Career Basics Course: Week 8, Day 36

"The hard part of the job search is not getting your resume right; it's getting your resume seen."

“effective to acknowledge the magnitude of a favor than to attempt to immediately repay it.”

“The critical step is getting your contacts to empathize enough with you to be willing to advocate for you in their organization—”

―? Steve Dalton ,?The 2-Hour Job Search: Using Technology to Get the Right Job Faster

Make A Company List

FOR THIS EXERCISE, let go of an preconceived ideas of where you should work. You will need to think laterally. If you don't make an attempt at a creative and exhaustive list, you will be left with five companies you have know for years or those suggested to you by others, and you instantly lower your chances of finding something new.

The Exercise

Make a Company List

Make a list of companies or organizations that you are interested in working for.?Think laterally. This task is about letting go of any preconceived ideas of where you should work, and instead, build a comprehensive list of companies based on what they can teach you and how close they can get you to your career goal.

It cannot be overstated that our paths are not linear. As long as you have a plan you shouldn’t be afraid of learning while working in adjacent industries.?It could take you two years to get your dream job, so stay focused on where you want to go, and let go of the idea that you should be?there right?now.

1. Review your?to learn list
2. Create a list of companies?and jobs where you could learn these skills.
3. Reorder the list?of companies and jobs from the ones that can teach you the most skills to the ones that can teach you the least.
4. Choose the top company,??Find Your Future Boss ?and then?send them this email

Adding to Dev's point, I would point you to the following excellent summary (source: National Institute of Health)

Steve Dalton's LAMP List

Create a LAMP List to Help Target Key Companies of Interest

May 16, 2022

Steve Dalton’s book?The 2-Hour Job Search?recommends creating a LAMP (List, Advocacy, Motivation, Posting) list to help you identify and target key employers. This can be a helpful activity to help you both expand and then narrow down your options. The main goal of creating such a list is to develop a prioritized list of at least forty employers. Yes, 40!

Steve Dalton’s book?The 2-Hour Job Search?recommends creating a LAMP (List, Advocacy, Motivation, Posting) list to help you identify and target key employers. This can be a helpful activity to help you both expand and then narrow down your options. The main goal of creating such a list is to develop a prioritized list of at least forty employers. Yes, 40!

Dalton strongly encourages people to think of at least forty employers because he feels it helps job seeker move past the “usual suspects” – those big-name employers that seem to attract all the attention but are often very difficult to break into. Nearly 2/3 of employees work at employers with fewer than 100 employees. These small organizations often fall off one’s radar, even though they shouldn’t!

You can approach your list-making in anyway; however, Dalton recommends focusing on four groups:

1. Dream employers?– your ultimate wish list

2. Alumni/Affinity employers?– companies where you have a contact/connection

3. Actively hiring employers?– companies that often pop up in online job searches

4. Trending employers?– employers you see popping up in the new or trending on Twitter

Once you have gone through these parameters, you will likely have your target list of 40 and the “L” part of LAMP is complete.

Moving onto “A” Advocacy part: from your list, you are going to cull your professional networks/contacts (LinkedIn can greatly help with this) and note if you have a contact or a potential advocate within each organization. The Advocacy column can be a simple “Yes” or “No” or you can list the names of your contacts. Think about fellow alumni from your alma mater, fellow NIH trainees, or professional associations to which you belong.

For the “M” Motivation part: you are going to rank your level of interest in each employer based on what you know about them right now. Use a scale of 0 (no interest) to 3 (high interest).

On to the last component of the LAMP list – “P” Posting. In this section, you are going to search each company using a job search stie like Indeed.com to see if they have any positions posted. The use of quotes can greatly help aid your search – “Company Name”.?Similarly assign a 0 to 3 ranking based on the number and quality of postings that you see listed.

Once your list is completely populated within Excel, you can now select and sort according to your rankings. This will help you visually get a sense of who your true top 5-10 employers are. Excel makes it easier to sort, but you can also use the PDF worksheet here .

For me, ... let me add the following:

1. First, I would swear by the list of 40+ and have pushed this further depending upon the urgency of the search -- building multiple groups of "lists of 40" to keep yourself fresh as you gather new information; so get this done.
2. Second, create a Board of Advisors, folks who will not only support you but, in this instance, individuals who are capable of making introductions, referring you to others, responding same-day to requests for letters of recommendation (these are often auto-generated when an application is submitted if a reference is listed); these are folks who are actively committed to you as a person.
3. Third, begin to have regular "Conversations of Inquiry" -- download the book, it's completely free -- with folks in your field, friends of friends, especially if they're knowledgeable about the companies or industries in your LAMP list; include in this group folks who are interesting and who are wise and have connections, and are strong relationship builders, and good people. These conversations will generate new referrals for Step #1 and new members of your Board of Advisors (Step #2).

Let me know how this is going.

Peace and blessings.

Gerald Doyle

A Happy Monday (on Wednesday) ... Week 8, Day 36!

All the best for the week ahead; amazing that we've reached Week 8 -- and we're very grateful for those who have reached out across these weeks.

Three cheers to those of you who have landed and others who are gaining interviews and traction; remember, we're all in for everyone and we will not rest until everyone has set themselves squarely on a path that's right for them at this moment.

We have welcomed three individuals who will continue throughout the remaining 3 weeks of Career Basics Course as Contributing Respondents. They are:

• Caila Howell ?... a business/digital marketing professional and education advocate. We're delighted that Caila has joined us in this journey.
• Kathleen O'Brien 欧凯林 ?... a mission-motivated, people-oriented and a collaborator between and among cultures. We're delighted that Kathleen has joined us in this journey.
• Lap Gong Leong , a writer, author and political commentary who shares his thinking and writing regularly, most recently authoring,?Uncovering Sensibilities: rethinking axioms in the world of work for autistic people .

All the very best to everyone. Much peace.

Gerald and?Al Nunez