Unfortunately a friend asked last night about posting to a community mailing list we’re on as he got caught up in a restructuring at his company and was laid off. I encourage him to post and gave this (unsolicited) advice about how to get the best results.
Take care in phrasing your message, along these lines:
- Short: Be brutal in filtering yourself.
- Positive: Make it all about the special value add you bring to the table.
- Concrete: Make everything as quantified as possible even if your precision is greater than the data; words like great, better and excellent are very nice but have very low actionable content quotients.
- Concrete #2: Ask for assistance that is within the ability of the recipient and that will truly help you.
- Do not be subtle: Be very explicit in stating what you want from the reader.
My best guess is that your message should not be any longer than mine (up to this line).
The last point is perhaps the most difficult one because most adults are uncomfortable about needing help on such an important part of life and exposing what they perceive as a weakness.
Most of us, after the age of 35 or 40 at least, simply don’t allow ourselves to believe that we might have difficulty finding work. Accordingly we’re reluctant to ask for help in a direct fashion that comes right out and exposes our status.
This is not a problem for me, of course, due to my recent work history but it used to be one. Participating in ProMatch let me see my own situation through the prism of the other members and exposed some emotional fallacies that hindered my efforts.
Additional suggestions I gave him:
- Post your resume on a real webpage, like I have at http://billlazar.com. Relying on Monster or HotJobs is useless these days though a blog at Blogger or WordPress.com, where the only post is your resume is a simple, free, good solution.
- Update your LinkedIn profile and use your network there aggressively to find people at target companies.
BillSaysThis 