In absence of available openings in a company, sending your résumé and cover letter may fail to yield any satisfactory results, or worse it may not yield any results at all. These people who have mailed flyers to companies, describing their job skills and qualifications, say that they do not often get a good response. Out of a thousand people, they mail their flyers to only one or two responds. Having sent your résumé to a company in the absence of a vacancy or advertisement for the same hardly yields any result. But a powerful job strategy will help you get in touch with the company and even response, despite no available listing. Such a strategy will not even require a résumé, add to it the company will be forced to give a reply. Author Jeffery Fox in his book, ‘ Don't Send a Résumé: And Other Contrarian Rules to Help Land a Great Job", writes about his experiences in an ad agency firm and also gives us a strategy to get the companies to take a look at us. He tells us how to create a window of opportunity in the absence of the same.
A GLANCE AT IT: This approach will yield you good results provided you are ready to do a lot of upfront work. The flyers and the mails will not ensure you any such result as this technique might. If you can make it work for you then you can definitely get the results you desired.
The Technique
Step 1: Search for a company you might be interested in working. Of course, you can take your time to search, do a lot of thinking, select a company that is good for you and when you are ready, go to step 2.
Step 2: Get information about this company. Know everything you can about it, especially with respect to the department you might be interested in. In case you are interested in sales and marketing, try to get all their materials regarding sales and marketing, their plans and results, their retailers and distributors. Know more about them through their customers and competitors. You will need to do a lot of market research and acquaint yourself with the company's strategy and most importantly you need to know about the success and the failures of the company.
Step 3: You are now equipped with the knowledge about the company while writing a letter to the company or giving a call, use the knowledge you have and reflect what you can offer to the company. Give good reasons as to why the company would want you. Make it as the company needs you.
