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Weak Ties versus Strong Ties in your Job Search [Updated]

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Weak Ties versus Strong Ties

weak tiesWeak ties—or weak connections—in your network are more valuable than strong ties!

WHAT?

Weak ties are those people who you do not know well…those people with whom you only have a casual relationship.

Wait a minute. Everyone has been telling you that you need to network and develop deep relationships to help in your job search. That is still true.

Here is the problem.

People who know you really well, know the same people you know. People who know you more casually likely know a lot of people you do not know.

Why Would Weak Ties be More Valuable than Strong Ties?

This concept comes from a section of the book Give and Take: Why Helping Others Drives Our Success by Adam Grant. Look for a couple of more posts based on this book.

Adam writes:

Strong ties are our close friends and colleagues, the people we really trust. Weak ties are our acquaintances, the people we know casually. Testing the common assumption that we get the most help from our strong ties, Stanford sociologist Mark Granvotter, surveyed people in professional, technical and managerial professions who recently changed jobs. Nearly 17 percent heard about the job from a strong tie. Their friends and trusted colleagues gave them plenty of leads.

But, surprisingly, people were significantly more likely to benefit from weak ties. Almost 28 percent heard about the job from a weak tie. Strong ties provide bonds, but weak ties served as bridges: they provide more efficient access to new information. Our strong ties tend to travel in the same social circles and know about the same opportunities as we do. Weak ties are more likely to open up access to a different network, facilitating the discovery of original leads.

Here’s the wrinkle: it’s tough to ask weak ties for help.

The premise is that weak ties know about people and opportunities that your strong ties do not. Therefore, weak ties can be more valuable to you in your job search than strong ties.

Asking for Advice

Most of us are not comfortable asking weak ties for help. Heck…I am a guy, I do not like asking for help from anyone!

The magic word is to ask for advice.

When you ask for advice, you will rarely be turned down. If they do turn you down, they are a jerk and you do not want to talk with them anyway.

When you ask for advice from a weak tie, it is a compliment.

It might sound like — Can you give some advice on:

How to get hired at your company?

Who do I need to talk to at your company to get a xyz job?

How to best hear of new opportunities at your company?

You are not asking for a job! You are just asking for a little bit of advice.

This fits nicely into the asking for A-I-R—Advice, Insights, and Recommendations.

Weak Tie Example #1 – Past Colleagues and Managers

Weak ties can come from a variety of areas.

Take a moment and read about Steve in the post Introverted Sales Guy Job Search – Case Study. 

Steve very methodically reached out to past co-workers and managers who he had worked with over the last 20 years. Many of these people he had not spoken with for over 10 years. He reached out and reached out, and finally found a former colleague who was looking for an account manager. This former colleague remembered him as an excellent account manager and a really nice guy.

It was through this weak tie that Steve landed his job.

Weak Tie Example #2 – Family Relationships

If you have children still at home, you likely have a huge amount of weak ties. It is your children’s friends parents.

Think about that for a second. If they are still in school, playing team sports or involved in other school activities, you have access to people who have networks that may only barely intersect your network.

Even if your children are grown, look to their network for access to potential connections. One trend I am seeing is our reluctance to reach out to people much younger than us. The problem is, when we hit our 50s, 60s or beyond, our networks may age out. I wrote about this in the post Has Your Network Aged Out and Abandoned You?

We need to be constantly looking for new connections and sometimes they will be younger than you would expect.

Weak Tie Example #3 – Professional Relationships

You have a lot of professional relationships outside of work. How about asking for help from your:

  • Financial Advisor
  • Accountant
  • Doctor
  • Lawyer
  • Chiropractor
  • Hair Dresser or Barber
  • Personal Trainer

When I was looking for a high school math teaching position, my most valuable networking connection was …. my chiropractor. At that point, I had been seeing her for over a dozen years and she had seen me through two very difficult situations, a ruptured disc in 1993 and my near-fatal bicycle accident in 2002. She knew me well, why I was pursuing a pivot into teaching and knew a lot of people I did not know, including several local school superintendents.

Willingness to Reach Out to Weak Ties

All of these weak ties know a lot of people who you do not know. As Adam Grant said in his book, it’s tough to ask weak ties for help.

If you can become comfortable reaching out to weak ties, your network will expand greatly…and so do your opportunities.

Have your weak ties been more valuable than strong ties?

Tell us about it!

Marc Miller  

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How To Stay Connected When You Are Not There

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Stay Connected

Stay Connected
Copyright: netsay / 123RF Stock Photo

I was asked, by a member of the Career Pivot Community, about how to stay connected to his remote network during a job search. He and his wife are living in an area where the economy is in decline. He is looking for a job halfway across the country.

