My friends David Perry and Kevin Donlin have created the Guerrilla Job Search system. As readers of any of my job hunting series knows, I am great fan of these two fellows.
In fact together they have radically changed my life.
I have a goal to be on Oprah as an Orthodox Jewish motivational speaker.
To achieve that goal, one of the milestones in my life is to make the claim I have helped 10,000 people find jobs.
To meet the milestone of helping 10,000 people, I was putting together a program to help job hunters based on the principles of marketing yourself. But, once I had learned the details of the Guerrilla Job Search program, I abandoned my program, because theirs includes everything I would have done and a lot more.
What I have done instead, is work with Guerrilla Job Search content and put it into my own voice and added my own perspective.
First let’s begin by understanding the differences between a regular job hunter and a Guerrilla Job Hunter and what it means to your job hunt.
- It starts with a difference in expectations. The Guerrilla Job hunter expects interviews within a few weeks and several choices for a new job, the traditional job hunter expects a few interviews and one or two choices for a job in the course of several months.
Given the choice between waiting months and weeks, I would choose the Guerrilla job search route to find a job quickly that you want and you will be happy doing.
- The Guerrilla Job Hunter has an action plan that is moving them forward. The regular job hunter is doing “Click and Apply” which in effect is simply responding with thousands of other people to opportunities posted on the Internet.
The Guerrilla Job Hunter sets their own job hunt agenda. They choose the companies they want to work for and the job they want.
- One great insight in job hunting from Kevin is the meaning of “No”. For the regular job hunter, “No” means “I am not interested in you, Thank You very much.” For the Guerrilla Job Hunter, “No” has a totally different meaning. “No” doesn’t mean never, “No” doesn’t mean “Leave the country forever”, “No” means just not today, tomorrow is another day.” Its a powerful message in the importance of tenacity for the job hunter.
The differences between a Guerrilla Job Hunter and a regular job hunter can represent thousands of dollars of lost salary in your pocket.
- Regular job hunters think they are lucky when they get called for an interview. Guerrilla Job Hunters know that the harder they work, the luckier they get. They know how to work at getting a job.
- Guerrilla Job hunters and regular job hunter measure movement towards the goal of getting a job much differently.
- The regular job hunter feels they are effective and efficient when they have sent out 14 resumes before lunch.
The Guerrilla Job Hunter is efficient and effective when they have 14 meetings scheduled with a person that can hire your or influence the hiring of you. These 14 meetings are not job interviews but part of the process to get a job interview.
- There is a difference in timing of “Click and Apply”, the Guerrilla Job Hunter gets in before their is even an chance for competition to show up with “Click and Apply”.
The Guerrilla Job Hunter is in control of their lives.
David and Kevin have graciously provided me a copy of the Guerrilla Job Search DVD and I have followed its structure for this article and have reviewed the DVD at the same time.
Before I begin, I am sure you are asking yourself who David Perry and Kevin Donlin are and what does it have to do with helping you find a job?
Together they have been helping job hunters for over 30 years. Separately they have each written several books and have been interviewed extensively in the media.
Kevin Donlin is an American speaker, copywriter and has been interviewed in US Today, New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Fox TV, and CBS Radio. He writes a job hunting column for the Minneapolis career columnist for the Minneapolis Star Tribune.
David Perry is a Canadian recruiter that has been interviewed by the Wall Street Journal (WSJ), IT world, EE Times, Network World, Venture Wire, and is a regular correspondent on CBCNewsWorld.
Fortune magazine has featured the Guerrilla Job Search System.
Help for the job hunter includes hundreds of free articles, the Guerrilla Job Search DVD, a tele-seminar series, and custom one on one help. I have liberally adapted and repackaged (with permission) their free articles for http://www.zaletabakman.ca/catagories/job-hunting/ adding my view of the world.
Let me warn you up front, I have tried my best to avoid putting too many spoilers of the DVD in this article.
The DVD is divided into six sections:
- Introduction,
- What Guerrilla Job Hunters Do First,
- The Differences Between Guerrilla Hunters and Ordinary Job Hunters,
- How To Tap The “Hidden” Job Market,
- How To Work With Recruiters Guerrilla Job Style, and
- How To Really Prepare For The Job Interview.
The introduction is all about the attitude you need to get a job and to create a job plan. The importance of a job hunt plan cannot be stressed enough. The introduction goes into some great detail about how to approach the job hunt and the attitude you need.
And trust me when I tell you, its not about choosing the perfect font for a resume.
You learn quickly its a full colour MTV world and a Black text on White paper is waste of time.
The presentation is in a interview style in which David and Kevin’s personality quickly comes out. David is the large theoretical big picture approach, while Kevin gets into the nitty-gritty technical details. This is a simply a relative comparison, each can and does provide the other type of information.
Both David and Kevin are enthusiastic and energetic speakers. Its fun to watch them holding back from interrupting to expand on each others points. Unfortunately, the DVD does not include the out takes, but I bet they would be informative to watch.
