Techniques for Tapping into the Hidden Job Market?

MAINTAIN - Keep Your Network Alive

Maintain that network you have built! Don't let it die just because you have a job and don't think that you need it any more. You need it, forever! It's your doorway to the Hidden Job Market.

The beauty of the network that you've now established is that, as you advance in your career, so will many of the other members of your network. So, you will move up the career ladder together, helping each other along.

Maintaining Your Network:

• Focus on making it grow - consciously try to meet new people, outside of your new employer's organization.
  • List everything you did and everyone you met (who learned your name) during your job search. Count up the number of names and determine how much larger you can make it in the next 12 months, be reasonably agressive (if you met 50 people, adding 5 people is only 10% growth, less than 1 new person every 2 months, which should be easily achievable). Don't make yourself crazy, but don't make it so easy that it doesn't get done.
  • Look at the number of things you did (meetings, articles, associations). Prioritize them according to how useful they were to your job search. Focus on the ones with the biggest payback to you. Discard the ones that were more effort than they were worth.
• Make time for at least one "networking" phone call a week to someone you met in your hidden job market campaign (one of those people from your list above). Find out how they are doing and see if there is anything that you can do for them. Meet them for a cup of coffee or lunch or an association meeting. Share news and insight.
• Keep that personal resume Web site up to date, but indicate on it that you are not in the job market (see the bottom of the sample ASCII resume).
• Stay in those professional/industry organizations! Use the priority list you developed above to determine the ones to keep active and the ones that go "on the back burner."
  Go to the conferences, workshops, seminars, and monthly meetings. Stay on the committees, if you can (at least one of them). You will continue your professional growth, and maintain those important connections. Some employers will pay for your membership, too. If not, and the meeting cost is high, pay for it yourself (as an investment in your career) if you can afford it. If you can't afford it, ask one of your colleagues if you can attend a meeting as their guest.
• Continue writing, teaching, and speaking. You will be more successful professionally if you can write well and are comfortable speaking in front of groups. So, consider this professional growth as well as professional networking.
• Continue to meet with members of your job hunt support group, probably less often. As they land their jobs, you will gain insight and connections into other organizations, expanding your network even more. When everyone has a job, continue meeting periodically (maybe monthly or quarterly), and have everyone bring a guest once in a while (quarterly?) so that the network continues to grow.

Picture yourself calling up your colleagues from an association's program committee the next time you launch a job search, and asking them if they know of any good job openings. Or, even better, picture yourself receiving a phone call from a member network asking you to accept a job at their company! It happens!!

Good luck with your job search!