Lost your job - get creative!
This is real, folks! this is how creative you have to be to get a job now. I’m sure if you have a job, in a secure and established company - you’ve got nothing to worry about. But if you’re a bit worried, keep reading!
This story came out yesterday on CNBC.com (7.1.09). It is quite long, and you’re welcome to read the whole thing, I’ll just give you the gist:
6 Job-Hunting Tips From the ‘Sandwich Board’ Guy
Among the iconic images that summed up 2008 was that of Joshua Persky, the unemployed investment banker who slapped a sandwich board over his suit that said “Experienced MIT Grad for Hire” and hit the streets of New York to try to reclaim his place on Wall Street.
Cynthia J. Kohll
Tip No. 1: Be Creative. A sandwich board over your suit to catch the eye of employers? That’s definitely creative. And effective!
Well, now he’s an iconic image of how to dig out of the mess that was 2008: After 12 long months of job hunting, having to give up his Upper East Side apartment and send his wife and kids to Nebraska to live with her parents, Persky has landed a job. He was hired by accounting firm Weiser LLP in December.
And, despite the fact that a lot of Wall Street jobs are drying up and may never come back, Persky managed to get a job doing the same thing as before, valuations.
So, how did he do it? Mr. Persky have 6 suggestions (and I’ll add the obvious, at the end) :
1) Be creative. You have to think outside the box to make others aware of what you need.
He had been going along, interviewing and networking for the first six months — even with executives from some of 2008’s casualties, Bear Stearns, Lehman Brothers and Merrill Lynch.
The Perskys made some sacrifices: wife and kids went to stay with the parents, while Mr. Persky continued his job search..
He decided had to do something different: after having drinks with his wife he came up with the crazy idea to put a sandwich board on and hit the sidewalk at lunchtime.
So, he figured if he had the sign on, people might approach him. “You have to try to stand out as much as possible,” Persky said. “That’s more important than ever, given this job market.”
2) Be open to change. It’s easy to wedge yourself into a tight spot, where you’re search is stuck on one field or one location. But given the jobs that have evaporated that may never come back, flexibility is the key.
“You have to be ready to change careers, locations and industry,” Persky said. “To reinvent yourself.”
“You really just have to expand your horizons,” he said. “Our dream was New York City but we were willing to go anywhere in the world there was an opportunity — internationally or nationally,” he said.
3) Get professional help. A lot of people poo poo professional help, declaring that they are capable to do it on their own.
That’s how Persky felt for the first six months of job search. But, he saw the light after Paloma Bowland, a career counselor who does business development for JibberJobber.com, contacted him and helped him revamp his resume — and his approach.
“Most people’s response to my resume is ‘Wow!’” Persky said. “Before, I wasn’t getting a job,” he said.
Bowland made him take the time to make changes, revamping his resume, working out a marketing strategy and helping to keep his spirits up.
4) Redo your resume. You may think your experience sells itself, particularly if you’ve been on Wall Street for a couple of decades.
Yeah? Wrong.
You’ve got to organize the information in a way that sells you for the position you want. And, as Persky found out, sometimes that means a nonchronological resume.
You have to figure out what your goal — what type of job, what industry, what city — and organize the information on your resume to fit that to a “T,” including everything about you and your experience that is applicable.
“You think about how you would like it to be,” he said. “Nothing is too small or too big to be in there.
5) Figure out your brand and sell it. A lot of people do marketing as part of their job, but when the job is gone, they don’t realize they have to apply those skills to marketing themselves to future employers.
Based on the publicity generated by his sandwich-board strategy, Bowland determined that Persky’s brand was integrity, creativity and bravery.
“I never thought I was creative or brave,” he said. “That’s the brand that came out.”
Sometimes, as was the case with Persky, it’s easier to have someone from the outside help you figure out what your brand is.
The next step was to unify his offerings on Facebook, Linked In and his blog.
Persky had already been doing a blog, www.oracleofny.com, to chronicle his unemployment. He admits, it was his kids who got him on Facebook. But it was Bowland who helped him unify his offerings to make sure that they seamlessly — and professionally — dispersed his marketing, his brand.
And, of course, it’s not just the marketing — you also have to sell it.
“Really successful salesmen don’t follow up once, they follow up 101 times until it’s impossible to do more,” Persky said. “Just because someone doesn’t answer an email or phone, doesn’t mean the answer is no or they don’t care it just means they haven’t gotten to it yet.”
6) Perseverance. Persky went through a lot of hardship in the 12 months he was unemployed, including having to pack his wife and kids up and ship them back to Omaha while he slept on a couch. But through it all, he never gave up.
“Don’t give up,” Persky said. “In the end, that’s what did it,” he said.
“It wasn’t because of the sign or the blog. I stuck it out and I didn’t give up.”
Indeed, when his networking and interviewing strategy wasn’t working in the first six months, he adapted with creativity, flexibility and some professional help and just stuck with it. His efforts drew the eye of a career advisor, who helped him take it to the next level — the level that landed him the job.
At the end of the day, an expert is not someone who knows a lot. A real expert is someone who’s KNOWN for what he knows.
You gotta make yourself known, with creative PR and marketing strategies, and then you have to learn how to sell yourself. the competition is fierce. And you have to beat it! otherwise - you go hungry.
What are you gonna do?
