"Anchoring" techniques

'Anchoring" is one of the many neuro-linguistic programming techniques developed by Professor John Grinder and his student, Richard Bandler, at the University of California, Santa Cruz back in the 1970s. These scientists discovered that emotions could become linked to physical actions or sensations. For example, if while you were in an intensely depressed mood, a number of people attempted to console you by squeezing your left shoulder, depression could be brought on months or even years later by the simple act of someone squeezing the same shoulder in the same way.
This is an unplanned anchor. However, you can also set an intentional anchor yourself. Maybe you recall the famous experiment of Dr. Pavlov. Dr. Pavlov rang a bell whenever he brought food to his dog. His dog, of course, would salivate. After awhile, Dr. Pavlov didn't need the food to get his dog to salivate. All he needed to do was to ring the bell. The emotion and sensations of hunger were nowr linked to the bell.
You can use anchoring on yourself to get any emotion you want on demand. Let's say you want to feel strong. Think of a time when you felt particularly strong in the past. In your mind's eye, review everything that occurred. See everything as it happened, hear the sounds, smell the smells . . . everything.
What you are trying to do is to get yourself in an intense state of the same emotion. As you feel yourself in this intense state, take some unique physical action such as squeezing your hand into a fist. That action is similar to Dr. Pavlov's action in ringing a bell.
As soon as you do this once, repeat the sequence. Keep repeating it. After awhile, you will have anchored the squeezing of your fist to the emotion of strength. Whenever you squeeze your fist, you will feel strong.
You can do this with any feeling you want to generate at that time: happiness, calmness, strength . . . whatever you want!
Of course, you must use a different "bell" for each different emotion. That is, pull different fingers, squeeze your wrist, and so on.
You can imagine how valuable a technique this is. Let's say that you get nervous during an interview. All you need to do is to take the action to initiate your anchor to feel calm.
Don't forget to pick something unique and different for each anchor. Otherwise, either you or someone else can accidentally trigger an emotion that you might not desire at that particular time.
If not triggered, some anchors will expire on their own over time. If you want to intentionally erase an unwanted anchor, trigger a stronger anchor to a different emotion simultaneously with the one you want to erase. The stronger anchor will erase the weaker one.

The Main Point- You can control your emotions. You can be as happy and positive as you want to be. And you can use these mental techniques to help you to get a great job fast. Your mind is the real foundation of any job campaign.

Using the body's chemical system to change your mental attitude

Norman Cousins explained how he saved his life through his own body's chemistry. Afterwards, Cousins, although not trained as a medical doctor, served as an adjunct professor at UCLA's School of Medicine. Speaking at California State University Los Angeles' graduation several years ago, he theorized that the human body contains its own drugs which can cause physiological, as well as psychological, change to cure any disease. These chemicals are released through specific psychological or physical stimulation that we don't fully understand yet.
One of the most powerful of these drugs are those classed as endorphins. Strenuous exercise can release endorphins. That is probably the explanation for the euphoria frequently experienced by joggers toward the end of a workout and known as a "runner's high." So maintaining a consistent exercise regime is one way of ensuring endorphins are in your bloodstream on a regular basis.
However, you don't need to exercise to release endorphins. Cousins was able to release endorphins while on his "deathbed" by securing a large quantity of video tapes starring his favorite comedians, "The Three Stooges," and playing them nonstop. At first, the going was tough. He found that six hours of belly laughs would release sufficient endorphins to allow him fifteen minutes of sleep. Slowly, the endorphins worked their magic and eventually he was able to get the sleep he needed for recovery.
I have helped train thousands of executives and students in seminars on how to release endorphins by a simple exercise. I ask the executives to stand, close their eyes, and allow their minds and bodies to relax.
I then ask them to imagine that when they return home that evening they will find a registered letter among their mail. The letter is from an attorney. The attorney explains that an uncle whom they never knew has passed away. This uncle was extremely wealthy. As a final gift to his long lost niece or nephew, he has left the sum of $1,000,000, tax free, which is enclosed. The only condition is that they must spend this money in any way they wish. They can buy a home or an expensive car. They can take a trip around the world, or buy a boat. They can give the money to their church, synagogue or a favorite charity. Or they can do some combination of these or other things.
I give the executives several minutes to imagine their good fortune and the wonderful things they can immediately do with this tax-free money. I then tell them that on the count of three I want them to open their eyes and within ten seconds tell two other executives of their good fortune and what they are going to do with the money. They are to do this in the most excited way they can. And why not, wouldn't you be excited if you had just been given a million dollars, tax-free to do anything you want with today?
You can actually feel the excitement building as i count slowly "one . . . two . . . THREE!" The room breaks out into a loud babble of noise. After ten seconds I stop these executives - not always easily I invite them to feel the endorphins coursing through their veins. All agree that they feel fantastic.
Now you can do the same exercise by yourself. Also, you don't have to imagine a rich uncle keeps leaving you one million dollars. You can imagine anything else that pleases you and makes you happy.
You might try this. Pick your dream. Sit back and daydream. Imagine you have achieved one or more of your dreams, whatever they are: financial, personal, job related or not. Think about what things will be like. Imagine enjoying your success. Really give yourself a squirt of endorphins. Dose yourself with a "dream session" daily. Many job hunters tell me they eventually achieve the great job they think about after releasing endorphins in this way. Remember, what we can conceive, we can achieve.

