Four Things You Must be Doing

by Carlos Gonzales - Nov 5, 2010

I would like to share with you four things that those of you are looking for work will just have do. There are four things that you just can't get around. "I think I will look for a job next week. No, I think I will do it the week after." I have spent about 70 hours a week in my job search. That's what I'm doing for a living.

When I say 70 hours a week, it's actually a lot more than that. I shut down the computer about 2:00 in the morning. And my wife, I get up when she get's up, at 6:30 in the morning, and by 8:00 in the morning I'm doing something towards finding a job. There are four things that you have to do, in order to get from where you are, there.

Get on the Computer

First of all, the one thing that doesn't seem to work for most people, but I do it for me. It got the recruiter to call me. That is, you have to get on the computer, and you have to actually do all of the things that you need to do. A lot of things I'm not going to discuss here. You've got to be on CareerBuilder, you got to be on this, and you got to be on that, and you have to be doing all the proper searching.

Part of the proper searching is to actually identifying, who do I want to work for? You have to make it a formalized list. Here's my little list. These are the companies that I have been looking, into their websites, once a week, every single week. Some of them have search agents, or whatever. So I actually get emails from them telling me that "We have posted a position for this…" And I go in there and look at that, and no, that's not what I'm looking for. So they're actually coming to me with the positions that they are posting. And then I have a grid with the weeks. And then every week, I went in there, and there was nothing there available, so zero. Or I applied for one position, one or two, whatever. So that I can follow who I have applied with.

You have to do it formalized. I mean one every week. Like Sunday night, when you haven't completed the whole thing for that week, you don't go to sleep. Get on the computer and keep going. Because there positions that are posted this week, they're on there two or three days, and then they're taken up. And they're no longer posted. And if you never called during that period of time, you're never going to see that position.

So that's number 1. You have to hit the computer and do your continuous job search. It's not doing it once, and then you didn't find anything. Well you know, three weeks from now, the posted position that was right for you, and you didn't get it.

Work your Contacts and Friends

The second thing that you have to do, is you have to work all your contacts and all of your friends. In order to work all of your contacts, this is something a year ago when I conducted a presentation to a small group. At that time there were about 20 of us in the room, and I passed this around. This is what I used to call my biographical sketch. Now I call it the executive profile, because one of the recruiters that came and talked us at one of our sessions, said call it an executive profile.

And basically, what this is, it's not my resume. This is something that I use for all my contacts and all of my friends. And I email this. I have about a hundred people out there looking for work for me. Why? Because their my friends, my buddies, they're my co-workers from previous places. And what I have done is that I called them and said, "You know, I'm looking for work. I left xyz bank. I may be putting you down for a reference, so let me email you my professional profile in case they ask you any questions about me. Just to remind you." So basically, it's just a summary with no dates, no anything.

This is something I started doing 25 years ago, because I've been a speaker in this community over the years. And every time that I'm going to give a presentation, this is what I give to whomever is going to introduce me. That was number two.

Network

Number three is network. You have to network. You have to get out of the house and say, two nights a week, I'm going to be somewhere. I'm going to be somewhere, I'm going to be meeting with people who are working, not just people who are unemployed, but with people who are working. And who knows? Whose going to be able to connect me.

The last job that I had with that particular bank, I got it because (I'm from Cuba) I went to a reception of the Puerto Rican Chamber, I talk to the Dominican Chamber, the Puerto Rican Chamber. I'm on the board of the Brazilian Chamber, Casa de Mexico… You have to get around. And I went to a reception at the Puerto Rican Chamber and I ran into a corporate college of mine at another bank, and that's that. And two weeks later I was working at that bank. And that's because I got out of the house.

Come to These Meetings

Number four thing is, you have to come to these meetings. Think of it as Alcoholics Anonymous. But these meetings are what keeps you focused on your job search. And, believe it or not, it helps a lot. It helps because you're seeing that here this week, we had about three or four announcements of people that landed. You can see that there's a light at the end of the rainbow.

So come to these meetings and help by throwing your assets and your skills, and help other people that may need something that you know. If you're good at putting resumes together, and there's somebody here that resume stinks, then offer to give them a hand.