Maybe the outtakes could be a bonus download?
At one point David talks about the need to inventory your skills and why and mentions a couple of ways to do it. Kevin then rattles off the 5 websites to use and how. When David mentioned the websites, you know which ones he is talking about, but he gets the URL wrong.
The interviewer is Janet Eastman, the former producer and host of Ottawa Citizen Business TV. Janet does a great job of clarifying David and Ken and repeating the key points. But, each time she clarifies it, Kevin or David jump in with another couple of ideas or tips you the job hunter needs to know.
In the end, the watching David and Kevin them bounce back and forth, each is trying to be polite and reference the other, is well done. My only comment about this, is taht its sometimes distracting as you can see Kevin, checking his laptop. I guess he is making sure that they cover all the points off, which is good as it makes sure everything important is told to you.
The interview is not scripted making the presentation informal and enjoyable. It includes the odd verbal miswording. Again, making it approachable and definitely not preachy.
The Guerrilla Job Search system is structured on a number of building blocks and each block works with each other block. Most people attempt to job hunt with a number of discrete approaches, rather than a reasoned and thought through structure that integrates various forms of marketing of yourself.
Its a structure with a solid core to it.
The Guerrilla Job Search integrates a your job hunt plan, a methodology for tracking your success, how to leverage the Internet for job hunting, how to leverage LinkedIn, Monster.com and ZoomInfo and other sites, how to construct a job getting resume, how and where to network, how to prepare and execute your interview, and how to negotiate your new salary.
This is a 10,000 foot description, the brilliance is in the details in the tactics used in each building block and how they relate to each other.
Remember, when a job hunt is posted on the Internet, thousands of people immediately see it. Thousands immediately “Click and Apply”. Making your chances of being found similar to winning money in the lottery.
David makes a great point – you want to get to the job before its posted – the hidden job market. The DVD over and over provides tactics to get you there.
David describes a number of simple ways to check that your resume is actually doing what you want it to. I call them “Sniff Tests”. Does your resume smell right? Is it doing what you want it to. Making sure your resume passes these “Sniff Tests” could save you weeks in your job hunt.
http://www.zaletabakman.ca/catagories/job-hunting/ has lots of great job hunting tips and tactics. The problem for you, my dear reader, is knowing why, how, when and where to apply each job search tip or tactic. David and Kevin’s Guerrilla Job Search DVD provides the guidance and skills to make the choices that fit your job hunt needs and your personality.
The biggest section of the DVD is the Job Search tactics. The specific things you can do to kick butt in the job hunt.
The Guerrilla Job Search DVD goes into a Guerrilla Job Hunter Resume. Its an amazing thing to see.
After seeing the Guerrilla Job Search Resume, you instantly that if you are competing against one, the traditional resume is useless.
Guerrilla Job Search Resume is the one at the top of the pile and the first person to be called.
I would love to describe the resume and provide a pic or two, but that would be a major spoiler of the DVD.
Kevin goes into a lot of detail about how to create the Guerrilla job search resume and what goes into it. I have four top seller resume books on my shelf I was using for reference material and ideas. They are all useless now.
What would a resume be without a great cover letter. Kevin and David go into great detail about the four paragraph Guerrilla Job Search cover letter of about 500 words. This is not your standard cover letter.
One thing I didn’t know about Kevin was that he was a professional copywriter in a previous life. (A copywriter is somebody who writes the words – called copy – in advertisements and direct marketing materials.) so you can imagine that the four paragraph cover letter format works to generate the interview. The structure doesn’t waste words and leads to an effective call to action. The call to action results in a job interview for you.
The tactics section connects the Guerrilla Job Search cover letter, Linkedin, and zoominfo and the Guerrilla Job Search Resume.
While the Linkedin stuff is adequate, they could have gone into more depth. But, don’t worry, I have all the Linkedin stuff you need here on http://www.zaletabakman.ca/catagories/linkedin/.
I am a Linkedin junkie, but their are some insights into LinkedIn that David shares that I wasn’t aware of. These don’t have to do with LinkedIn per se. Rather they have to do with some subtleties of how you use Linkedin and the messages it delivers to a recruiter.
David shares a recruiter secret of how to be one of the first people the recruiter calls. While it would be DVD spoiler to tell you, let me share with you that his method is something simple and non-obvious, costs you nothing to fix, and takes about five minutes to implement and is ignored by the vast majority of job hunters. Its one of the subtle ways you tell a recruiter you want to be found, but are not desperate for a job.
The technique is especially slick if you currently have a job and don’t want your current employer to know you are job hunting. Unless you have watched the DVD.
The next tactic talked about is using Google to find a job. Its not about using Google to find the latest and greatest job board (Job Boards are “Click and Apply”), rather its using Google to find those 14 people you are going to meet with.
The example shown is how David found where to job hunt in New York City for an advertising job.
The skill isn’t technical, its understanding how to view the results and the actions to take from those google results.