We want to say thanks to Tomas Jameson for this great article.

Solving problems that occur during your job campaign

Here's another psychological technique that will improve your ability to solve problems as they occur. It is a form of self-hypnosis and was developed by researchers at Duke University. First, you select the major problem bothering you. Next, you go off by yourself where it is quiet. Sit down and allow yourself to relax, with your eyes closed. Most people find they can get in such a relaxed state by slowly imagining numbness spreading over their bodies beginning with their toes, and not even excluding their eyelids.
While in this relaxed state, you simply describe the problem to yourself in your mind and tell your subconscious mind that you want the problem solved. You then get up and go about your business. Not infrequendy, the results are almost immediate and the solution will come to you when you least expect it. Sometimes the problem is solved a little later with the solution appearing in different or unexpected ways. Repeat the procedure periodically until the problem is solved to your satisfaction.
I know this sounds too good and too simple to be true. But it has been tested and found to work. During experiments testing this technique, one hundred and fifty-five college students tried it on a wide variety of problems. Eighty-six percent of the students reported complete or partial success at helping or preventing depression; 94.9 percent reported complete or partial success at becoming wide awake when sleepy; 97.2 percent reported complete or partial success at overcoming fatigue; 91.9 percent reported complete or partial success at curing procrastination; and 98.7 percent reported complete or partial success at improving their social relations. Many executives and students I have worked with report similiar success with a wide variety of business and personal problems.

Your ability to sell yourself through your attitude

Job hunting is a sales situation. You are the product. Your PE is your customer. Other job hunters seeking the same job are your competition. In this book you will understand why breaking the rules is necessary. But in addition, you will find every tool you need to satisfy your customer and beat the competition. But the tools will be of no value unless you have a positive mental attitude as a foundation. Have you ever seen a successful salesman with a negative attitude? Of course not. The same is true for the successful job hunter. A positive mental attitude will attract job offers. A negative mental attitude expressing negative feelings or telling hard-luck stories to a PE will get you only the least desirable jobs, if any. Like the successful salesman, you should always fill your mind with positive thoughts. A positive mental attitude is the key to selling yourself successfully to a PE.