I previously wrote the post, I Want to Be Hired Before I Move Dilemma. I share how to make it look like you are in the remote location without actually having to physically move there.

The Career Pivot member is currently making regular trips to a remote location for networking. The problem he is struggling with is how he can stay connected in between the trips. He wants to stay connected to the people he meets on each trip, but not be a pest. He does not want to email them every week or so, to check to see if they have heard anything. He knows that when people do that to him, he stops reading their emails.

My response was to become a resource to them on LinkedIn. Share targeted curated content to become a resource to them.

Share Curated Content on LinkedIn

Curating content is nothing new. Museums and galleries have been doing this for years. They have curators who select pieces to display or share.

He should do the same by curating content from the geographical location and industry he is pursuing.

Let’s talk about finding relevant content and then sharing it on LinkedIn

Finding Content to Share to Stay Connected

I always suggest subscribing to the Business Journal in multiple locations in the state where you want to relocate. In this case, he was targeting North Carolina. I suggested he subscribe to the Raleigh/Durham, Charlotte, and Greensboro/Winston-Salem Business Journals.

You might also subscribe to the email lists of relevant industry associations. You might want to check out Feedly, which helps you to locate RSS feeds and then filter the content based on keywords.

I use Twitter lists to organize the Twitter feeds of various organizations. If you are not sure how to use a Twitter list, check out my post, Twitter Lists, and the Targeted Job Search.

Schedule Content to Share

Once you have located content to share, you will want to use a tool like Buffer to schedule the content to be shared on LinkedIn throughout the week. There are other tools out there, but I am a big fan of buffer.com. The free version will let you schedule to a personal LinkedIn account for free.

For example, you might locate 4-5 relevant pieces of content on a Monday morning, and schedule them to be shared mid-morning and early afternoon for Tuesday – Thursday on LinkedIn. You may want to check this Hubspot article called, The Best Time to Post on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, and Google+.

You will want to check the engagement level for every post by checking how many clicks and likes each post gets. Buffer will provide those basic statistics.

Target Individuals in New Location

Now comes the important part to this strategy. After a post has gone live, make a comment in the post and specifically tag individuals.

You may be saying to yourself, how do I tag an individual in a comment. You do this by typing first an @ and then their name. 

I posted a recent podcast episode where I was interviewed by Denise King. I wanted Denise to know I was using the recording. I typed in her name and a drop-down list appeared. I selected her name from the list and typed in a message.

Denise will now be notified that she was mentioned in a comment.

Be Helpful by Sharing Relevant Content

For each curated content you find, tag one or more individuals who you think would find it worthwhile. Pay attention to see who engages with the content by commenting or liking the post on LinkedIn.

If you consistently share relevant content once or twice a week, people will notice and want to stay engaged.

This strategy works whether the connection is local or remote. It is even better if you are sharing content that you produce, like a blog post or a podcast.

There are two themes I want you to remember :

  • Be helpful
  • Be consistent

If you do share relevant content every week at approximately the same time, people will come to expect your sharing.

This makes you memorable!

Marc Miller  

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Waiting is not a Job Search Strategy [Updated]

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Waiting is not a Strategy

waitingMost of you are waiting on a:

  • Job to be posted
  • Recruiter to respond after submitting your resume to a job posting
  • Recruiter to respond after a phone screen
  • Hiring manager after an interview

I know, I know you do not want to be a pest or appear to too forward. Well…be a pest. Be a polite pest – but be a pest. Pursue what you want.

Most importantly…STOP WAITING!

Waiting for a Position to be Posted

Approximately 80 percent of positions are never posted. So why are you waiting? The days of thinking you are going to get a job by applying online are over for most of us in the 2nd half of life. If you were 20 years younger and looking at junior positions, then maybe applying online might work.

The hiring process at many companies is broken. You will want to check out my post 5 Things You Will Never Know About the Hiring Process. Your belief that that the system is fair and equitable is very outdated.

Your next job will come through a relationship. Go work your network, work your network and then … work your network some more.

Use the Targeted Job Search approach by targeting companies and quit chasing “the job.”

Build a list of companies who are capable of hiring you. Use LinkedIn advanced search to find companies that hire people with skills like yours. Approach potential peers and hiring managers, telling them about the problems you solve.

Stop waiting for a position to be posted!

Waiting is not a job search strategy!

Waiting to hear from Someone after Submitting Your Resume

Immediately, seek out a company contact if you see a position posted or hear about a job through your network as a huge percentage of positions are filled through referrals. Do not wait and find a referral first!

At the same time, very aggressively, reach out to recruiters or HR professionals in the company to find out who is hiring for the position. Your goal will be to have a discussion with the hiring manager.

