Page 50 - James Caan - Get the Job you Really Want

online, and be swamped. The Web can at its best help you find
a needle in the haystack – but it’s a hell of a big haystack . . .
Keep yourself focused and targeted.
And there is another great network you should exploit – not
digital, but human: your own contacts. Recruitment agents

regularly map out candidates’ contacts, but you are best placed
to do that yourself. Who do you know as a client, supplier,
competitor who might be the link to your next job?

Not least – and as somebody who owns recruitment
companies, I shouldn’t really be saying this – direct contact by a
potential employee, which means the saving of a recruitment
fee, will be attractive to many employers.
In the current climate I am not sure there is great value in

simply approaching companies on the o≠-chance and asking to
be kept on file in case a suitable job comes up in the future. It
is too hit and miss, not targeted enough. It might yield results,

but not in the immediate term, so if you want a job now it
probably is not going to be that valuable. But if you have a
specific reason for a speculative approach – maybe you have
read about a company moving into a new product area in
which you have direct experience – then you will be o≠ering

real value.
Those of us who have been working for years have had
to adjust to the impact of technology – but if you are just

entering the job market, you will not necessarily know that the
role job boards fulfil used to be filled by press ads. There are
still plenty of ads in newspapers, both local and national, with
the major broadsheets carrying adverts for specific industries

38 get the job you really want