Job Search
Looking for a Job?
Sounds Like an OR Problem
Forget networking and résumé polishing. In order to find a good job in today's tight market, you need a more efficient search process.
By Richard Hewitt
Operations research professionals have solved a variety of important technical and business problems over the past 50-plus years, and we in the field take great pride in those accomplishments. Sometimes, however, we miss opportunities to solve important social problems. This may be because social problems are typically less well-defined or because they frequently require an adeptness at addressing political issues not commonly addressed in OR coursework.
Consider the problem of finding a job. Conventional economic wisdom suggests the problem is one of supply and demand. A reduction in the amount of goods and services consumed translates to a decrease in the demand for workers. Hence unemployment rises. Unfortunately, as unemployment rises, consumers, specifically unemployed consumers, have less disposable income to spend on goods and services, further driving a decrease in the demand for workers.
It's easy to argue that unemployment has social (as well as economic) implications. Sociologists and psychologists report that money problems are the leading factors contributing to divorce. And the only money problem most of us face is that of not having enough. When one considers the debt most Americans carry on their credit cards, many are only one or two paychecks from financial disaster. And when that disaster occurs, the victims are marriages, families and personal relationships. This simple logic chain makes finding a job perhaps the most important of social problems to solve.
Great, you say. Now I get it. Unemployment is a problem that leads to big social problems. But how does that make finding a job an OR problem? Let me suggest three ideas to demonstrate that finding a job is an OR problem. First, it's an OR problem when you, the OR professional, are the one who's unemployed.
The second idea to demonstrate that finding a job is an OR problem is to view finding a job from a process perspective. We all know OR skills are well-suited for solving process problems, and even if one takes the traditional approach of writing a résumé, searching the electronic job postings and sending the résumé in response to those postings, one is following a process.
And third, if you consider that for every unemployed worker, there are an even greater number of employed workers who are dissatisfied with their job, their company or their boss. And as we all know, dissatisfied, disengaged workers are less productive than satisfied, engaged workers. Our training and experience has taught us that the OR skill set is well-suited to increasing productivity and driving out inefficiencies.
So we have three ideas that demonstrate that finding a job is an OR problem. First, all OR professionals will be unemployed at least once in their careers. Second, finding a job is a process and processes can be improved using OR skills. And third, dissatisfied, disengaged workers are less productive than they could be and OR can be applied to improve productivity.
OK, you say, now I get it. But isn't finding a job really just a numbers game — send out hundreds of résumés, go to enough networking events, get in front of enough people, and you're bound to find a job? Well, yes and no. Yes, you can get a job that way, but it's not an efficient approach. If you ask someone who's been looking for any significant length of time, they're likely to tell you that they have a better chance of winning the lotto. And therein lies the problem — traditional job search methods, like the lotto, are "a numbers game." And numbers games, by their nature, are inefficient. Unfortunately, most people rely on an inefficient process for finding a job, and we know that failure to find a job in a timely manner leads to social problems.
Well, you may say, I've never had to look for a job before. Recruiters were calling me. And that's precisely my point. The economy has changed and the old methods, which were never that efficient to begin with, aren't working. There's a definition of insanity that says doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results is insane. I argue that, in this economy, the use of traditional job search methods is insane.
A brief overview of my background may be helpful in explaining how I arrived at my conclusions and why you should consider applying what I've learned. After beginning my OR career in research and development (a respectable place for OR types with Ph.D.s, such as myself), I moved through an unusual progression of assignments including 12 months in the human resources department of a Fortune 500 corporation and 15 months as a practice manager for a recruiting firm. While I wouldn't have mapped out my career this way, I have gained a somewhat useful perspective on what goes on behind the employment curtain and how people really get jobs. And it's not like anything you've been led to believe.