Maintaining and positive outlook

Psychologists tell us that you cannot be in a happy mood and an unhappy mood at the same time. If you think about this, it makes sense. You really can't act sad when you feel happy and visa versa. If fact, if you want, you can try this right now and see that it is true. So if you want to be happy, even in the face of misery about you, it is within your own power. For most people, just changing their posture and facial expression can have a strong therapeutic effect. Try this. If you are feeling "down" right now, sit or stand up straight, hold your head high, with your shoulders back. Now put a smile on your face. You will feel better.
Paul Ekman, professor of psychology at the University of California found that moods could be changed by simply assuming a happy face or a sad face. Students who assumed a sad face felt sad. Those who put on a happy face felt happy.
To top things off, try repeating this litany at the same time: "I feel happy, I feel healthy, I feel terrific!" Keep saying this loudly and with enthusiasm until you really "feel it." W Clements Stone of Chicago used this positive affirmation. He claimed it helped him maintain a positive mood under adversity. Friends and employees said Stone was a "reverse paranoid." According to Stone, others were constantly plotting to do good things for him. Maybe he was correct. Though born poor, he became a millionaire many times over.
Here's another little experiment you can try right now. Try to feel really bad when you are in the "happy posture" with a big smile. If you have nothing to smile about right now, think of when you did. What has been your biggest success in life so far? It doesn't matter if it was a really big victory or not. Think how you felt when you achieved that success or received some very good news. Did it make you happy? You probably had a very big smile. Assume the same posture, facial expressions, and feelings you had when you were happy and successful in the past. Now maintaining the facial expressions, and posture of happiness, try to get depressed. Unless you change your posture, expressions, and thoughts, it just isn't possible.
You may be interested to know that nature may have a sound explanation for this phenomenon. When we smile or frown, muscles tighten to compress small blood vessels from the carotid artery. This regulates the volume of blood supplied to the brain. So key regions of the brain get more or less blood and more or less of the mood-altering chemicals in the blood. According to psychologist R. B. Zajonc at the University of Michigan, nature may have intended that people control their emotions in this way.
This simple mood control exercise has considerable power. How do you feel when you are in a happy mood? Most people feel "charged up." They feel unbeatable. They feel that all is "right with the world." They feel they can't do anything wrong. They are "on a roll." This can have an amazing affect on how you proceed and how you are perceived as you meet potential employers during our campaign.

The secret of always dealing from strength

On several occasions when i was in industry, I resigned from one job before beginning to search for another. But I never accepted a new job without a significant salary increase. One PE even commented during an interview: "Bill, I know you are unemployed, yet you act as if you had a million dollars. What's your secret?" My secret, which enabled me to deal from strength under any circumstances, was this: I knew my own strengths. I spent a considerable amount of time working on my resume, making sure I wrote down every useful and appropriate bit of experience in my background. Knowing my strengths and remembering my accomplishments gave me tremendous self-confidence. I knew that I was a unique individual who had much to offer to the company that hired me. I also knew my job goal. I knew exactly what position I wanted, the industry, the kind of company, the location, and the compensation. Because I knew my own strengths and experience, I was confident that I could do an outstanding job in the position I decided upon.
When I was a job hunter, I knew the company or organization I was interviewing with. I studied the company's history, products, and financial position. I knew the backgrounds of some of the leading executives, including, if possible, the executive or executives with whom I interviewed. In most cases I even knew why this company was seeking my services. I made it my business to learn as much as I could before the interview. As a result, I sometimes knew as much about the company, in a general way, as the executive who was doing the interviewing.
Finally, I knew what the outcome of my campaign would be. I have seen many other executives, professionals, managers, and students find terrific jobs. I knew that I was at least as good in my own field and was confident of my ability to find a great job, myself. I knew that in some way I was superior to all other job seekers for the same job ... to all of my competitors.
I don't know whether you are confident right now or not. I do know that in your field of choice you, too, are superior over all of your competitors in some way. I know this from many years' experience. I have never met a man or woman that i am not superior to in some way. However, I never met a man or woman who wasn't superior to me in some way, too. I know that the same is
True of you.
By the time you complete this article, you will be as confident as I was.

