There are two basic types of research: formal and informal. This posting covers Informal research to find a job. Informal research involves finding and personally interacting with specific contacts in both your personal and professional networks.
Learning how to use informal research to thoroughly research an industry, company, and job postings helps you expand your knowledge and find hidden jobs.
Informal Research helps you:
- Expand your professional network
- Gain valuable insight into an industry/company/job
Why bother to do all that? Three major reasons are:
- Over 50% of jobs, especially the well-paying ones, are not listed on job sites or boards.
- Company managers prefer to hire people who are recommended by someone they know rather than complete strangers.
- You will be prepared for the interview.
Participating in LinkedIn (linkedin.com), meeting people at conferences, breakfast/coffee gatherings, networking events, or visiting the company itself will help you gather information and expand your network.
Employers expect job candidates to do this before an interview and are disappointed when it doesn’t happen.
A key difference for utilizing Informal research to find a job is that your resume must be customized for each job, rather than being a “one size fits all” sent out by the dozen. Your research should refine the keywords and perhaps even job-based slang that relates to the field of interest.
After you’ve started your search by looking at keywords and industry categories such as video games and healthcare, research companies to help inform you about the work you’ll be doing and what types of positions are open. Professional sites such as LinkedIn can be of great help when you join relevant LinkedIn Groups. Remember, you should never ask openly (In group posts) about getting hired to a group in general, as that is frowned upon. Wait until you contact an individual in the group by InMail/email.
Studies on job searching show research with personal contacts is often more valuable than the information a company makes openly available. For instance, I once researched videogame and animation technology, looking for a company to partner with. I found companies specializing in this were clustered in London, working on dozens of major US studio films due to liberal British tax incentives.
I found little in corporate press releases or websites full of cliches such as, “Our customers are our number one priority.” or “Our strategic goal is innovation and constant improvement.” I visited five major companies working in this field. During each visit, I was closely watched by an HR person who reminded me that all the employees had signed NDAs, that is, Nondisclosure Agreements, and that specific job tasks and contracts with studios were highly confidential. I had learned almost nothing from all online sources or even the actual companies.
I asked one of the workers what the best local pubs were and which was his favorite. That evening I was in the Coach & Horses, a pub considered “in” for its range of ales and vegan menu. My contact invited me to a table full of animators from several nearby companies, and we started chatting. By the time I had worked my way through The Dog & Duck, The Old Coffee House, and the John Snow pubs several days (and considerable quantities of ale) later, I personally knew dozens of animation and special effects crew members and managers, what major film projects they were working on, what their latest technical triumphs and weaknesses were, and the corporate culture of the companies of interest. I was able to interview a vice president of production via a personal recommendation from one of my new friends, and my mission was a success.
Even if your companies of interest don’t have nearby watering holes to meet workers after hours, you can still find many at developer group meetings. As an example, Unity 3D, the popular software for videogame development, has a club with over 110,000 members who meet via Zoom, in virtual reality, or face-to-face. Similar groups for Artificial Intelligence, Augmented Reality and many other fields have large and regular meetings in major cities. You can find names and schedules for these on Meetup (www.meetup.com).
Once you have contacts in the field or company, you can hold informational interviews, which resemble job interviews but are meant only to find out more about the company. Learn the 20 most common questions a corporate interviewer will eventually ask you, bring those up in the discussion, and see if they satisfy the person you’re interacting with.
Now, let’s talk about the hidden elephant in the room. Many job seekers think they’re too shy to meet a lot of new people face to face. “But I’m an introvert” is something you hear often. Some are even afraid to meet people behind the relative safety of their laptop screens. Many are willing to network but rely on purely online meetings.
In my experience, online formal research is necessary but not enough. Generally, that will not get you to people who will trust you enough to introduce you to potential mentors, employers, or collaborators. Online meetings at streamed conferences tend to be rather stiff, and you’re unlikely to meet the top executives in a way they’ll remember.
Informal research to find a job involves finding and personally interacting with your personal and professional networks. To network successfully, you need to introduce yourself, hold a conversation about common interests, and convince others that it is to their benefit to strike up a relationship with you. Because tests show that over half of human communication is body language, the person you’re talking to will miss this on Zoom. What’s more, even if you can convince them to recommend you to one of their managers, that person will ask, “Do you know them personally?” to which the answer will be, “No. I’ve only met them on the phone or online.” This fear of interacting with others will continue for the job seeker after the meeting—they will either forget or come up with excuses for not following up with the contact.
I discovered that a secret that helps manage who you talk with is to use what sales professionals use: a Call Sheet, a spreadsheet in Microsoft Excel, or something like it. In the left column, insert the names, positions, and contact information of the people you meet or would like to meet. On the right side, have daily boxes for interactions for initial meetings, phone calls, in-person contacts, asking for tips or recommendations, thanking them (which is critical and usually forgotten), follow-on meetings, etc. Job seekers should look at the call sheet the first thing in the morning and the last thing at night.
Having a call sheet makes the contacts consistent and automatic. Instead of asking in a trembling voice, “Who should I call today?” you look at the first name on the Call Sheet, John Johnson, and note that it’s time to thank him for the last contact and start the next one. You’ll remember to thank him and offer something of benefit to him—a news story, an invitation to lunch, or a useful contact. After a while, the process becomes automatic, and the fear goes away.
In addition to finding out information about employment, interacting with others who are employed in the companies of interest can have secondary benefits. The most important is getting a recommendation from them to an executive whom you’ll be working for. Research shows such managers prefer hiring someone who comes recommended instead of a total stranger. The knowledge of how such workers got their jobs can be invaluable. In addition, feedback on negative working conditions, such as mandatory unpaid overtime, can help you avoid tragic mistakes.
For more information on Informal research to find a great job, please read our SMARTer Job Hunting book. If you want to accelerate your learning, engage one of our job coaches.
