But even with the best research, including desired companies and hiring managers, job seekers must be able to influence people in order to capture the interview leading to that desired position.

What is Influence?

In his interview for Guy Kawasaki’s fantastic must read “Reality Check”, Dr. Robert Cialdini PhD, Professor of Psychology at Arizona State University, and one of the world’s leading experts on persuasion, compliance, and negotiation defines influence:

“Influence means creating change in some way. Change can be in an attitude, it can be in a perception, or a behavior. But in all instances, we can’t lay claim to influence until we can demonstrate we have changed someone.”

Influence a “Science” for All

According to Dr. Cialdini the good news about influence is that it is no longer just for certain “gifted” individuals. Instead Cialdini insists:

“For centuries, the ability to be influential and persuasive has been thought of as an art, but there’s also a science to it. And if it’s scientific, it can be taught. It can be learned. So we all have the potential to become more influential.”

Influence Your Job Search

With the trend for job search turning to proactive target marketing and social media tools within an employment campaign, the natural progression for a job seeker is influence. How to influence hiring managers and persuade companies to give you a interview is the ultimate goal.

If you want to understand the importance of being influential in your job search, come back for my next installment in the series: “Job Seekers: Utilize 6 Ingredients of Influence.”

1. Develop a clear vision: Knowing specifically what you want to create or achieve enables you to play an active role in building it. Vague goals don’t give you anything solid to believe in, visualize or reach for.
2. Give yourself permission to be prosperous. Financial success comes from thinking that prosperity is your natural right, just as much as breathing. Work on making this belief your habit if it isn’t already.
3. Adjust your beliefs about your life with what you want your life to be. Become keenly aware of that little voice that is constantly telling you what it thinks is possible for you and make the commitment to override it with statements about what you want to be true for you.
4. Understand the power of visualization and use it to create the reality you want. Think of yourself as a co-creator of your life and see visualization as your tool for molding your creation.
5. Make a habit of consciously creating your life. Start each day focusing on your vision, be sure that your beliefs are aligned with your vision and follow through with a visualization that brings your vision to life.
6. Approach your work with positive expectations. Believing in your potential to succeed will inspire you to follow through with the right actions.

10 New Year’s Career Resolutions for Job Seekers

1. Direction: You can not begin a job search with passion and intention if you do not know what you truly want to do. Without direction there is no forward progress. Assessment testing, research, and networking can help bring clarity.

2. Declare Your Intentions: Let the world know that you are open to new opportunities and you are actively seeking new opportunities. One of the biggest mistakes we see people make in their job search is to not declare their availability for new opportunities.

3. Clarify Your Message: Simply put if you are looking for a position in engineering, then make the focus of your message in your linkedin profile, on your blog, or on any other social media site your abilities as an engineer. Do NOT make the mistake of listing a “consulting” job or a job in a completely different field because you fear a gap in employment. Nothing hurts your ability to find new opportunities than the wrong message.

4. The Job of Finding a Job: Take the job of finding a job as serious as a job. Structure your day at home like a work day in an office setting. Create a routine, schedule and instill discipline in your day. Listing and creating structure provides a job seeker with the frame work to move forward. Without this structure, days float into weeks which can turn into months without results.

5. Research: You can’t find what you don’t understand. In order to find the job you desire it is necessary to research your industry of interest, the job market, the companies, and the hiring managers involved in your search. Compiling lists through your research becomes the “intelligence” that moves employment efforts forward; without research your efforts will stall.

6. Obsolete Methodology: Resumes are not a strategy or proactive method of finding a job. Resumes are simply a listing of your accomplishments meant as a “calling card” snapshot of your value to the potential employer. If you simply rely upon sending resumes, your efforts in finding a job will be nearly impossible in today’s job market.

7. Linkedin Profiles: Linkedin is the most important tool for job seekers today-yet very few truly understand how to utilize Linkedin. Your profile on linkedin is MORE IMPORTANT than your resume. It should be written so that anyone can understand you are open for new opportunities, you have value to give, and you have current skill sets that bring value. Updating your Linkedin profile must be a manditory once per week activity.

8. Blogging: Blogging is the most powerful marketing tool, broadcasting tool, and branding tool a job seeker can utilize. A blog is the centerpiece of any employment campaign designed to deliver your message of value to strategically targeted hiring managers, companies, and industry associations.

9. Understand the New Trend: Due to Web 2.0 social media tools now is the most amazing time in human history for communication, connectivity, networking, collaboration, and branding “you.” Tools such as Linkedin.com, twitter.com, facebook.com, and blogs support a global conversation. We now have the ability, as individuals, to create our message of value and deliver it to a global, national. local, or niche level. The mass media no longer controls the flow of information. We all have a chance to brand and deliver our message; simply put, this is the biggest development in job search in the last 50+ years. The tipping point for change is not far away.