How Ray S. Got a Great Job Through a Positive Mental Attitude

Ray S. was a young Air Force officer. He completed his service and sought a job as an engineer with an aircraft company. Ray considered his own background. He had a bachelor's degree in engineering from a respectable school. He had four years' experience as an engineer in the Air Force, where he had performed as a project manager and was responsible for the development of aircraft subsystems exceeding a million dollars per year. Ray had done very well in directing these government programs and had been commended by his supervisor.
Before beginning his campaign, Ray wrote down everything he had done during this pe- riod; after a few days he had several pages of notes. By this time he really knew his strengths. Next. Ray began to think about his goal. He knew he wanted to work for an aircraft company. Because his background was entirely in project management, and because he both enjoyed and excelled at this type of work, Ray decided to pursue it as a career. He began to investigate several aerospace companies. He discovered very quickly that his limited experience made it difficult to move into the kind of job he wanted, given the business climate of the aerospace industry at that time.
Ray did not give up. He learned of a company in a foreign country that was seeking American expertise in building up its aerospace capabilities. The company offered the type of position he sought at a higher salary than he had expected. Ray now had a fully defined job pal. To prepare himself, he studied the company and read up on the country. By the day of the interview Ray was ready. He knew that his campaign would be successful whether this Particular company hired him or not. He also knew that he would do well in the interview. He was self-confident and had a positive mental attitude.
It is not remarkable that Ray S. was hired. What is remarkable is that he managed to secure a position at a level higher than 80 percent of the other American engineers who were hired. despite the fact that they had from 2 to 25 years more experience than Ray.

Thanks to John Peterson for this great article!

How to avoid negative feelings during interviews

The only way to avoid negative feelings during interviews is to maintain positive ones. Before you interview, get to know both yourself and your PE. Find out everything you can about the job, the company, and the people you will meet. Think about how you would act in the job. Imagine yourself in the environment of that company Picture yourself as an employee there. The more you know about the company and the more you can imagine yourself working there, the less nervous you will be and the more positive an image you will project.
During your first few interviews you may still feel some nervousness. Don't worry about it. It will lessen with time. During the next few interviews you will find yourself improving your interviewing skill. You will get better and better. In fact, many job hunters end up enjoying interviewing so much that they miss it once they have accepted a position. They enjoy interviewing because it gives them a chance to show off "people skills" they have developed and perfected. It also gives them an opportunity to meet new people in their profession and to learn about their industry and specialty. Above all, many job-hunters enjoy the challenge of interviewing, of trying to get a PE to make them a job offer. You may not believe it now, but you too may enjoy interviewing. In fact, you may like it too much. So a word of caution: Never become so overconfident or cocky in your interviews that you lose sight of your main purpose to get a great job.

How to use your resume to develop a positive attitude

Even after you have developed a superior resume and are well into your job campaign, you are not done with it. You should read over your resume every morning and
evening.
There are two reasons for rereading your resume as your campaign progresses. First, as your campaign develops and you begin to interview, things that YOU accomplished which you have forgotten will be remembered. Other accomplishments that you thought were unimportant will turn out to be very important. You will want to include the first, and perhaps reemphasize the second in our resume. Moreover, by repeatedly reading about your strong experiences, background, and most of all, accomplishments you will realize just what a tremendous "catch" you are. You really have a lot to offer. You are unique! You have a unique set of qualifications stemming from years of work or service at any number of vocations and avocations. As you reread your accomplishments, you will realize that by finding a great job, you will be rendering a service not only to Yourself, but also to that organization fortunate enough to hire you. This knowledge will assist you in maintaining a positive mental attitude as you attend to everyday tasks and will actually assist you in getting that superior position sooner. Your big problem may be not being arrogant about what a fantastic job candidate you are.

How to get a positive mental attitude

Whether you are currently unemployed, not yet in your first job, or secure in your job, a positive mental attitude is crucial. Your mental attitude will make a difference in how soon you find a job, what kind of job you are offered and accept, and how much compensation you receive. Even if you follow all the advanced techniques explained in breaking the rules, you will be wasting your time in job interviews unless you have the right mental attitude. But if you enter every interview with a positive attitude, you will receive job offers that you never dreamed possible.
Now some of you reading this will say, "I'm not interested in any mental attitude hocus pocus." Before you make up your mind, let me tell you about George Y., a petroleum engineer whose positive mental attitude got him a job offer when there wasn't even an opening. George was able to speak on the phone to the divisional vice president of a large, independent petroleum producer.
The vice president, impressed by George's positive personality and attitude, invited him in for a talk, even though "the only opening we have now is for a geologist."
George maintained his positive mental attitude throughout a long interview. Two weeks later he was invited back to "meet some of our people." Not once was a job mentioned, and not once did George ask. But he maintained his positive attitude and demonstrated his natural enthusiasm for petroleum work and his interest in the company he was "visiting." Several days later George received a job offer. The company had decided that it needed a petroleum engineer more than it needed a geologist. What really happened, of course, was that management decided that a positive fellow like George was too good to pass up.

