Point Lookout: a free weekly publication of Chaco Canyon Consulting
Volume 9, Issue 29;   July 22, 2009: Finding Work in Tough Times: Marketing

Finding Work in Tough Times: Marketing

by

We aren't accustomed to thinking of finding work in tough times as a marketing problem, but it helps. Here are some suggestions for applying marketing principles to finding work in tough times.
A pair of adult trumpeter swans

A pair of adult trumpeter swans. The trumpeter swan, Cygnus buccinator, is the largest North American swan, and is almost entirely migratory. The swans of the Lacreek National Wildlife Refuge spend winters there, and migrate to Greenwater Lake Provincial Park in Porcupine Plain, Saskatchewan. Annual migrations, like all migrations, are expensive strategies for any animal, adopted only when they offer significant advantages. Many professionals today face stark choices similar to the choices the ancestors of migratory animals faced: keep doing what you're doing in the place you're now doing it and risk extinction, or go somewhere else and perhaps do something else that might be better. Migration for professionals can be a relocation, career change or a combination of both. It isn't pleasant, but what's the alternative? Photo courtesy U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

Finding work in tough times is like marketing in an environment that's flooded with sellers. At the executive end of the job market, compensation is high enough to support professional executive placement specialists, but if you aren't one of the elite, you'll be doing your own marketing.

Here are some suggestions for positioning yourself as a superior product, reaching the buyer ahead of your competitors, creating a compelling message, and making yourself easy to find for anyone looking for someone like you.

Participate in local chapters of professional societies
Professional societies emphasize education, networking, and job search services tuned to your profession. You can exchange news and techniques with colleagues. Especially valuable: leadership positions or responsibility for posting job openings.
Teach
Teaching in continuing education programs dresses your resume; keeps you fresh; and gives you networking opportunities, access to library facilities, and faculty discounts for equipment and software.
Speak
Tight budgets are compelling chapters of professional societies to favor local nonprofessional speakers. Extra income is unlikely, but you'll make yourself known to people who might want to hire you.
Use Google alerts
Avoid surprises in interviews by being informed about current events in your profession. And be among the first to learn of new opportunities. If you're targeting a particular company, set a Google alert related to your target. Set alerts for people you know, your target industry, yourself, and anything that appears on your resume or record, or anything anyone might ask you about. Include misspellings.
Avoid surprises in interviews
by being informed about current
events in your profession
Network, network, network
Effective networking requires discipline, organization, and dedication. Networking in person is best; telephone is next best. Networking through Web sites can be helpful, too. There are books and Web sites galore. And job search networking groups are almost everywhere. Search for groups in your area by modifying this example for Boston.
Get into electronic business networking
As an active electronic networker, with a presence at LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter you'll create a multi-media resume. You'll gain a clean, professional presence that highlights your accomplishments, capabilities, and assets.
Keep submitted resumes fresh
On-line resume databases often display submission dates to employers, who sometimes interpret older dates as indicators of undesirability. Visiting your submitted resumes monthly and making slight modifications probably resets the submission date.
Publish
Publish books, scholarly articles, book reviews, or articles in trade magazines or Web sites. Regular book reviewers often get free books, and you'll be helping the world find you.
Blog or tweet
If you have useful things to say, create a blog, or tweet regularly. It's a commitment, but it can also keep you sharp and engaged, and the word will get around.

In this environment, you have to be inventive to stand out. Sending out resumes isn't enough. In May, 2009, software engineer Larry Fowler placed ads on WCRB, a Boston radio station. Whatever works. First in this series   Next in this series Go to top Top  Next issue: Finding Work in Tough Times: Communications  Next Issue

Go For It: Sometimes It's Easier If You RunLove the work but not the job? Bad boss, long commute, troubling ethical questions, hateful colleague? This ebook looks at what we can do to get more out of life at work. It helps you get moving again! Read Go For It! Sometimes It's Easier If You Run, filled with tips and techniques for putting zing into your work life. Order Now!

For more on finding work in tough times, see "Finding Work in Tough Times: Strategy," Point Lookout for July 8, 2009; "Finding Work in Tough Times: Infrastructure," Point Lookout for July 15, 2009; and "Finding Work in Tough Times: Communications," Point Lookout for July 29, 2009.

Your comments are welcome

Would you like to see your comments posted here? rbrendPtoGuFOkTSMQOzxner@ChacEgGqaylUnkmwIkkwoCanyon.comSend me your comments by email, or by Web form.