Transparent Personas
Most people believe that they get a job because they have the right skills, the right experience and the right attitude. As a result of this belief system they go out of their way to communicate that skill set, experience and attitude. And how do they do that? They adopt a transparent persona when writing their résumé and networking at neighborhood barbeques, job fairs, chamber of commerce events and professional interest groups. This persona comes complete with a new vocabulary that includes phrases like "team player," "self starter" and "increasingly more responsible positions." When asked what they do, the job seeker responds with something like, "I was responsible for the on-time completion of ...," or "I led a 300,000 person, interdisciplinary team that reengineered our XYZ legacy system to within 3 percent of optimality." All of which the listener interprets as, "He's unemployed, he didn't do anything useful, and with that vocabulary, he'll be lucky to find anything, anytime soon."
Some people are so convinced that the résumé is the key to landing a job that they pay a professional résumé writer to rewrite their résumé using even more absurd jargon. (O.K., I admit, I did that once myself — but it didn't help.) The reality in this economy is that when you submit a résumé it's either electronically scanned and "key-word searched" or it's given, along with several hundred other résumés, to a highly motivated, highly trained $10-an-hour intern, clerk or junior assistant.
Do you believe that finding a job is a numbers game? Many job seekers do and they pay $150 or more to have someone blast their résumé to "over 15,000 executives and senior decision-makers in their field." And they think that's going to help. I get Spam e-mail too and I delete it. That's what executives and senior decision-makers do. They make decisions on how to spend their time and Spam e-mail isn't on the list.
I could go through more examples of what doesn't work regarding networking, interviewing and negotiating, but you get the point; traditional methods have never been efficient and in this economy, they flat-out don't work.
Before turning our attention to what does work, let's examine why executives and senior decision-makers hire people (the same applies to functional managers as well). This is short and it goes by really fast so pay attention. They have a problem they think you can solve for them and you cost less than the problem does. That's it. This is so critical I'll repeat it. Executives and senior decision-makers hire you because they have a problem they think you can solve for them and you cost less than the problem does.
And you say, I knew that. And I'd agree, you probably did. But you forgot it when you started looking for a job. How do I know that? If you remembered it, you wouldn't have wasted your time creating a résumé or hanging out at networking events telling everyone who would listen that you're a superstar and you're available.
I have two mental pictures for you. The first is the guy at the bottom of the highway off-ramp with the cardboard sign that reads, "Will work for food — anything helps." The second is you on the Internet posting a résumé that says, "Looking for a challenging opportunity to ..." Different highway, same sign. That's why the traditional approaches don't work. You've got the value proposition backwards. A potential employer is not interested in what they can do for you (give you a six-figure job with benefits); they want to know what you are going to do for them (save their bacon and get them promoted or at least ensure they make their next bonus). And here's the twist — they want you to prove it before they'll hire you. And in many cases, they want you to prove it before they'll even talk to you.
High Impact Job Search
Executives and senior decision-makers are future oriented. They don't live in the past (at least the good ones don't). Your résumé says you live in the past. Isn't that what a résumé is? It is a description of what you've done. The person making the hiring decision, in today's economy, doesn't care about what you've done. They want to know what you're going to do for them, and you have to convince them before they'll even talk to you.
Sounds like a challenging logic problem. You have to determine the next number in a series of numbers, and you can't use the series of numbers to derive your answer. Fortunately, this problem isn't as difficult as it may seem. And here's how we solved it. We asked over 300 CEOs and senior executives to tell us the answer. One thing I learned when I got out of school was that you could save a lot of time if you'd find someone who knew the answer and asked them. It didn't work in school, but in the real world it works every time. Find someone who knows the answer and ask them. Write that one down.
Based on what they told us, we developed High Impact Job Search (HIJS), a detailed nine-step process that has generated unusually good results for the job seekers who have applied the method. Listed below are the nine steps that make up the HIJS program.
Step 1: Perform a job market overviewSpace allows me to elaborate on three of the most important, non-intuitive steps. They are: Step 3: Build a high impact advisory team; Step 5: Conduct C3 due diligence; and Step 6: Develop a VPI.