Be prepared for the inevitable setbacks

No matter how good you are or what you have done in the past, you are going to suffer some hard knocks during your campaign. Not all prospective employers-(PEs) are going to like you, appreciate your talents, or understand your accomplishments, just as you are not going to like or appreciate every PE you meet. Sometime during your campaign you will meet a PE whom you like very much. You will think yourself a perfect match for the company and feel that you will be able to do wonders for it. You will be disappointed if you do not receive a job offer. Unfortunately, that is exactly what is going to happen. You will not receive one. Why? Who knows? There are ten thousand reasons that may have nothing to do with you. In fact, they may actually want to offer you the job, but cannot. Maybe the president's son or daughter decided he or she wanted the job. Maybe there was a full moon out. Who knows? The reasons are unimportant. What is important is that you be ready for such temporary setbacks. Like a good marriage, the perfect job match comes when both parties are totally convinced and all the other unimportant, weird, and random factors fall into line as well. In the interim you must maintain your positive mental attitude. Eventually they will. Meanwhile, here's how to keep positive.
After a terrific interview that you are certain will lead to an offer, get ready for the next interview with the next company anyway. Tell yourself that you are going to have such a great "next" interview that you will receive another offer to compare against the one you expect. See if you can raise your response-to-interview ratio by writing the "perfect" response. Make more telephone calls, following the telephone training program. Try to beat your old record of number of calls to interviews. If it fits in with your campaign plan, send out additional sales letters or follow-up sales letters. Go over your old letter to polish it further. Finally, be confident that in the end you will achieve your objective and capture a truly great job, whether it is with the terrific company you have just interviewed with and from which you expect a job offer, or an even better one.

The ten-week job campaign and how to shorten it

It is difficult to describe the length of an "average" campaign, because there is no such thing. Every job hunter has his own objectives which he has defined, and every individual's situation is different. However, in very general terms, the campaign detailed in this article is designed to last approximately ten weeks, from start to acceptance of the offer. This allows extra time for consideration of the offer, delays by the PE, and administrative tasks such as printing and typing. You can shorten the ten-week campaign by reducing the time for subcontracted tasks such as printing, having someone else do your typing, or working more than eight hours a day on your campaign. Another way to shorten the time is not to set excessively high requirements as part of your job objective.
If you are currently employed or in school, you will not be able to spend eight hours a day on your campaign. If you are employed, you may need to campaign in secret. You must work harder than the unemployed executive. Work hard on your campaign at night and on weekends. Get someone else to do your typing. Unless you can take a vacation, you will not be able to work on the telephone. Also, you may have difficulty setting up interviews or meetings with employment agencies.
Once you have put your campaign plan into action, you will need to adjust your plan. Certain tasks may take you less time than you planned; other tasks may take longer or may have to be repeated. In addition, responses to your sales letters and answers to advertisements will not all arrive at the same time. You may receive an offer from one company at the same time as your interview with another company. You should adjust your plan accordingly. Finally, you may find yourself so successful in some phase of your campaign (for example, getting y ou may not like the "touchie-feelie" stuff. It makes no difference; if you want a great job fast, you must first attain the goal of that job in your mind. No great anything was ever achieved until someone did this. The motto of The Royal Air Force goes something along the lines that "what man can conceive, he can achieve." And that's absolutely true. But the converse is also true. If you cannot conceive of yourself getting a great job, you will not be able to do so. To start conceiving the great job in your mind, you must start with a positive mental attitude.