Waiting is not a job search strategy.

The strategy of my fellow Launch Pad Job Club board member, Jim Adcock, was to reach out to recruiters and ask, “I wanted to make sure you received my resume. The sexual nature of my last name sometimes causes my resume to get caught in SPAM filters.”

Yes, this strategy works!

Waiting for a Response after a Phone Screen with a Recruiter

It is very common for recruiters to have up to 60 positions to fill at any one time. Call the recruiter 24 hours after the initial phone screen. Be courteous but persistent. You want to stay on the top of their mind.

Be a pest, a polite pest but a pest none the least.

The important point here is to call them. Leave them a voicemail if they do not answer.

I know, I know you sent them an email and you have not heard back. When people are getting hundreds of emails every day, it just makes sense to call the recruiter and be persistent. If you do not hear back, call them again in a day or so. Do not wait a week to call them back. Be persistent.

Waiting is not a job search strategy!

Waiting for a Response after an In-Person Interview

Make sure and get business cards and contact information from everyone you interview with. Ask for their business cards at the beginning of every interview. If they decide you are not the right candidate during the interview, they may not offer you their business card at the end.

Similar to waiting for a response after a phone screen, you want to follow up quickly and be persistent.

If you do not hear from them after several weeks, use the Take-Away Closing Technique  by calling the hiring manager and leaving them the following message:

I am presuming that you are no longer interested in me for the XYZ position. If you have not found your ideal candidate, I would be happy to recommend someone else for the position. Let me know if I can be of any help to you in filling this position.

If the hiring manager is still interested in you, they will reach out to you quickly. Earlier in my career, if I wanted someone to call me back, I would leave the following message:

Hey Larry, could you call me back about the planned gold shipment.

Larry would usually call me back because he wanted to know about this supposed gold shipment…which was fictitious.

Be Persistent and Quit Waiting

The idea for this blog post came from a presentation by Gary O’Neal, who presented at Launch Pad Job Club.

You may want to listen to my interview with Gary on the Repurpose Your Career Podcast called Gary O’Neal on Looking for a Job in the 2nd Half of Life [Podcast] where Gary talks about how he would approach a job search. He would not be waiting but be proactive.

Gary made it very clear that recruiters and hiring managers would like to respond to every applicant. The reality is that they have way too much on their plate. For every job posted, on average, there are 180 applicants.

The hiring process is broken at oh so many companies. Technology has made it way to easy to post and apply for positions that there is a glut of information that clogs up the system.

If you want to get hired for a job in the 2nd half of life, you need to quit waiting, be persistent and be a pest!

Marc Miller  

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Are Your Emails Ignored? Call Them on the Telephone!

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Emails Ignored?

emails ignored
Copyright: thingass / 123RF Stock Photo

I was trying to reach out to a LinkedIn connection last week and it appeared my connection ignored all of my email attempts. Emails were sent to their personal and business accounts. I sent them a LinkedIn message.

I got crickets back.

Most of you at this point would have given up.

Not me! I started looking for their phone number.

Yes, you can reach out to them on that device called a telephone.

We have all run into this situation where we send an email and we get nothing back. No response.

It could be:

  • The email ended up in their SPAM folder
  • They say it went ehh…
  • The volume of email that day pushed your note way down
  • They do not like you

Why they did not respond is completely unknown to you. You can make all of the stories up in your head and the reality is you do not know. I call this the MSU (Make Stuff Up) disorder.

Too Many Emails

We know a lot of time emails are ignored because we get too much email. By the way, I use a product called SaneBox to categorize my emails. If you are interested here is my affiliate link.

We all are afflicted by too many emails especially during certain times of the week. This depends on how many newsletters we are subscribed to, the email habits of our work colleagues and so forth.

What can we do?

Pick up the telephone! I know it is old school but then I am old school AND IT WORKS!

I Don’t Have Their Telephone Number!

In the old days, you could pick up the telephone book and find someone’s telephone number but now we have the Internet.

I wanted my LinkedIn connection’s phone number – so where could I find their phone number?

I looked on their LinkedIn profile. It was not in their contact information.

I scanned through their summary section of their LinkedIn profile looking for their phone number. Nope, not there.

I located their employer’s website and went to the contact page. No phone number there. Not to be deterred I googled “company name phone number.” I found the company phone number on several websites including the reputable website, Bloomberg.com. Great! I called the number.

First time I called I was shuttled to someone’s voicemail. Hmm.. later I called back and got a recording “no one is available to take your call.”

I then went to Whitepages.com and typed in the name of the person I was looking for. Bingo! It popped up with someone that was likely my contact. In fact, this person lived relatively close to me.