About Job Boards, David explains there are 42,000 job boards. One google search can be better than being on all of them. How to search and follow up is a key Guerrilla Job Search tactic.
Big DVD spoiler coming up.
The story of Crystal demonstrates boldly the difference between a regular job search person desperate for a job interview and and a Guerrilla Job hunter who gets taken out for coffee by the hiring authority.
Remember above when I mentioned the difference in effectiveness between the 14 resumes sent out before lunch and the 14 meetings with people who can hire or influence a job for you?
Crystal focused on the difference. David tells her story and shows what she used.
In direct marketing we all know that “Lumpy” mail is the best form of direct mail to use.
Lumpy mail is a package that is lumpy that arrives in the mail.
Lumpy mail is always opened and its always opened first. Its expensive to use, but its effective.
In job hunting, David and Kevin’s tell us good and well thought through Lumpy mail gets a job interview one in three times.
What do you ever send that can get you a job interview one in three times?
It connects to that other insight I mentioned above, “We live in a 3 dimensional full colour MTV world.” You need to market yourself and job hunt with this insight totally front and center.
Back to Crystal – she was looking for a $25,000 a year job. She combined several of the Guerrilla Job Hunting tactics shown in the video using a military technique called the “Force Multiplier Effect”. The Force Multiplier Effect uses a different techniques at each stage of getting the job.
Here comes a spoiler (I am allowed one aren’t I?)
After 5 interviews Crystal got the job, but not at her target salary. She received $42,300 a year. The pay back for the cost of the Guerrilla Job Search was many hundreds of times.
End of DVD spoiler.
After the job tactics section, the DVD describes the hidden job market. The hidden job market are the jobs that are talked about internally but are not posted. These are the jobs where the hiring authority know they need somebody to solve a problem, but haven’t hired anybody yet. They are looking internally or asking the staff if they know anybody who can help solve the problem.
If you are known before the job is posted, you beat the thousands of people who “Click and Apply”.
The Hidden Job Market leverages the fact that only 15% of all jobs available at any time are advertised.
Monster.com and Careerbuilder.com are the two largest job boards in North America. Together they only represent 1.5% of the 15% of jobs available. That means the vast majority of jobs are not ever posted. Actually, companies will do anything to avoid posting a job and the reason is simple. Why would they post a job and receive within 10 minutes 500 useless resumes from people whose main job hunt effort is “Click and Apply”.
If you are using only Monster.com and Careerbuilder.comto search for a job, you are missing over 98.5% of the available jobs.
Its worse the more specialized your skills are, there is a greater the possibility you won’t even get to hear about the job before its filled by people already known to the hiring authority.
The next section on the DVD is the shortest because it explains the one thing you need to know about getting the attention of the best recruiters in your industry, in your city, or who work for the list of 20 companies you want to work for.
But, to tell you the method will be a spoiler. But don’t worry, there are several more spoilers later in this article.
The last section Kevin succinctly describes how to really prepare for the job interview. We are not talking here about dressing well, what to say, or any of that basic stuff.
(You should know that part without David and Kevin helping you – or read http://4GuerrillaJobInterviewTips.zaletabakman.ca for all the basics and a checklist.)
Much of the background work for the interview was done with the effort you took to get the interview. At the interview you better not not show up like a tourist, rather show up like its the first day on the job.
If you think this is silly or you refuse to spend time working before you get paid, remember the story of Crystal. She was offered a job at almost twice the salary she expected. I would say Crystal felt it was worth her time and effort.
I can’t help myself – but here is a spoiler about one of the in jokes on the DVD.
Start of Spoiler.
Both David and Kevin are devout Christians (I am surrounded by them!). This would be totally irrelevant to you except for an inside joke they make.
David tells Kevin that they are going to burn for the technique they share in the job interview. (That was the joke – get it?)
If you didn’t get it – don’t worry – its a standard joke for regular members of Churches, Synagogues, Mosques, and Temples. Basically among religious people of all faiths. Yea – we do make fun of ourselves.
End of Spoiler.
The technique is all about how to convert one job interview into five job interviews with the companies competitors.
While its all above board and they explain why, I still think its on the edge of things. Its not as bad as what Tim Ferris suggests in the 4 Hour Work week, but it gets close. See my article on what I find offensive about Tim Ferris’ approach.
I think the technique described by David and Kevin is fine when you are interviewing with large companies, but, I don’t think the technique is fair for owner/operator companies.
If you choose to use this technique, make sure that you are aware of what people say and the permission you are given to keep yourself out of trouble.
Here is my last spoiler – David concludes with a great analogy about job hunting.
If you have prepared properly, developed the right Guerrilla Job Search resume, its better than a lucky lottery ticket.
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If you are a serious about your job hunt, click here to find out more about the Guerrilla Job Search System DVD right now.
The Guerrilla Job Search System comes with a 12 month guarantee – if it doesn’t help you find a job within 12 months, you can return it, no questions asked. There are number of bonuses included with the DVD.