Step 2: Create a strategic job search plan
Step 3: Build a high impact advisory team (HIAT)
Step 4: Target 10 companies
Step 5: Conduct C3 due diligence
Step 6: Develop a VPI
Step 7: Craft a VPI letter
Step 8: Conduct a VPI briefing
Step 9: Generate a next-step proposal
Step 3: Build a high impact advisory team (HIAT). Most of the steps in the HIJS method are counter-intuitive and run opposite to traditional job search practices. Building a HIAT is in many ways analogous to networking, but different in focus and scale. Networking typically involves starting with the people you know and leveraging those relationships to get the word out to as many people as possible. Networking can be thought of as a broadcasting technology. In other words you start small and go large. It's the numbers game concept again. Your focus is to get in front of as many people as possible in the hope of crossing paths with someone who knows of a job opening that fits your skills.
Building a HIAT differs in two ways. First, you begin with the people you know and go small from there. In other words, you start small and go smaller. Instead of getting in front of masses of people, you are only looking for five people, and you're very selective in how you identify and come in contact with those five people. Three criteria govern the selection of your HIAT. A HIAT team member must be: 1. Well-connected in their field (which does not necessarily have to be your field), 2. influential, and 3. willing to help you in your job search.
The second difference between networking and building a HIAT is the purpose of the activity. The purpose of networking is generally to find someone who knows of an opening for which you are well-suited. The purpose of building a HIAT is to build a team of advisors, confidants and coaches. The role of the HIAT is to serve as a sounding board for your ideas, to generate and fine-tune ideas for you to pursue, and to open doors when the time is right. They act as a "board of directors," helping you manage your job search.
It's possible you may already know someone who meets the HIAT selection criteria, but it's not always the case. Therefore, embedded in Step 3 is a three-step, sub-process for moving from people you know to meeting potential HIAT members. The gist of the three steps is to identify the characteristics you're looking for (someone who does yield management for a major airline) and asking the people you know who they would recommend you meet with that may know someone working in the airline industry.
Step 5: Conduct C3 due diligence. C3 due diligence is more than research. It's focused, targeted research. You're looking for several very specific things. Traditional job search research suggests you gather a targeted company's Dunn and Bradstreet report, Hoover's profile, annual report and Standard and Poor's information. Traditional job search methodology would have you read the information and be prepared to sprinkle a few nuggets in conversation with the interviewer to impress them that you took the time to read up on the company.
C3 due diligence says you are going to research the company, it's competitors and it's customers. Who ever researches competitors and customers? Most companies are afraid to talk to their customers. If you talk to the competitors and the customers, you'll know more about the company (and the industry) than 90 percent of the employees.
So what are you looking for with C3 due diligence? Specifically, you're looking for anything that inhibits sales, growth or the acquisition of market share. You're looking for service delivery issues, innovative competitive practices and problems that, if addressed, would enable the targeted company to grow revenue at minimal incremental cost. What would those things look like if you found them? If you talk to customers, you may find that they don't like the way the product is packaged — it's too hard to open, store or use. You may find that if the manufacturer would bundle a toothbrush with the toothpaste, more camping enthusiasts would purchase their brand.
Talking to competitors, you may discover that they offer a popular menu item in different markets and that introduction of that product into your market would increase revenue at a lower marginal cost than other products on the current menu. You may find that a competitor is evaluating a technology transfer from an unrelated industry that could revolutionize customer service.
The point is that in talking to people within the targeted company, its competitors and its customers, you'll learn things that won't be found in Dunn and Bradstreet, Hoovers or the company's annual report. Very few job seekers take the time to do this type of research. Most job seekers focus on writing and rewriting their résumé, posting it on yet another job board, and attending networking sessions trying to generate activity from other unemployed people. To be effective in this (and any market), you've got to do things differently.
Step 6: Develop a VPI. You've built a team of advisors and gathered some useful information on your targeted companies, their competitors and their customers. So what do you do now? You examine the gathered information looking for a value proposition idea or VPI. What's a VPI? Simply put, a VPI is an idea for enhancing the value the targeted company's products or services provide their clients.