10. First Adopter Rule: Is what you are doing now in trying to find a job working? If it is not then consider adopting social media tools, blogging, and employment campaigning as your new strategy in finding the right job for you.

What was wrong with me? Nothing was wrong with me but something was definitely wrong with my thinking.  I was not on a career path that held my passionate interests and I was unwilling to admit that fact. I was holding on to my “business legacy” aka my past experience in the business world as my valuable assets in finding my next job.

Job Seekers Doing the Same Old Thing

You have made your wish lists, educated yourself, and done the following:

1.Target companies
2. Target industries
3. Target hiring managers
4. Target job titles
5. You have hired a resume service
6. Paid a business coach for interview practice
7. You joined every networking group you could find
8. You updated your wardrobe
9. You allowed yourself the expense of a trip to the hairstylist or beauty spa
10. You opened a Linkedin account
11. You connected with people on Twitter
12. You created a Facebook page
13. You educated yourself at various workshops and seminars
14. You marketed yourself to the hidden job market
15. Tapped into every networking resource from family & friends to former co-workers

Yet Something is Wrong

Yet something is missing. You feel a bit lost. You are not completing tasks in a timely manner. You feel challenged when staying organized. Your campaign to find a job feels a bit disjointed. You even find yourself making excuses not to do work that must be done to find a new job. You are falling victim to the same mistake I made for years in my business career.

Job Seeker’s Step 1: Your Direction

The very first #1 step that every job seeker must understand is a simple yet sometimes frightening personal question:  What is it I want to do with my life? Step 1 for any employment campaign is to identify what you wish to do, what industry you wish to focus upon, what jobs are available in your chosen field, and where those jobs exist.

Without executing Step 1 in a job search, you will fail to be inspired. Your motivation to complete the necessary work in research, marketing yourself, and reaching out to find that new job will never happen. In essence your job search will remain in neutral or worse yet frozen in fear. Without a purpose and direction, the employment campaign is nearly impossible to execute to successfully find a new job.

How Early Web 2.0 Adopters Benefit:

1. You demonstrate that you are “with it.” You prove that you are keeping up with the latest business trends, and are not allowing yourself to become a dinosaur. You demonstrate the traits that are desirable in any business partnership.
   
2. You increase your professional value by having added new skills to your portfolio.
3. You expand your networking circle. While real world networking is still vital, you can make a lot more new connections every day by being an active social media networker.
4. You combat age being an issue in landing jobs. Employers are likely to place greater value in your willingness to learn the latest skills over your chronological age. Youthfulness is a state of mind.
5. You maximize your exposure and it’s free.

I wanted to get an idea of who these jobs are going to, so for kicks I did a Linkedin job search on the Hospital and Health Care industry within 25 miles of my zip code in the San Francisco Bay Area. Up popped 29 openings for a wide assortment of job functions. My sampling included requests for:

• Managers in finance departments
• Directors of Web
• Director of Information Architecture
• Leadership development
• Operations analysts
• Benefits analysts
• Project managers
• Product managers
• Controller
• Database marketing director
• Communications director

How to leverage this information:

1. Acknowledge that your job skills are transferable to another industry.
2. Work on positioning your expertise to provide value to companies that are adding jobs.
3. Read bNet to learn the nuances of the health care or other growing industry for your job function.
4. Research health care companies in your local area.
5. Develop a proactive strategy for reaching out to them, whether or not they are openly hiring.

What Ms. Shierholz addresses is the growing problem within the employment market that often gets ignored: underemployment. According to the WashingtonPost.com’s article citing Bureau of Labor Statistics, to understand “underemployment” look at the groups of people measured:

1. Total number of unemployed workers.
2. People who work part-time when they would prefer full time work.
3. Passive job seekers already in the workforce who have discontinued looking for jobs, perhaps because they gave up searching for one.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics shows that the “percentage of the workforce that is underemployed is at 12.5%.” That represents the highest level in over 15 years and easily surpasses the level of roughly 7% in 2000 during the dot.com implosion.

Although the government does not count unemployed workers who are overqualifed for their current jobs, it does show a startling rise in workers who work part time, but would prefer full time work from 2.8 million, 12 months ago, to 7.3 million today.

Analysis

Continued corporate layoffs and elimination of positions will further enrich the unemployed workforce with higher levels of educated workers. The competition for jobs, even temporary low paying jobs, will add to the stress already associated with current market conditions.

What Do We Do?

Education and action are the steps necessary for people to stand apart and differentiate themselves from the competition they face. Please consider the following steps as an outline:

1. Education: You must be willing to learn new skills and stay informed on news and trends within your chosen field. Reading is key. RSS subscribe to newspapers and association newsletters that focus on your industry or employment news.

