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From Resume’ to Job - continuation

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You may be surprised to learn just how rewarding temp work can be.  For starters, the pay is often decent.  Generally, temps earn hourly wages that are on par with full-time jobs in their  fields.  Some temp jobs even provide workers with health insurance and vacation pay.  Even more encouraging:  Roughly a third of all temporary positions now blossom into full-time gigs.  The best way to up the odds of getting hired is showing the company how it can save money.

With over 7,000 temporary employment services nationwide, there are plenty of places to hunt for work.  Aside from reading the classifieds, try calling personnel managers at companies where you’d like to work and ask for recommendations of whom they use.  Incidentally, you’ll find temp agencies in the Yellow Pages under “Employment Contractors -Temporary Help”.

If you are one of the millions who tap away ferociously on such on-line services as CompuServe or America Online, broaden your job hunt by surfing the various bulletin boards.  There’s no solid search on how effective this mode of job searching is, but recruiters are watching cyberspace carefully for possibilities.  You should, too.  For fees of anywhere from $10 to $50, some employment agencies will post your resume’ on one of several electronic databases seen by recruiters nationwide.  Or you can do it yourself.  Plugged-in types can now zap their vitae over the wires via services such as the Internet’s Online Career Center, which on any given day is clogged with 30,000 resumes’.

John Guare’s play and film Six Degrees of Separation carries a tantalizing theory:  For every person on this earth, there are but six individuals who separate us.  Meaning your aunt in Milwaukee, be some labyrinth measuring no more than six folks, has some connection to the pope.  Well, in corporate America this rule applies doubly.  And that’s why networking is a great way to land a job.  Far from the mere drudgery of attending industry conventions and collecting a Rolodex of business cards, however, serious networking requires careful orchestration.  It’s one thing to meet someone who may help advance your career.  It’s quite another to find ways of compelling that person to remember you and help you when you need assistance getting a job.

Successful networking is like a pyramid game -each person you elect into your circle gives you access to a completely new set of job contacts.  There are several ways to network like a pro:

• Join professional associations on the local level. You may feel lost at a trade group’s national get-together, but moving in on the regional scene gives you a terrific chance to get to know key players in your field.  Increase your visibility by joining a committee or helping to organize career workshops and networking get-togethers.

• Check out your college alumni network. In the past few years, many colleges and universities have stepped up their alumni programs.  There may now be a local chapter of your alma mater in your area.  Or your college might now have an electronic resume’ service for its graduates.  Call your school’s alumni office to see what kind of job placement is available to alums.

• Sweat the details. After you’ve met someone you’d like to include in your network, keep up the relationship with small gestures.  Thank-you notes after a lunch date are de rigueur.  You’ll stand out even more by sending a new contact things like relevant newspaper clippings, the names of other people in the field, or reminders of upcoming events.

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