The postinterview phase of your job campaign

Writing the Follow-up Sales Letter

The follow-up sales letter is written and mailed within a day after the interview. Plan on spending several hours getting this letter just right. Unless you are one of the lucky job hunters who are deluged by interviews, you should have no problem getting an outstanding follow-up sales letter written and mailed promptly. Preparing the Special Resume
The special resume is generally prepared after the interview and can be mailed with the follow-up sales letter. In a few cases, generally if the PE must pay your travel expenses, you may have to send out a special resume before the interview. In this case, you will use techniques I will teach you elsewhere in the book to obtain all the intelligence you can about the position and to base your special resume on this information. It should take you no more than a couple of hours to prepare a special resume, since you have already assembled all the facts and materials you need at the beginning of your campaign.

Negotiating

Negotiations can take much longer than you might imagine. And you must always negotiate. This is especially true in large companies or companies that have several different executives involved in the decision-making process. As much as three weeks can elapse between the time that you and the hiring executive come to a meeting of the minds and the time that you receive an offer.

The interview phase of your job campaign

Preparing for the Interview

Once you have an interview lined up, you should learn everything possible about the hiring executive, the company, and its products. You should also develop a list of questions to ask and prep yourself for questions that are likely to be asked of you. Plan on several hours of preparation for each face-to-face interview that you schedule. One successful candidate I worked with spent two weeks in preparation. It resulted in an $240,000 a year offer in today's dollars. This was more than a 100 percent increase over his former salary when he was working - and he was out of work at the time.
Accept every interview offered, unless you are offered so many that time forces you to pick and choose. And by the way, that has happened to many who have employed these methods. One of my students couldn't get a single interview. After he stopped sending out resumes to human resource departments and started sending sales letters to decision-makers, he wrote that he had to start turning interviews down.
Even if you are pressed for time, you should try to make every single interview you can. Schedule two interviews or more a day if you have to. Remember, interviews and interviews alone will get you job offers. Also, if you apply yourself, you will get better with every interview. By the end of your campaign you will be getting job offers you would not have received when you first started interviewing. Finally, you will learn more about the job and whether you really want it from the interview than from any other source (short of actually working for the company).

Writing the second sales letter

You should write your second sales letter about three weeks after your first mail¬ing. If you received good results with your first letter, you will need to make only minor adjustments. If the results were poor, you may have to make major alter¬ations. You should not hesitate to do this. The factor that distinguishes good from poor results is not replies, but interviews. You should plan on about two days to write a new sales letter.

Printing the Letterheads and Envelopes for Your Second Letter

If you planned ahead and had extra letterheads and envelopes printed at first, you may not need to do this. But if you did, don't hesitate to make an additional investment.

Mailing the Second Letter

You will not need to spend a lot of time compiling a new mailing list, since day- to-day record keeping has updated your initial list. Eliminate those companies on your list that have contacted you to set up an interview. Keep track of your second sales letter results, as you did your first, in case an additional mailing is required.

Setting Up Interviews

You will begin to set up interviews generated by sales letters about three weeks after your first mailing. Invitations will come from the executive you have sent the sales letter to as well as from human resources people and other staff personnel. The majority of invitations will come by telephone. This is one reason that practicing with a telephone is so important. Most executives will want to talk with you by phone before seeing you, especially if the interview requires travel at the PEs expense. Responses to faxes and e-mail letters will come much sooner.
You should continue to set up interviews until you get and accept a great job offer. You can always cancel an interview. It is much more difficult to arrange an interview after you have told a PE that you are declining because you expect a job offer. You may then have to answer embarrassing questions about why the offer was not extended. Of course, after you interview and have made a "sale," you are free to say you are expecting another offer or have received one.
Certain other alternative ways of getting interviews may be important to your campaign and should be integrated into your overall campaign plan.

The preinterview phase of your job campaign

Preparing Your Resume

In this article I'm going to tell you not to send your resume to anyone. At least not until after the interview But you will need an ongoing, living, frequently updated resume so you will really understand you and what you have to offer. The basis of this resume will take you two to three days to get all your materials together and write. Once you do, you will have all the data you need to:

• Write sales letters with at least five major accomplishments in support of your job objective which you can send out in letter form, by fax, or by e-mail.