2. Networking: You should be willing to attend networking events related to your industry of choice, job fairs, employment groups, and any association that will provide support in your job search.

3. Research: You must research your industry and companies of choice. Learn their challenges, their pain points, and analyze how you and your skills could make a difference to their bottom line. Build a case, like an attorney, on why a company should hire you.

4. Adopt: If your companies of choice have corporate blogs, social media tools, and other Web 2.0 campaigns, this is a signal for you to become an adopter. If you educate and adopt a blog into your employment campaign, a robust Linkedin presence, and you become an advocate of online networking through social media, you will stand apart and differentiate yourself from the competition.

5. Employment Campaign: This is an organized action plan. The plan begins with a value assessment to help the job seeker find his/her expertise, knowledge, experience. The next step is to craft this value into a message. Once your message is created, we implement a plan that incorporates direct marketing principles to strategically target the hiring managers and companies you wish to interview. The final piece is the establishment of your own blog as the vehicle to deliver your message of value and as a centerpiece-hub to point people to your value.

Response Mode Warning: Don’t Be Like The Other Guy

If you are a job seeker and you are limiting your job search to creating multiple resumes, networking periodically and underutilizing Linkedin as a tool, then you are doing what the majority of unemployed job seekers are doing: the same old thing.

If you truly want to stand apart, then you must get away from response mode and get into action mode. Consider the 5 steps described as a beginning. The true winners in the competition for the finite number of jobs are those people who build an employment campaign and work their action plan every day.

Blogging and Web 2.0 social media tools, like Linkedin.com , are fast becoming the most effective strategies to actively deliver your message of value. If you are a jobseeker in today’s tough market, blogging is the most powerful tool as it allows the writer to deliver their expertise, knowledge, and value to strategic targets such as hiring managers, companies, and the global community on the internet.

One of the first challenges a new blogger faces is writing their first article for their employment campaign. The following is an outline, with the help of social media expert Mack Collier, and template a new job seeking blogger can utilize for the creation of their first blog article.

4 Question Format: Your first article should answer 4 questions

1. Who Are You?
2. Why Are You Blogging?
3. What Will You Be Blogging About?
4. How Can I Leave Feedback?

Example First Article Template:

Your Title

My name is _____ I have ___years experience in the ______industry culminating in a position as a _____ and _______. Today I am writing my first blog article on my new blog: yourname.wordpress.com. My blog is the centerpiece and delivery system, of my message of value, for my newly established employment campaign.

Why Am I Blogging?

I am writing this blog as a method to offer my expertise, experience, and knowledge to liked minded individuals. I am also seeking job, networking, and collaborating opportunities. Consequently, my blog will support my employment campaign which is a strategic, proactive plan to deliver my value to hiring managers and my industry.

What Is My Blog About?

I will write about. . . (your subject matter and topics here.) I will create helpful content, tips, how to guides, lists, and other material on. . . (your expertise, knowledge, and value message here.)

Dean’s Example: “I will write about social media tools and blogging. I will create helpful content, tips, how to guides, lists and other material based on my two years of blogging experience at deansguide and innerarchitect and my social media consulting background with Domus Consulting Group.

How Can I Leave Feedback?

I look forward to reader comments and participation as part of the learning process here on my blog. As I begin to learn more about Web 2.0, social media, and blogging, I hope to become a valuable resource to readers.  If you have comments, please do not hesitate to voice your opinions. If you would like to further connect with me:

Your email address
Your Linkedin Address
Your Twitter Address
Your Facebook page-list all the place you wish to point your reader

80% of jobs available are never advertised, according to Cornell University Career Services.

Job seekers, the first question to ask yourself:

How much of my job search is focused on the 20% that are on everyone else’s radar?

Then your next question:

What is my strategy to pursue the hidden job market?

Landing a job that isn’t advertised is all about networking. At its most basic level, networking for jobs involves letting as many people as possible know that you are looking. While I certainly recommend this strategy, it is a bit of a crap shoot whether your message will reach anyone in the position to hire you.

Most of us don’t approach networking in a very proactive way. We may show up at networking events with the greatest intent to meet people, yet how many of us do our homework so that we know beforehand who we want to meet and what specifically we want to accomplish? I know I’ve been guilty of not making the most of my networking time.

When it comes to something as important as landing a job or new clients, knowing who you want to pursue will enable you to approach them directly, or at least help you to understand where they can be reached. It’s no secret that job seekers in 2009 will face the toughest hiring climate since 9/11 and the dotcom bust. That doesn’t have to mean doom and gloom. What it does mean is that those who will successfully land the hidden jobs will be those who have learned where the opportunities lie.

Related articles:

How to Increase Your Odds of Getting Hired

Research is a Job Seeker’s Best Friend

If you recognize the importance of job research, yet doing it yourself doesn’t appeal to you, check out our research service, Building Your Employment Prospect List.