Raz Chorev
raz@timetorethink.com
www.timetorethink.com
This story came out yesterday on CNBC.com (7.1.09). It is quite long, and you’re welcome to read the whole thing, I’ll just give you the gist:
6 Job-Hunting Tips From the ‘Sandwich Board’ Guy
Among the iconic images that summed up 2008 was that of Joshua Persky, the unemployed investment banker who slapped a sandwich board over his suit that said “Experienced MIT Grad for Hire” and hit the streets of New York to try to reclaim his place on Wall Street.
Cynthia J. Kohll
Tip No. 1: Be Creative. A sandwich board over your suit to catch the eye of employers? That’s definitely creative. And effective!
Well, now he’s an iconic image of how to dig out of the mess that was 2008: After 12 long months of job hunting, having to give up his Upper East Side apartment and send his wife and kids to Nebraska to live with her parents, Persky has landed a job. He was hired by accounting firm Weiser LLP in December.
And, despite the fact that a lot of Wall Street jobs are drying up and may never come back, Persky managed to get a job doing the same thing as before, valuations.
So, how did he do it? Mr. Persky have 6 suggestions (and I’ll add the obvious, at the end) :
1) Be creative. You have to think outside the box to make others aware of what you need.
He had been going along, interviewing and networking for the first six months — even with executives from some of 2008’s casualties, Bear Stearns, Lehman Brothers and Merrill Lynch.
The Perskys made some sacrifices: wife and kids went to stay with the parents, while Mr. Persky continued his job search..
He decided had to do something different: after having drinks with his wife he came up with the crazy idea to put a sandwich board on and hit the sidewalk at lunchtime.
So, he figured if he had the sign on, people might approach him. “You have to try to stand out as much as possible,” Persky said. “That’s more important than ever, given this job market.”
2) Be open to change. It’s easy to wedge yourself into a tight spot, where you’re search is stuck on one field or one location. But given the jobs that have evaporated that may never come back, flexibility is the key.
“You have to be ready to change careers, locations and industry,” Persky said. “To reinvent yourself.”
“You really just have to expand your horizons,” he said. “Our dream was New York City but we were willing to go anywhere in the world there was an opportunity — internationally or nationally,” he said.
3) Get professional help. A lot of people poo poo professional help, declaring that they are capable to do it on their own.
That’s how Persky felt for the first six months of job search. But, he saw the light after Paloma Bowland, a career counselor who does business development for JibberJobber.com, contacted him and helped him revamp his resume — and his approach.
“Most people’s response to my resume is ‘Wow!’” Persky said. “Before, I wasn’t getting a job,” he said.
Bowland made him take the time to make changes, revamping his resume, working out a marketing strategy and helping to keep his spirits up.
4) Redo your resume. You may think your experience sells itself, particularly if you’ve been on Wall Street for a couple of decades.
Yeah? Wrong.
You’ve got to organize the information in a way that sells you for the position you want. And, as Persky found out, sometimes that means a nonchronological resume.
You have to figure out what your goal — what type of job, what industry, what city — and organize the information on your resume to fit that to a “T,” including everything about you and your experience that is applicable.
“You think about how you would like it to be,” he said. “Nothing is too small or too big to be in there.
5) Figure out your brand and sell it. A lot of people do marketing as part of their job, but when the job is gone, they don’t realize they have to apply those skills to marketing themselves to future employers.
Based on the publicity generated by his sandwich-board strategy, Bowland determined that Persky’s brand was integrity, creativity and bravery.
“I never thought I was creative or brave,” he said. “That’s the brand that came out.”
Sometimes, as was the case with Persky, it’s easier to have someone from the outside help you figure out what your brand is.
The next step was to unify his offerings on Facebook, Linked In and his blog.
Persky had already been doing a blog, www.oracleofny.com, to chronicle his unemployment. He admits, it was his kids who got him on Facebook. But it was Bowland who helped him unify his offerings to make sure that they seamlessly — and professionally — dispersed his marketing, his brand.
And, of course, it’s not just the marketing — you also have to sell it.
“Really successful salesmen don’t follow up once, they follow up 101 times until it’s impossible to do more,” Persky said. “Just because someone doesn’t answer an email or phone, doesn’t mean the answer is no or they don’t care it just means they haven’t gotten to it yet.”
6) Perseverance. Persky went through a lot of hardship in the 12 months he was unemployed, including having to pack his wife and kids up and ship them back to Omaha while he slept on a couch. But through it all, he never gave up.
“Don’t give up,” Persky said. “In the end, that’s what did it,” he said.
“It wasn’t because of the sign or the blog. I stuck it out and I didn’t give up.”
Indeed, when his networking and interviewing strategy wasn’t working in the first six months, he adapted with creativity, flexibility and some professional help and just stuck with it. His efforts drew the eye of a career advisor, who helped him take it to the next level — the level that landed him the job.
At the end of the day, an expert is not someone who knows a lot. A real expert is someone who’s KNOWN for what he knows.
You gotta make yourself known, with creative PR and marketing strategies, and then you have to learn how to sell yourself. the competition is fierce. And you have to beat it! otherwise - you go hungry.
What are you gonna do?
Raz Chorev
raz@timetorethink.com
www.timetorethink.com
Comment
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Comment by Lisa Retchless on January 12, 2009 at 4:25pm - The word that comes to mind is, WOW! What a life changing event. Persky's story is one everyone should hold onto. Thank you Raz for sharing!
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