I’m cruising along thinking things are going well when a call comes into my office. “Chris, can you come see me”. Entering my bosses office I can immediately sense this is not going to be a normal meeting. I am right. After the “you have been laid-off” statement my mind went numb. Wow, I did not see that coming. They didn’t replace my position and I received a wonderful letter of recommendation but reality was sinking in fast. I was unemployed and job hunting sucks.

Trust me when I tell you I did not want to deal with being unemployed at so many levels. All the details to deal with seemed so overwhelming. Details like choosing crazy priced cobra or “affordable” care and the penalties of not having either. The maze in applying for unemployment and how little it was. Should I cash in my 401K and take the tax beating. Should I sell my house as I might not be able to find work locally. All this predicated on how quickly I could make lemonade out of my career lemon.

After the initial “pity-party” with my wife and family I was bound and determined to overcome this setback with a vengeance. I went into a full-on “get a job” mode that had served me well before. I quickly found that I needed a slightly different strategy, however. There were a couple of reasons for this:

• There is so much more competition than ever before. Hundreds applying for the same job.
• I’m a Swiss army knife of experience in a switch-blade single purpose world.
• By nature of age and professional experience I am intimidating to some.

5 Tips To Keep Your Job Hunting Less Sucky.

1.) Tweak the resume and have many. As my experience over the years has given me some incredible insight at multiple levels I have found that not everyone wants to hear about it. The hiring teams have a position to fill and need to find someone focused on their needs. Notice that I said “their” needs. For example, I have multiple sales focused resumes. One that emphasises my major account management experience, one that highlights my enterprise executive management successes and one that de-emphasises my titles and focuses strictly on basic sales management. All correct but focused to fill their specific needs.

2.) LinkedIn is great and not. I love LinkedIn for connecting and networking. However, finding a position that doesn’t have mass applicants, good luck. Also, very rarely do I find upper management positions on LinkedIn.

“I’m a Swiss army knife of experience in a switch-blade single purpose world.” – Chris Lott

LinkedIn is a great place to direct others for your professional profile and recommendation. With well placed keywords and some effort on picture and content it is a great online resume. It also is pretty static. What I mean is if you want to pursue a specific management position does your LinkedIn profile project all your accomplishments related or not? Something to think about for serious job hunting.

3.) Recruiters can be a double edged sword. I have had, for the most part, great experiences with recruiters. They have helped with upper-level job finding, interviews, resume tweaks per position, and salary expectations. They also charge the employer. Sometimes quite a bit. While everyone tells you this doesn’t affect their final decision I have my doubts.

4.) Interviews and the no win scenario. Interviews are not hard for me typically. I am in sales after all. With that said there are three situations that can become no win scenarios.

• The first one is the – due diligence going through the paces (actually yawning) interview. If I can tell that this is a due diligence interview I call them out on it. I need a job and am not interested in fulfilling their interview quota.
• The second is the – I am going to impress you because you have intimidated me interview. If the interviewer is trying to impress me too much I back off and acknowledge their accomplishments.
• The third is the – as I am going through the process not all interviewers are on the same page interview. Start each interview by asking how the interviewer sees this position regardless of what you have been told previously.

5.) Firing up job posters and talent acquisition specialists. Do not just apply for a position. Find out who posted the position and contact them directly. Design a catchy fun email to reach out with.

There are, of course, many more pieces to this job finding exercise but this should help you get by some of the new hurdles I’ve experienced. Good luck on your job hunting!

Chris Lott

Chris has over 15 year’s Sales Management experience including Business Ownership, Product Management and Web Design/Marketing. He’s a national sales team strategist and trainer. Chris is the designer of the popular totallysales™ sales playbook with thousands of copies downloaded. He’s a nationally syndicated author with his articles on SalesBlog! rated as a “top must-read” on consultative selling.