Job prospecting is not just for people lying on their on resume, but if you are concerned about an upcoming employment verification check, you have options.
If you have been out of work for awhile, consider these options for concealing a job gap.
Yes, prospecting for jobs works. In fact, most of the jobs in my career I’ve gotten for myself, simply by picking up the phone and cold-calling managers. This includes roles in corporate sales, product management, and technical project management.
However, the most interesting example I have I’m going to relate a story about how I procured an internship for myself during graduate school, with an $800 million manufacturing organization. As an MBA, I wanted to find a strategic marketing opportunity for myself, but it would have to be a paid internship – something that was difficult to find in the immediate aftermath of the Great Recession.
Step 1: Gathered company names and manager lists
I was looking specifically for an opportunity in the oil & gas industry, because I felt that the industry was poised for growth in the coming years. I used resources from the school’s library (in addition to some Google and LinkedIn searches) to build a list of firms related to energy. Interestingly, this one organization was not in energy per se, but rather was a manufacturing firm that sold to the energy industry. What interested me was their focus on engineering (that was important to me personally at the time), and their growth (confirmed by using Yahoo Finance).
Once I had a list of 15-20 companies, it was time to build a list of executives. Given that I was a poor grad student, I did not have money for list providers. Therefore, I used the “Team” pages on the corporate websites to identify potential hiring managers, as well as LinkedIn searches. I also recorded the corporate phone line.
From there, I needed to get the phone number for each manager at the company. I would either call the corporate line and ask to speak to the manager, or use the dial-by-name directory. One note is that this used to work a lot more often in the past than now, but it will still get you to your manager’s line about 50% of the time. Whether or not they pick up is a different matter.
If you’re trying to find a new career, read our blog here
Step 2: Cold-calling the executive
Next, I needed to cold-call for my internship. Here is the script that I used:
Hi, ______, my name is [Alec Groves], I’m doing a networking call for myself here. I’m an MBA graduate looking for an internship this summer in marketing strategy, and wanted to see if there was a way that I could help you.
Do you have a moment?
Real quickly – I have 6 years of experience in marketing, with experience working in energy, and am now an MBA candidate at Northwestern University. Most of my career has been involved in projects that do market positioning, and pricing strategy, and I can also help you with strategic consulting.
The reason for my call, I wanted to make an introduction, and was curious to learn more about the emerging projects you have on the roadmap, and to see if there was something that I could help you with.
Notice that I didn’t mention anything in the script about asking him for a job (or internship). The entire script is about the potential employer, their problems, and any opportunities for me to help come up with solutions.
After calling this manager (we’ll call him Tim), he answered on the first dial, and was blown away by my willingness to pick up the phone and call him. I explained what I was looking for, told him my background, and asked what kind of marketing challenges they were dealing with. We had a brief conversation, and he agreed to a phone interview.
Recommended Read: Addressing Interview Anxiety: A Psychological Perspective
Step 3: Closed the deal (got the internship)
From there, we had a formal phone interview, where he discussed the strategic projects they were working on (in depth), and then how we both envisioned I would be able to help.
During the phone interview, he told me, “we don’t have any budget for this position”. If you ever get that objection, simply agree with them, and keep the conversation going. For example, in my situation, I told him, “I completely understand, and I don’t want budget to be an issue for us. What kind of projects are you working on now?” By the end of the conversation, once he felt confident in me and my ability to help, he told me, “Like I said, we don’t have any budget allocated for this… but I can always find money for the right opportunity”.
After that, I was flown out for an interview, and in May I was headed to the Midwest for what turned out to be the dream paid internship.
To read more about how to execute this approach yourself, read here about cold-calling hiring managers.