• Prepare responses to advertisements that are right on target but disregard certain requirements in the ad.

• Prepare special resumes of your experiences that slant your accomplishments to the requirements of the job.

Writing Sales Letters

It will take you two to four days to develop sales letters that support your job objectives and to mail them to both PEs and executive recruiters.

Printing Letterheads for Your Sales Letters and Envelopes

Printing your letterheads and envelopes depends on your printer. This can take up to two weeks. If you shop around a little, you should be able to find a printer who can do the job in a week or less. If you have a laser printer and suitable fonts this can take much less time and money. However, if you want to go first class, you will have your letterheads done with a process called thermographing. That way it looks like engraving, but you'll need to go to a printer for this.

Obtaining Mailing Lists, Fax or E-mail Lists

You should start with a list of 1,000 companies, any one of which you would be prepared to work for if aspects of the job met your requirements. I'll tell you how to develop your list in Appendix C. You do not need to know everything about these companies. Just make sure they fit your basic requirements based on what you know about them, For example, if you are looking only for a large company, you shouldn't have any small companies on your list. You will also need a similar list of executive recruiters. Preparing these lists can take several days of somewhat tedious work.

Mailing Your Letters

Mailing sales letters includes the following mundane, but necessary chores: typing the PE's name and address on both sales letters and envelopes, signing the letters, sealing and stamping the envelopes, and mailing. If you do these tasks yourself, you could spend about 5 hours per 100 letters. Therefore, if you mail sales letters to 1,000 companies and 500 executive recruiters, you can estimate 75 hours of work, or roughly nine days to complete this part of the job. Similarly, if you are going to fax or send out your sales letters electronically, there is some routine work which cannot be avoided. Consider getting some family assistance if possible, or even hiring some part-time help. Still, when you remember that the job you will obtain will be a great job, much better than you would get normally, the effort and added expense is well worth it.

Answering Advertisements

Begin to collect job advertisements the day you decide to look for a job, but don't start responding until you get your sales letters out. More than likely, you will not start answering ads until the beginning of the third week. Don't worry about this "lost time." The fact that you answer ads "late" is usually not a disadvantage.

Practicing Using the Telephone

After you have caught up on your ad answering and have it under control, start a telephone training program. You should maintain the program for as long as it rakes you to become comfortable and proficient in speaking with PE-related people on the telephone.
Shoot for talking with twenty executives (not their secretaries) per day. Try to get at least one interview a day this way. If you follow this regime every weekday for two weeks, you will have talked with 200 executives; and if you have done it right, you will have lined up at least ten interviews. These are not the
kind of interviews you may have had in the past. These are quality interviews, with a good chance that you'll get a job offer.

Meeting with Employment Agencies and Headhunters

Start setting up interviews with employment agencies and headhunters at the same time you begin your training with the telephone. Do not interview with more than five agencies unless it is for a specific job. Otherwise, your resume is likely to be scattered throughout your potential job market. Like most products that appear to be in great supply, you will not have the image of being in much demand.

Keeping Records of Sales Letter Results

Your record keeping will begin with the receipt of "rejects" about one to two weeks after you mail your first batch of sales letters. You will use these records to update your list of names (several executives will have resigned, retired, or been fired or transferred), and to start building a new mailing list of executives for a second mailing. Your records will show you how effective your sales letters are and whether you should revise them before your next mailing.

Your job plan is your road map to success

Once you have decided on the kind of job you want, you face the problem of getting from where you are now to the point where you accept the offer of a great job. If you were traveling to a place you had never been to before, you would get there most easily and most expeditiously by using a road map. In going from your present job (or unemployment) to the position of your choice, you will also use a road map. This road map is the campaign plan.
The campaign plan for job hunting will guide you to logical and effective courses of action, just as other types of plans guide you in reaching objectives on the job. The campaign plan for job hunting has been designed to enable you to get the job you want in the shortest possible time. Do not embark on a job campaign without first developing a plan as outlined in this article. If you do, you will remain on your job hunt longer and will limit the range of jobs available to you.

