[Inspiration Only] 10 ways I have created meetings, interviews and job offers – where no job was advertised

So I launched my first Straight to Shortlist Challenge in January this year.

I took a group of inspiring and talented professionals through the process of securing 5 meetings with 5 employers in 5 weeks.

Yip, yip, yipeee!!

(Calm down KB. You’re supposed to be professional on this blog.  Serious people read it.)

As you can see I am super excited to be delivering a program I believe will help people cross a major job search hurdle – and one so many people struggle with.

I know I’ve been talking about the power of creating your own opportunities for many years.

Now I have developed a challenge to take people from being confused about how to network to create jobs, to stepping confidently out to organise meetings with people who have the power to supercharge their job search by 10 X plus.

As I was writing my challenge training materials, I had a massive “ah ha” moment.

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I realised one of the reasons I have been so excited about delivering this challenge is that I have created many opportunities for myself in so many different ways.

Not only that – I have done this without being an out and proud extrovert.

I have done this when I have felt like I did not have that much to offer at the time.

And I have flubbed more than a few meetings when I have walked away thinking arrrrrgh – why did I say that???

However the thing I have found through this, is that people have given me big brownie points for sincerely trying.

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That positive has been a boost to my confidence in doing something I thought was difficult. Or I’ve gotten introductions to someone else who could help me with my search. I’ve secured many consulting opportunities. I’ve found hidden jobs that would never be advertised, and I have been offered contract work.

So for a dose of inspiration, I am going to tell you about the many and varied ways I have reached out and asked if I could meet or work for someone.

Then after you read a few of my stories, I’d love to hear yours.

Off I go….

Opportunity 1: Used my university contacts

I got my first job out of university by ringing the Senior Lecturer and asking him if he knew about anything coming up.

He said no.

But the next day he rang me and told me to call a firm in the country.

I said yes to the job before I even knew exactly where that town was.

Enter my two years in Albury Wodonga.

Opportunity 2: Built the relationship and sent something of value to my target employer

As part of another course I was doing I interviewed the Community Director at the council of one of Melbourne’s most iconic destinations.

I sent him a copy of my report thanking him for his time and asked to be considered if any opportunities came up.

He rang me and asked me to write their tourism strategy.

I then used this as evidence of my writing ability to secure other interviews.

Opportunity 3: Conducted an informational interview

Out of absolute frustration while I was looking for a new job in a new city, I happened upon Richard Bolle’s famous book “what colour is your parachute?”

He outlines the strategy of “informational interviews.”

This is where you contact someone not for the purposes of asking for a job, but for finding out more about what they do and where they think opportunities might exist.

Even if you know the answers to the questions you ask, that’s not the entire point of this. It’s a relationship building exercise.

That act of building the relationship often leads to you being kept in mind for things as they come up. Or that person refers you leads.

Encouraged by this I sent an email to the Manager of a large tourism firm asking if I could meet him as I was interested in exploring careers in that sector.

He said yes.

Unfortunately at that point I had not gotten to the chapter in the book that talked about how to execute and follow up from these.

So that was as far as it went.

Boo.

Opportunity 4: Found something that interested me about my contact and found ways I thought I could help

When I wanted to leave my recruitment role I sent a letter to a female CEO who had been interviewed in the media about female leadership styles.

I said I was impressed by what she said. I described the skills I had in business development and how I would love to help her achieve her goals.

She rang me and asked to meet me.

Opportunity 5: Followed my curiosity

My first ever freelance writing gig came from me emailing to someone I used to work with.

She had started a recruitment magazine. I asked her if I could bring coffee and muffins to have a chat about what she was doing as I was really interested in that.

I travelled by bus for an hour to get there.

We talked about her work for about an hour, and at the end of that meeting she asked why I was there.

I said I enjoyed writing and was interested in finding out about careers in writing. She asked me if I wanted to submit something to her and off I went.

(The first piece was terrible by the way. But she did give me excellent feedback on how to improve my writing).

Opportunity 6: Pitched an idea and demonstrated my value and capability first

My second opportunity at writing was born out of sheer frustration with a volunteer program I was setting up at my last full time corporate role.

I had invited a really inspirational CEO to come and speak to our employees, but I had almost zero replies when I sent out the invitation to staff.

So I emailed an editor of a popular HR magazine to ask whether I could write an article on employee engagement, as I saw many engagement  plans fall flat as a result of poor communication and execution.

He said yes.

I wrote my first piece for free and was paid for every article after that.

(To be honest I was gobsmacked that he said yes, and it took me almost six months to actually write it. But in the end I did it, apologised profusely for the delay and he still accepted it.)

Opportunity 7: Followed up on a meeting where I genuinely had something in common with that person

I went to a conference to see the “human lie detector” talk about spotting lies in interviews.

I sat next to the editor of a major Australian career site.

I recognized who she was from a radio interview the day before.

So I mentioned that when I said hello.

The next day I found her email and sent her a note saying I was pleased to meet her, was inspired to look her up, interested in what she did – and would love to talk if she had any opportunities coming up.

She rang me the next day as she needed help with answering an overload of career questions that came in through her website.

Opportunity 8: I simply asked for a job, but made it easy for the other person to say no

When I first started working for myself, I volunteered my time at a centre supporting asylum seekers. I helped them find jobs.

As part of responding to inquiries from supportive local businesses, I met up with the head of a local online store.

We shared a few laughs while I arranged a few work placements.

When I found myself in a temporary hole with no work I decided to email her with a header “Why not pester Esther?” and jokingly asked her if she had anything for a multi talented individual like myself.

She asked what I could do, and I ended up helping them with their HR policies and recruitment.

The reason this worked was the tone was light-hearted. So it was obvious I was not going to get offended if she said no.

Opportunity 9: Offered valuable feedback on my experience of a business

Looking out for more work I emailed the Founder of another career site and suggested they would have more user engagement if someone answered their user comments on their forums, as I was not inspired as a reader to leave any more than one comment if I thought nobody was reading them.

I probably sounded a bit arrogant, but he came back to me with an introduction to the Marketing Director.

She offered me the opportunity to write for them.

Opportunity 10: Reached out to people I used to know and still like

I contacted my old boss with whom I had a friendly relationship just for a wine (or two) to find out how she was.

We caught up on each other’s careers. She asked me what I was up to, and asked me if I wanted to come back to work with her team.

What’s the bottom line here?

I am not saying every time I have reached out, someone has said yes. In fact I have had the least success finding jobs over the years where I have blindly sent a CV to someone, with a cover letter that.

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So what’s the magic formula if you want to do something like this yourself.

I think there is no magic formula, and if you try to follow too much of a formula people do pick that up.

However there are elements in my approaches that have made this work.

Mostly my contact has worked because I have been sincere, and done my research. I have found a way to stand out by either adding some value and injecting my personality.

But I wrote this post not to talk just about me, but actually in the hope of giving you some inspiration.

If someone like me, who’s not had a lot of confidence at various times in my career – can do this, then perhaps you can too.

If you have a story of your own to share that my readers would find useful, I’d love you to share it below.

And if you’d like to join us on our next challenge, check it out here.

Find out more by clicking on the image here.