Keeping a job offer alive

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Keeping a job offer alive

 This is Laura Lee Rose, a business and life coach that specializes in professional development, time management, project management and work-life balance strategies.  In my GoTo Academy: Soft Skill Tools for the GoTo Professional continuous online coaching series, I go into professional development and real-world IT topics in detail.

If you are interested in more training in these areas, please sign-up for the continuing online coaching series.

It’s usually bad news when your job offer is put on hold. Sometimes the offer disappears. So what strategies can you employ to make sure you keep that offer alive even if the employer has to suspend plans for bringing you on board?

Today we are talking about our careers and things we can do to keep moving forward.  Steve and I were talking about when people are pushing their careers forward; and find themselves applying for positions and then waiting; applying and waiting; almost an unending cycle.  Sometimes the jobs can go ahead, placed on hold, temporary hiring freeze, or reorganization issues that suspend our momentum.  What are some of the things we can do to stay on the short list or field of vision?

 

One important acknowledgement is that others will not be as diligent about your career as you.  You are totally responsible for your own career and professional path.  Others can be helpful; but you have to drive that bus.  Some things you can do to increase your chances are:

 

Especially in these economic times, hiring managers, HR and recruiters have hundreds of applicants and resumes in front of them every day.  It’s unlikely that your resume will continually stand-out as time goes by, without some effort on your side.

 

Some things to try with internal job postings:

 

People do business with folks they like, know and trust.

  • Be proactive in staying on their radar
  • Recognize that others are not responsible for your career.
  • Schedule monthly lunch dates, phone call, email an article that they (the recruiting department or team) may be interested in, or an update on one of your current projects that they are interested in.  This level of “touching-base” doesn’t have to be frequent or elaborate.  Just something to remind them that you are still out there and are interested in working with them in the future.
  • Add them to your regular LinkedIn.com professional network and stay on-top of what their department is doing.
  • Make friends and build relationships with the other team members of that group or project area.
  • Invite and escort them to any speaking engagements, seminars or professional association gathering that they might be interested in attending.  By attending the event with them, gives you additional relationship-building time.
  • Clarify the essence of what you are looking for – versus a specific ‘job title’.  Many positions share transferable skills, projects, high-profile results, functions and environments – but they may not have the same ‘job title’.  For instance, a Project Manager, Program Manager and Operational Manager all provide essentially the same functions – but at different scope and level.  Usability Lead, Customer Advocacy Agent, Quality Assurance and Beta Program lead all provide similar functions – but in departments.  You may find an equivalent match in a different area under a different job title.
  • Be open to creating your own position.  If you know want to stay in development but want more hands-on with clients – pitch your own position as a Technical Support Designer that works with high-profile clients to create one-off utilities that are specifically customizes to fit their needs.  Once that client is satisfied – you program manage how to safely implement it into the regular maintenance stream.  This single position combines: Tech Support, Business Requirement Design, Change Management and Program Management skill sets.

Continually demonstrate your worth and value to the company and department

  • The fact that they had to place their hiring on hold because of budget or organizational issues; doesn’t negate their need for resources and help.  It only suspended the “HOW”, not the “WHY” or reason for hiring.  Let them know that you realize that they are currently understaffed and offer assistance (especially in the area or position that you are interested).
  • Keep them updated on what you are working on to see if they can re-use or share your code/libraries with them.
  • Offer to facilitate any code review meetings or document results of those meetings for them – as a way to help them with the tedious documentation compliance aspects of design and development (while at the same time getting the birds-eye view of how they internally work).
  • Facilitate Brown Bag Lunch learning series on topics they are interested in and continually invite them (especially in the area or position that you are interested).

Use this time to become the perfect match

  • Use this time to fill in your skills gap. For instance, if your top competitor for this position has better presentation skills or marketing/sells savvy – use this time to join Toastmasters.org, or some relevant professional organization.  Start networking to bring in potential new clients and sales leads.
  • Report your achievements in those gap areas, such that they see your commitment to continuous improvement.

 

If you are interested in something outside your company – do the above items AND add the following:

 Add technical recruiters to your list of resources.

  • Technical recruiters can skim and filter an abundance of positions for you, without having your resume out there for everyone to see
  • Create a video or Youtube video resume for external recruiters to make use of.

Use your social media contacts

  • Use your social media like LinkedIn.com or other professional pages.  Keep your resume and profiles are accurate and relevant to the position that you are interested in
  • Social media pages (such as Linkedin.com) have Job-Postings.  Take the extra step to look up who actually posted that job and build a relationship with that person through that social media.
  • Start conversations and discussions on your social media pages to be recognized as an expert in this area.
  • Make use of Youtube.com to video your presentations, blogs, articles on relevant technical issues.

Create your own networking opportunities.

  • See what types of networking or speaking engagements others in your ‘dream position’ will be attending in the future – and arrange to bump into them there.
  • Post your speaking engagements and networking meetings on your professional media pages and invite your social network to those events.
  • Post your articles, blogs and vlogs about this field – and follow-up with webinars and chats, to be recognized as an expert in this area.

Try it and let me know what you think.

In my GoTo Academy: Soft Skill Tools for the GoTo Professional continuous online coaching series, I go into this in detail.

If you liked this tips, more can be found at www.lauraleerose.com/blog or subscribe to my weekly professional tips newsletter at http://eepurl.com/cZ9_-/

The weekly newsletter contains tips on:
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2)      Career maintenance
3)      Business networking
4)      Work life balance strategies

If you haven’t taken advantage of your introductory time management coaching session, please contact LauraRose@RoseCoaching.info