Any job campaign consists of three phases:

1. The preinterview phase
2. The interview phase
3. The postinterview phase

Note that the description of these phases clearly emphasizes the interview. This is done to focus on your real objective. Your first major objective is to get the interview. You won't get an offer until you do. Once you've been given the opportunity to interview, your next objective is to handle the interview successfully Successful interviewing means that you sell your prospective employer (PE) on hiring your services. This puts you in a position to get the job offer. Your final objective is to negotiate that offer successfully
Every campaign is different, reflecting different job objectives as well as different professional career goals. You must tailor your campaign to your particular situation. Your campaign plan is both a plan and an overview of the entire procedure.

How to start your own campaign for your next job on the first day of your present job

Conventional wisdom is that you begin your job campaign when you need a job. There is an inherent logic about this statement that seems irrefutable. The truth is that if you wait until you need a job to begin your job campaign, you are putting yourself at a significant disadvantage. Why? To run the most job effective campaign in the shortest possible time, you will need:

• Expert knowledge of your industry and its movers and shakers
• A reputation of high performance within the company
• A reputation of expertise in your field outside the company
• Colleagues, and even bosses who are willing to recommend you
• Reliable contacts outside the company to help you as references and with job intelligence.

To acquire all this takes time. Therefore, begin to prepare for your next job campaign on the day you go to work in your new job.
All preparation falls into two categories: internal and external.

Internal preparation

Internal preparation is that done within the company which will begin to prepare you for your next job. The very first thing you want to do is to learn everything you can about your present job, and to perform it to the very best of your ability. Once you learn your job, look for opportunities to learn other jobs in your company as well. You can do this by volunteering to help others with their jobs when needed. You can also volunteer to work on your own time, after work, and without additional pay to learn an additional job or to help out. If an opportunity comes up to actually do work in this other area, take it.
Certain other unpaid jobs will also become available from time to time. These will occur at all levels in the organization, from annual savings bond managers to membership on committees looking at compensation or stock options. Volunteers are always needed. Especially seek jobs that lead to contacts outside of your immediate group, and in particular those that put you in positions of leadership.
If all this activity happens to get you promoted in addition to preparing you to get a great job fast, so be it.

External preparation

Internal preparation works fine as far as getting you the preparation you need for your next job, but it doesn't go far enough. If you really want to get a great job fast, than you need to prepare yourself externally, as well. You must become known in your profession and in your industry outside of your company. How can you do this? It's easy
Every profession and industry has associations that you can join. To prepare yourself to get a great job fast, you should not only join them, you should become active in them. Go to both local and national meetings. If your company won't pay your way, use your vacation time and go to the annual meeting on your own ticket. But don't just go . . . again, become active. Volunteer both locally and nationally and serve in leadership positions. If there is a newsletter or a journal, write for it. If there are other magazines read by those in your profession and industry, write for them, too.
You should also contribute to and meet with the leaders of your community whenever you can. This contribution can take many forms, from volunteer service in your church, synagogue, or mosque, to other ways of helping out in your community.
Now I know what you are thinking. All this and I'm supposed to have a life, too? The answer is yes. And if you doubt me, look around you at the really successful people. You will see that they are involved with all these things. This will take some time management, but you will find many of these activities to be synergistic. For example, that you are an officer in one organization will help you in running another or in doing your job. But pick and choose. No, you may not be able to do everything, but you can do a lot more than you imagined once you have decided to take your preparation for your next job seriously.
Again, your company may like it and promote you. I can't help that. I'm just trying to get you ready to get a great job fast when you need to.

AN ACCOMPLISHMENT LOG

Every time you do something as a part of your job, or in a temporary job you have volunteered for, or anything else, write it down. Try to quantify these as accomplishments with little notes whenever you can. "Head of fund-raising committee for the church. Raised $10,000." You'll need all this later.

WHAT IF IT IS TOO LATE… YOU NEED A JOB TODAY?

What if your situation is that you got fired, laid off, or quit your job today Is all lost? No, it is not. But you need to get hold of yourself and organize a campaign plan right from the start.