About Point Lookout

This article in its entirety was written by a 
          human being. No machine intelligence was involved in any way.Thank you for reading this article. I hope you enjoyed it and found it useful, and that you'll consider recommending it to a friend.

This article in its entirety was written by a human being. No machine intelligence was involved in any way.

Point Lookout is a free weekly email newsletter. Browse the archive of past issues. Subscribe for free.

Support Point Lookout by joining the Friends of Point Lookout, as an individual or as an organization.

Do you face a complex interpersonal situation? Send it in, anonymously if you like, and I'll give you my two cents.

Related articles

More articles on Personal, Team, and Organizational Effectiveness:

The Boott Cotton Mills and Eastern CanalThere Is No Rumor Mill
Rumors about organizational intentions or expectations can depress productivity. Even when they're factually false, rumors can be so powerful that they sometimes produce the results they predict. How can we manage organizational rumors?
A voteDecisions, Decisions: II
Most of us have participated in group decision making. The process can be frustrating and painful, but it can also be thrilling. What processes do groups use to make decisions?
A page from the Bradford JournalWorking Journals
Keeping a journal about your work can change how you work. You can record why you did what you did, and why you didn't do what you didn't. You can record what you saw and what you only thought you saw. And when you read the older entries, you can see patterns you might never have noticed any other way.
U.S. Air Force Staff Sgt. Christa Quam holds her puppyBe With the Real
When the stream of unimportant events and concerns reaches a high enough tempo, we can become so transfixed that we lose awareness of the real and the important. Here are some suggestions for being with the Real.
Delicate Arch, a 60-foot tall (18 m) freestanding natural archPaid-Time-Off Risks
Associated with the trend to a single pool of paid time off from separate categories for vacation, sick time, and personal days are what might be called paid-time-off risks. If your team must meet customer expectations or a schedule of deliverables, managing paid-time-off risks can be important.

See also Personal, Team, and Organizational Effectiveness for more related articles.

Forthcoming issues of Point Lookout

A meeting in a typical conference roomComing April 3: Recapping Factioned Meetings
A factioned meeting is one in which participants identify more closely with their factions, rather than with the meeting as a whole. Agreements reached in such meetings are at risk of instability as participants maneuver for advantage after the meeting. Available here and by RSS on April 3.
Franz Halder, German general and the chief of staff of the Army High Command (OKH) in Nazi Germany from 1938 until September 1942And on April 10: Managing Dunning-Kruger Risk
A cognitive bias called the Dunning-Kruger Effect can create risk for organizational missions that require expertise beyond the range of knowledge and experience of decision-makers. They might misjudge the organization's capacity to execute the mission successfully. They might even be unaware of the risk of so misjudging. Available here and by RSS on April 10.

Coaching services

I offer email and telephone coaching at both corporate and individual rates. Contact Rick for details at rbrendPtoGuFOkTSMQOzxner@ChacEgGqaylUnkmwIkkwoCanyon.com or (650) 787-6475, or toll-free in the continental US at (866) 378-5470.

Get the ebook!

Past issues of Point Lookout are available in six ebooks:

Reprinting this article

Are you a writer, editor or publisher on deadline? Are you looking for an article that will get people talking and get compliments flying your way? You can have 500-1000 words in your inbox in one hour. License any article from this Web site. More info

Follow Rick

Send email or subscribe to one of my newsletters Follow me at LinkedIn Follow me at X, or share a post Subscribe to RSS feeds Subscribe to RSS feeds
The message of Point Lookout is unique. Help get the message out. Please donate to help keep Point Lookout available for free to everyone.
Technical Debt for Policymakers BlogMy blog, Technical Debt for Policymakers, offers resources, insights, and conversations of interest to policymakers who are concerned with managing technical debt within their organizations. Get the millstone of technical debt off the neck of your organization!
Go For It: Sometimes It's Easier If You RunBad boss, long commute, troubling ethical questions, hateful colleague? Learn what we can do when we love the work but not the job.
303 Tips for Virtual and Global TeamsLearn how to make your virtual global team sing.
101 Tips for Managing ChangeAre you managing a change effort that faces rampant cynicism, passive non-cooperation, or maybe even outright revolt?
101 Tips for Effective MeetingsLearn how to make meetings more productive — and more rare.
Exchange your "personal trade secrets" — the tips, tricks and techniques that make you an ace — with other aces, anonymously. Visit the Library of Personal Trade Secrets.
If your teams don't yet consistently achieve state-of-the-art teamwork, check out this catalog. Help is just a few clicks/taps away!
Ebooks, booklets and tip books on project management, conflict, writing email, effective meetings and more.