Why This Book?
From the author, David E. Dirks:
This book is a strong, healthy marriage between the marketing strategies used successfully in business, business networking, and traditional job search methods. The job search marketing principles in this book are not theories; rather, they are based on a strong foundation of finding and generating job opportunities that few are willing to invest the time to find.
I will also tell you this: All of the best job search strategies and tactics in the world will not produce results unless an individual is properly disciplined and dedicated to see the process through. The challenge you have is in deciding which job search strategies and tactics are the best for the type of opportunities you want and then developing an organized job search campaign to find them. This book helps you deal with these challenges and more in direct and practical ways.
In this book you will learn how to:
• Work smarter; not harder.
• Create a job search marketing plan that attacks the need to find a position from several fronts.
• Understand that a targeted approach to finding a position is always better than using a scattered, shotgun approach.
• Develop the research skills necessary to search for and find a position to which you can then market yourself.
• Use a multitude of available resources (Web 2.0, business networking, direct marketing, etc.) to your greatest advantage.
• Relax and take some time to keep your health and sanity. Job search should be a balanced effort.
• Implement your plan, stay on the attack, and optimize your time and effort on a daily basis. Finding a job is much like a ground war: you have got to have a good plan of attack and be able to stay on mission until the objective is taken.
• Remain focused but flexible as you implement your job search marketing plan. The only thing that does not change is the fact that change is a constant.
• Learn and build positive momentum as you work your marketing plan. Every contact, every piece of data, and every idea you hear or see is an opportunity to learn and to add that learning to your arsenal of skills.
• Never blame your family, friends, the President, nature, or the economy for lack of results. You are entirely accountable for your success or failure during your job search.
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• Help others along the way in their job search. Giving back to others by sharing your knowledge and insights will put you in a good place.
It sometimes stuns me at just how people agonize and spend countless hours over their various résumé formats. Is a well-formatted résumé important? Yes. However, it will not find you a job. Blasting it out is a numbers game that does not yield positive returns. It only leads to frustration and dead ends.
Frustration and dead ends are not something you need during the course of a job search. This book is dedicated to avoiding that and keeping you focused on building a pipeline of job opportunities that others will not bother to find. Your journey of becoming your own personal marketing manager and positioning yourself to become an opportunity machine when the need arises begins right here.
David E. Dirks
Author & Marketing Expert
