Using Relationship Skills In A Job Search

from the desk of Ron Sukenick

Every day in the paper I read about mass job layoffs. When I attend networking group meetings, I seem to meet more and more people on the hunt for new jobs. That's why the other day, as I was going through piles of different articles I'd collected over the past few months, it was natural that the one that caught my immediate attention came from a publication called JobDig.

The article I'd clipped was a half-pager titled "Tips For The Entry-Level Job Seeker". This piece was highly interesting for me, because much of the advice JobDig was offering to young job seekers, even though writer Taunee Besson wasn't using the same words, might have have been taken right from my Relationship Strategies courses or my Beyond Networking blogs.

First of all, rather than just searching the employment sections of the paper or going online, Besson tells applicants to change their approach. If you're in a job search, she advises putting together a description of your ideal job and then responding only to positions that closely match that description. When you find a match, she says, customize your resume to what that job specifically requires. In other words, Besson's saying, don't lower your expectations, and keep your goals firmly in mind.

This advice is very much in tune with what I teach about the 5 R's of personal and professional relationships. The first of the five R's is rewardingness. That means that that, in the long run, it's not going to work for you to "settle" for a job that you would not find rewarding and challenging, A solid, productive employment relationship needs to bring reward - in the form of personal satisfaction as well as monetary reward for you and for your employer.

JobDig, I was gratified to see, focused readers' attention on the power of networking. "Because employers want to hire candidates they know and trust, targeting potential employees through contacts is the way companies fill 80 to 90 percent of their openings, writes Besson. For that reason, she advises JobDig readers to "focus on finding openings through networking with friends, relatives, professional organizations, professors, fellow alumni or church members."

I've devoted my entire professional life to helping people connect to other people, sharing tools, training, resources, and systems. What business networking boils down to is that your best clients and customers meet you through an introduction from someone they already trust. I think what the JobDig article boils down to is that the best employment relationships start the same way!