiters, if that’s one of your job-seeking strategies.
Hiring managers: If you want the ability to know a little about a candidate before you phone screen or interview them, or if you want to do a behind-the-scenes reference check, you need to be on LinkedIn also.
I don’t recommend Facebook or Myspace for professional networking. You can’t see the connections or recommendations. My kids use Facebook to post pictures and gab with their friends. It’s for social networking, not for professional networking. No, I’m not friends with my kids. That’s just wrong. But when they graduate from college and are ready to increase their professional networks, I will connect with them on LinkedIn, offering them the use of my network.
You need to be ready to offer something to your network connections, and a recommendation is a great way to start.
It’s rare for a more senior person to find a job without networking, so make sure you pay attention to your network (whether you are looking or not), and manage it.
I just spoke with someone who’s looking for a project/product management job in the Boston area (my area). He hasn’t been attending local dinner meetings of the PMI or the PDMA or any other professional society, so I suggested he start.
Making contact with people, networking, is the single most important a hiring manager or a candidate can do to start the search (from either side). Meeting a person, seeing that person face-to-face provides the hiring manager or candidate subjective and objective data that an email or a phone call just can’t do.I have a few guidelines for me when I meet people. (I developed this little checklist because I’m a hopeless geek and can appear rude when I’m not thinking about the other person.)
Keep a smile on my face. If I’m distracted by my drive or work or the kids, I’m not going to look approachable and/or relaxed. I want to be approachable.
Use a firm but brief handshake. I hate those limp-fish handshakes, and they bring out the child in me–I want to grip the other person’s hand harder and longer. (Go ahead, shake your head. I am So I use a firm but brief handshake so I don’t do the macho thing with the other person.
Hug the other person if they start it. I’m very lucky and have had a wide network of people I’ve met and worked with over the years. We have personal friendships as well as professional relationships. So we hug. But I’m geeky enough that I have to wait for the other person to start it.
Making contact–real human contact–with someone is a skill that every hiring manager and candidate needs to develop. You may not need a checklist. If you do, yours may be different from mine. But make human contact with everyone you meet, and you’ll find sourcing or searching for a job much easier.
Too often, people think of conferences as boondoggles. As a frequent conference speaker, I can tell you that it’s possible you’d encounter a marketing presentation devoid of technical content at a conference–once. I doubt that speaker would be allowed to return.
As a result, conferences are a great place to start learning about new things, and they’re a great place to network with other people interested in learning.I can’t possibly list all the conferences here. But I will list the conferences I tend to speak at on a yearly basis, where I think the networking is good.
SQE hosts the Better Software, and STAR conferences. Better Software is for the whole gamut of software development. There’s something for managers, project managers, developers, testers, release engineers. (I don’t think there’s much for product managers.) STAR conferences are focused on testing and management of testing.
Software Development hosts the SD conferences. These conferences are for the whole gamut of software: managers of many stripes including project managers, developers, testers, release engineers. (Again, I’m not sure about product managers.)
AYE conference is about developing interpersonal skills, and is for anyone. It’s limited to 99 people, but we have reports that a number of the people who’ve met at AYE have networked with each other to find jobs.
Many local chapters of ASQ, PMI, IEEE, ACM also hold one-day conferences, aside from their national conferences. Most of them charge a nominal fee for a booth. I find the local one-day conferences a great way to network.
If you read a magazine or belong to a technical society, chances are good that magazine or society is affiliated with or puts on a conference. I particularly like local conferences, because it’s more likely the delegates are local.To use conferences for networking, consider all these alternatives:
Make up flyers with your open positions/ads/whatever will attract people. Include a URL to the full job description. Post a flyer on the message board. Include ways to contact you.
Take advantage of each session and any networking opportunities to talk to people. You don’t have to “sell” your company; you just need to let people know you’re looking. Keep your introduction low-key; let other people help sell you.
If you take a booth at a conference, bring plenty of flyers so people can take one (and maybe pass it along). Be willing to talk to anyone who stops by. Practice your job fair skills before the conference.
If you have a booth, make sure you make the decision early enough to be part of the program.
Give a talk. Your talk about something you/your group has done at work is a huge attractor to potential candidates.
If you use other techniques, please comment. But don’t discount conferences. Conferences can be a great way to source candidates.
I’ve received at least a half-dozen requests for help finding people in the last week. So it’s certainly time to think about ways to find candidates. (I have a whole chapter on sourcing strategy and examples in Hiring the Best Knowledge Workers, Techies & Nerds).
In the meantime, if you just want to consider technical societies, consider these:
For developers, try local chapters of the ACM (Association for Computing Machinery) or IEEE. Here in the Boston area, the GBCACM (Greater Boston Chapter of the ACM) holds 3 days of training in the spring and another 3 days in the fall, along with a variety of meetings. The Boston section of IEEE has a bazillion SIGs (Special Interest Groups), and monthly meetings on almost anything you can think about that’s a technical field.
For process, QA, test, and metrics people, try your local (or relatively local) Software Process Improvement Network (SPIN). The SEI has some resources for getting SPINs started. But once the SPINs start up, they take on the local flavor of the community, and especially the program chair. (I was program chair for Boston SPIN for a few years, and I definitely tilted the program towards more pragmatic approaches to process improvement.) I’ve spoken at a number of SPINs across the country. Some have more orientation towards process, some have more for testing, some are much more interested in metrics.
For project managers, try the local chapter of the PMI (Project Management Institute). I’ve spoken at a number of PMI chapters, so they’re not all PMBOK-by-the-book
For testers, try the SPIN meetings, possibly some IEEE meetings (depending on the topic), ASQ (American Society for Quality) and QAI (Quality Assurance Institute).
For writers, try the Society of Technical Communications.
For support staff people (especially senior staff and managers), try local chapters of the Help Desk Institute
For specific tools, look for user groups. For example, if you’re looking for a configuration management person, (build or release engineer), consider the user group for the tool you’re using.
When you network at a local chapter, remember that you’ll have more success if you attend a meeting rather than just send/email a position description. And you’ll have more success if you attend meetings on a regular basis, rather than just when you need candidates. The more frequently you attend meetings, the more people will remember you and the more likely you are to have other people suggest you as a possible employer.If I’ve forgotten your favorite technical society, please comment and/or send me email. I’ll add it to the list.
I’ve said before that networking is critically important to finding a job and finding candidates. A colleague of mine has just sent me an email explaining her predicament,
I am currently looking for a job and networks are important to me. I you are interested in the resume of an experienced problem solver, a generalist with a passion for organizational development, agile methods and happy people, please let me know. And don’t hesitate to contact me or tell your friends about me. I am on some kind of a timebomb, having h1b status.
I know this person fairly well. And note how she describes herself with those qualities (experienced problem solver), preferences (agile methods and happy people), and skills (passion for organizational development) that are the heart of what makes a person right or wrong for a given context.If you would like to contact my colleague, click here to send me an email, and I’ll forward your email to her.
So I use a firm but brief handshake so I don’t do the macho thing with the other person.
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