I called the number and got a voicemail. I left a message and I had an email response in less than 30 minutes.

Is My Phone Number Out There?

You may be wondering what information is available about you. Go to Whitepages.com and type in your name and zip code. You will likely be surprised that they know your age, address, names of your immediate relatives and other information. If you are willing to pay, you can find all kinds of information that is available to you or anyone else.

If you find that your emails are ignored, figure out how to find the person’s phone number and call them.

You might want to reach out to a close friend, relative or work colleague to get their phone number.

It reminds of the old AT&T commercial that said reach out and touch someone.

Go ahead and use the telephone when your emails are being ignored.

Marc Miller  

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Build Your Referral Network – The Targeted Job Search (Updated)

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Your Referral Network

referral networkAbout 85% of all jobs are filled through employee referrals. Therefore, it makes sense to build a referral network at every company where you might like to work in the future.

Before you read on, this is the fourth in this series on the Targeted Job Search. If you have not read the previous steps this is a good time to read the entire targeted job search series.

I have written about building and researching your target list. You connected to recruiters inside your target companies, primarily to have closer connections to their employees via LinkedIn. Now it is time to build your referral network.

Using LinkedIn advanced search, locate employees with similar job titles and certifications and develop a list of potential new connections.

At this point you can take several different strategies:

Strategy #1 – Look for a Common Connection

You now should have a list of people with each target company that can refer you to the company. These could be 1st-degree connections, (people you already know), 2nd-degree connections, (people who are connected to people you know), and 3rd-degree connections, (people who you are very loosely connected on LinkedIn.)

For now, we will focus on 2nd-degree connections.

For each 2nd degree person on your list, look to see how you are connected on LinkedIn.  Ask one of your common connections how well they are acquainted and would they be willing to make an introduction?

If they do not know the person well or are unwilling to make an introduction move on to your next common connection.

What you are looking for is a personal introduction. In the sales world, this is referred to as a warm lead.

What if you have exhausted your common connections? If that is the case, you will make this a cold lead and treat them like a 3rd-degree connection which we will discuss in Strategy #4.

Strategy #2 – Systematically Look at LinkedIn Profiles

Every day, look at multiple LinkedIn profiles on your list. The LinkedIn setting called “Profile Viewing Options” should be set to display your name and headline. This is also called Profile Visibility.

Do not look at hundreds of profiles every day but just a few. There were several commercial programs that would automate this process for you but they violated LinkedIn’s user agreement and therefore, most if not all, are out of business.

After you look at a few profiles on your target list, you will want to check to see who looks at your profile. Think of this is like being in a crowded bar and you are trying to catch the eye of someone of the opposite sex. If they look at you, you can then consider approaching them to start a conversation. Job search is just like dating and marriage.

When someone pokes their head into your profile, send them a LinkedIn connection request and ask for AIR – Advice, Insights, and Recommendations!

Once they have looked at your profile, you are no longer an unknown. They should recognize your name and know a little bit about you.

Strategy #3 – Cold Connection Request

What if the connection is a 3rd-degree connection or you exhausted your common connections trying to get an introduction? You will need to make a cold connection request.

You probably get many of these every week. Someone sends you a connection request and you say to yourself “do I know this person?”.

When making these types of requests there are two things you must do:

  1. Include a personal note
  2. Make a simple request

You will want to make this personal and ask the recipient for something that is easy for them to do. Here is a good example of a LinkedIn request.

George, (use their first name)

I am very interested in learning more about the marketing area of xyz company where you work. Would it be possible to have a quick phone call (5-10 minutes) for us to speak so I could ask some questions and solicit some advice?

I look forward to hearing from you and in the meantime, please accept this invitation to connect.

Marc Miller

I did not ask to meet for a cup of coffee or have lunch, I just wanted to have a quick phone call. I also used the magic word “advice”.

I also added the request to accept this invitation to connect.

If you precisely word cold connection requests they have a high probability of being accepted.

Persistence

Whether you use strategy #1, #2 or #3, the idea is to get to meet each person and develop a relationship. You are looking for an internal advocate so that, when a position becomes available, they will be willing and able to pass your resume through company channels.

This takes time and persistence. If you spend 15-30 minutes reaching out to new connections and meet one new person week, you will build a significant referral network in just a few months.

As you build your referral network, it is equally as important to maintain that network through careful and persistent cultivation.

The goal is to have a referral network at every company on your target list.

We know that people change jobs every few years. You will want to review your target list to check who is working at each company every six months.

If you carefully follow all of the steps in the Targeted Job Search, you will have choices in where you work for the rest of your career.

To read the rest of the Targeted Job Search series click here.

Marc Miller  

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