Career consultants advise cold calling in search for a job

By Andrea Coombes
CBS MarketWatch

SAN FRANCISCO — Despite Friday's positive national unemployment report, a significant portion of Americans still will be out of work today.

Job hunters wait in line to apply for stevedore positions. Experts urge job seekers to regularly evaluate their job-search techniques. Advertiser library photo • Feb. 17, 2000

Maybe you're not a salesman, but consider perfecting the art of cold calling, some career consultants say.

"A hiring decision starts with one person. 'I've got to replace so-and-so' or 'we've got a new grant, we need to hire new people,' " said Marky Stein, career coach and author of "Fearless Interviewing: How to Win the Job by Communicating with Confidence."

"The whole key to cold calling is reaching that person before that person has communicated it to human resources and thereby the media," she said.

Call managers and vice presidents, Stein said. "A primary activity and responsibility of a vice president in any company is to find new talent," she said. "They're willing to interview you more often than you would imagine."

That doesn't mean asking whether the company has any job openings. "They're going to say no, because they don't," Stein said.

Instead, Stein recommends the following cold-call script: "Hello, my name is 'blank.' I have eight years' experience in the landscaping industry and I am currently enrolled in a master's program in environmental planning at San Jose State University. I am an expert in low-maintenance native plants. When can I come in for an interview?"

You'll likely hear "we don't have any jobs now," so try responding with: "Well, that's fine, but I'm not looking for a job right now. I'm looking for a career that matches my skills. Do you think we might meet for 15 or 20 minutes?"

Even that short time is useful, she said. "Any time you get face-to-face with an employer, even if it's for 10 minutes, they will absolutely think of you before they will someone on a piece of paper, even if it's three months later," Stein said.

Set weekly goals

While you search, focus on the good news to maintain your optimism. "The job market is active and 95 percent of America is working," said Bernadette Kenny, an executive vice president at Lee Hecht Harrison, a global career management company.

"It's useful to remember that fact in light of what the media may say about the lack of job growth," she said. "There is normal churn in the job market. People are leaving, they're retiring, they're changing jobs."

Setting weekly goals that are fairly easily attained can help you retain a positive outlook. For instance, "one goal could be to identify one person at five organizations" you're interested in, Kenny said. Then, the following week, one goal would be to contact those people.

While job seekers shouldn't ignore job sites such as Monster, CareerBuilder and HotJobs, don't count on these alone. A recent survey suggests that industry-specific and niche job sites may be more likely to lead to a job.

Companies said 17.6 percent of their new hires came from niche sites, while 8.7 percent came from Monster, 4.1 percent from CareerBuilder, and 1.8 percent from HotJobs, according to the survey of 41 large firms that hired more than 200,000 new workers last year.

"Thousands of people get hired off of the big boards," said Mark Mehler, co-author of CareerXroads, a directory of job sites. But "the corporate recruiters post almost all of their jobs on their own site because it costs them nothing." That means keeping an eye on company sites.

Stein recommends Hoovers (www.hoovers.com) to glean information on specific companies and their competitors, and VC Buzz to find companies that may be hiring.

VC Buzz offers "day-by-day reporting of venture capital being infused into brand-new companies," Stein said. "What happens after companies get money? They hire people."

No matter which job site or search technique you're using, be sure to evaluate it regularly.

For instance, if you're using "15 employment agencies and not one of them has found an interview for you and you've identified 15 people who could help you and 10 of those people have helped you, then that is telling you that your networking is paying off (and) employment agencies are not going to respond well to you," Kenny said.

Consider career change

If jobs in the career you've chosen appear to be moving offshore or are otherwise disappearing, consider a career change. Radical career changes are not uncommon, said Penny McBain, managing consultant with DBM, a human-resources consulting firm.

One client, formerly a director of marketing communications at Nordstrom, "landed a civil position at the Department of Defense," she said.

To research a potential new career, Stein recommends the Labor Department's Occupational Information Network, which lists more than 6,000 occupations with detailed descriptions, including what an average workday is like and salary ranges.

And, when you get to that hallowed place — the job offer — don't forget that, no matter how competitive the job market, it's still possible to negotiate a better salary.

Ninety percent of human-resource professionals said salary is negotiable, according to a survey of 418 such people by the Society for Human Resource Management.

Next on the list of negotiable items was payment for relocation costs, which 56 percent said was negotiable, while 55 percent said flexible work schedules are up for discussion.