For example, a VPI for an airline may be that they provide a complimentary selection of books on tape for customers to enjoy on all flights that last longer than two hours. A pizza store may offer free pizza if it takes them more than 30 minutes to deliver pizza to your home. A bank may offer free financial planning services for all accounts valued over $100,000. A real estate agent may offer a free market analysis to anyone willing to attend a real estate seminar. The list is endless and the important point here is that the VPIs are generated based on market research — which most companies rarely do and job seekers never do.
Maybe you're saying I'm not an idea person. I can do the C3 due diligence, but I couldn't generate a VPI that an executive or senior decision-maker would want to discuss. Maybe that's true (but I doubt it). If that's the case, take everything you've learned to your HIAT. One of the reasons you built a HIAT was to have a group that could develop and fine-tune ideas. You might approach them in the following manner, explaining, I know my targeted company's value proposition is X, their competitors are doing Y, and the customers tell me they want Z. Given this information, what would you do to increase market share, cash flow or ROI?
So you've read all this and you say, sounds interesting, I'll file it away and take it out when I'm unemployed. That's a reasonable response. But let me share two reasons why you may want to begin applying the material today. First, in this economy, you may find yourself on the outside looking in next week. And wouldn't it be better to have already built your HIAT or to have started your C3 due diligence so you can craft a VPI in the next 14 days, not the next 60 to 90 days?
To explain the second reason, let me share a little more of my career background. Earlier I mentioned that I began my OR career in research and development for a Fortune 500 company. My first step out of R&D for that company occurred when I was recruited to become the single point-of-contact between the 300-person R&D organization and the 25,000-person Network Operations organization, a group that controlled a $2-plus billion annual budget. My role was to build relationships with the decision-makers of the client organization, develop a sufficient understanding of their business issues to recommend R&D project work for them to support, and help the R&D decision-makers' staff and monitor the work.
Selling OR: Lessons Learned
You may be asking, why am I telling you this and why is this a reason for you to begin using the HIJS methodology? The answer is simple. What I learned in "selling" OR project work was a precursor to the material contained in the HIJS system. In other words, this approach works equally well for finding a job and for selling OR project work. Some of you may be wrestling with how to market the skills of your OR group or raise corporate awareness for what you could be doing to help your decision-makers. In fact, a third reason for applying this material today is that the methodology works very well for moving up (or laterally) within your company if you're presently employed.
Think about it. If you can build a group of influential, well-connected people in your company, and they're willing to help you connect with decision-makers outside your division or workgroup; and you can research the needs of those decision-makers; and you can craft a VPI that gets their attention, do you think it will be very long before a meeting is scheduled with the aforementioned decision-makers to discuss your ideas? And if the meeting goes well, and why wouldn't it, you're demonstrating your ability to solve a problem that's important to them. It won't be long before a transfer is arranged moving you into their organization.
I don't want to paint a picture that HIJS works in all situations or all environments, but it has proven to be quite effective for many of the people who have applied it. In fact, I used the methodology to secure my last consulting job, an opportunity that paid me almost 70 percent of my previous annual salary, for just nine weeks worth of work.
Circling back to where we began, finding a job is a worthy OR problem to solve. Failure to do so has dramatic personal and social implications. The traditional methods for finding a job have proven ineffective in this economy. We developed HIJS because we believed there was a better, more effective way for people to find a job. We discovered that the path to getting what we wanted (a job) was to first help executives and/or senior decision-makers get what they wanted. Once we understood that, we set about developing a repeatable process that anyone could use to leverage their strengths and capabilities (Step 3: building a HIAT), figure out what was preventing the target audience from achieving their goals (Step5: conducting C3 due diligence), and consolidating all that research into a nugget the target audience would find compelling and worthy of discussing (Step 6: developing a VPI).
Richard Hewitt, Ph.D., applies common sense to business problems. He has applied his operations research training to minimizing fire department response times, simplifying support operations for the National Science Foundation's Antarctic Research Program, and developing performance metrics and scorecards that drive profitability. Hewitt is the founder of High Impact Career Products, an offshoot of his interest in defining and improving the process by which people find employment and manage their careers. He can be reached at hewitt17@msn.com.
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