The Reverse Application: How to Get Hired Without a Job Posting

[00:00:00] Hello, hello. You're tuning into the Careering with Cameron Podcast, your safe place to ask all the dumb questions about finding a job. Hey everyone, it's Kevin with Careering with Cameron. I am wanting to talk to you a little bit today about a topic that is happening quite a bit in the job search space.

[00:00:23] And that is something that, you know, we've been focused on how AI is changing the job search process, how many applicants are applying to positions, what are the things that we're running into in terms of not hearing back or getting rejected immediately in terms of the job search. And so what is the solution to figuring out how to get that position?

[00:00:51] We're going to cover that in this edition of Careering with Cameron. And we're going to title that the Reverse Application. That's not something that I came up with. That is the name that is being used. So, what is the Reverse Application? It has been something that has been happening for quite some time.

[00:01:16] Really, it was not brought to light as much as it has more recently because it was just networking. So, there's a lot of different verbiage being tossed around that's not including the word networking for many reasons. But really, the name of the game here is that there's a thing called an informational interview. And some of you may be aware of that. Some of you may not be aware of it.

[00:01:44] The informational interview really is more about understanding an organization, understanding what makes them tick, understanding what their culture is like, understanding where they're going. And some cases, it's nothing more than just a conversation so that you know a little bit more about company XYZ. And that isn't from a fact-finding mission where you're trying to sell against them and you're a salesperson. It's really just about getting to know them.

[00:02:13] Maybe they're a vendor. Maybe they're a company you'd like to have as a vendor. Maybe they're a company you'd like to be a vendor for. But getting some more information, very similar to how you would if you were approaching them from a marketing perspective to understand what their pain level is. What's the pain point that they're focused on? What are the challenges they're facing? So, now we're in job search mode.

[00:02:36] In job search mode, a lot of the things that we have that are our skills and our expertise tend to get watered down in our own mind. If you're somebody who's very comfortable in networking, networking may become a bit more challenging because you're second guessing it. It feels like there's a little bit more risk in the game because it's just you. It's not a product or a company that you're representing. Here's the thing.

[00:03:02] But when you're in the process of looking for a new opportunity, you're there to understand what the fit looks like for the organization that you're talking to. So, regardless of whether you may be thinking to yourself, I wonder if there's a job open there and let's talk specifically about that role. That's not really the goal of the reverse application.

[00:03:29] The goal of the reverse application is more along the lines of tell me about the organization. Tell me about the culture. Tell me about how you work. What are the team structures look like? What do you like about your job? What does success look like for that organization? What does success look like for you as an individual? These are the things we want to be able to cover in those conversations so that you get an idea of how they respond to those questions.

[00:03:55] If the response to that question is, well, success for me looks like me not being here in six months. That's a pretty good indication. You probably don't want to be there either. Keep in mind, everybody has their own perception of what a good company is. So or what a good culture is. So the bottom line is you want to be able to walk into those situations and have some questions already prepared in terms of what you're curious about. That means the research piece is still very important.

[00:04:25] The research piece can include things like new products that are launching, products that have been launched for quite some time. Maybe there's a patent expiring. Maybe there are there's some new hires that have happened recently in leadership. Maybe there is a acquisition that's been happening. Things you can get your hands on pretty easily are things you should be able to easily talk through in that conversation. Now, I can already hear you saying, Kevin, that's great. But how do I get that conversation started?

[00:04:54] How do I find that person to have a chat with? So there's a couple of different ways you can do that. One is you're meeting them at an event that you know they may be at. So maybe you are following their posts on LinkedIn and looking at something that they go to every month and thinking to yourself, there's a pretty good chance if I go to that event. I may be able to spend some time talking to them and maybe strike up a conversation.

[00:05:20] That's a real easy one, especially for people who spend a lot of time posting about activities on something like a LinkedIn. The next piece would be simply using what you have in common. So if you went to the same high school, you went to the same college, you work for similar employers in the past, reaching out to them to just check and see how they're doing. It's not a real high stress conversation that you're looking to start.

[00:05:46] I would not lead with a conversation or a thread on I'm beginning to search for my next opportunity and would love to talk to you a bit more about what you think of working there. That may work, but we're purely in the informational interview stage. And by the way, that doesn't mean that you currently are not employed. This works for people who are gainfully employed as well as people who are not employed.

[00:06:13] The best networking that you can do is the networking when you're continuing to build your network out and you're still in an opportunity so that you know what your next step may look like. You've identified those things early on. That's not always something that can be done because sometimes that decision is taken out of our hands.

[00:06:31] But certainly something that should be happening going forward is connecting with peers, connecting with colleagues and certainly spending some time maybe on a Friday afternoon responding to the zillion different LinkedIn in-mails that you have so that people will continue to keep you in their circle of focus. And then you have so many of the time. Again, the question is, okay, Kevin, how do I get that conversation?

[00:07:01] I have found the majority of the time if you are a real person and you have a message that is specific to how you share some common ground with that person, they're probably going to want to talk to you. Likewise, if it's something where you are looking at somebody who maybe is the CEO of a company and you're reaching out to understand how they manage their career to get to the place that they are now. What are the things that they wish they worked on or developed?

[00:07:30] How'd they do it? Tell me about your role. Tell me about what you're facing. Those are things that, believe it or not, C-level is more apt than not apt to have a conversation with you about. They like talking about how they got to that point. They want to share the wisdom that they have. So making sure that that's something that you're also using for our students who are listening right now, reaching out to leaders, managers, vice presidents, directors, CEOs, C-level.

[00:07:58] So having a conversation with or starting a thread with them or message with them around the topic of we learned a little bit about your organization and a class I took or a project I worked on. I would love the opportunity to learn more about the organization, learn more about you and how you reached the role that you're in. More often than not, they're going to accept that chat. It may not be that day, but they'll be interested in talking to you about it because they want to share what they've learned.

[00:08:28] That area actually is usually the one that is the hottest for students coming out of school and looking for your opportunities is the people who reach out are few and far between in terms of wanting a conversation with somebody in that C-suite. So keep that in mind when you're looking at target organizations that you want to talk to. The next piece of this reverse process is thinking to yourself, OK, how do you identify what those organizations are that you even want to talk to?

[00:08:58] And so when you're looking at that picture, you're reversing the entire process upside down and you're looking at it from the context of what is what is the job that I think I'd like to do? What are the skills I enjoy doing? And then where are those skills in need? OK, so not so much about where is there a job posting available? More about the skills that I have that I really enjoy, the things I like working with daily, maybe weekly.

[00:09:29] Where are those being used now where I know there are things that are posted, stories that are told people posting about them, people getting jobs in those categories? What are those where are those where are those organizations? And then the next level down from that, right? So you're going to have the top level, which is things you enjoy doing and things that you feel as though you would like to do on an ongoing level.

[00:09:53] The next level down to that is organizations that have those needs, organizations that have an opening. And I'm not talking about a job opening, but they have an opening where this is a skill that they tend to hire. Again, we don't necessarily need an open job for this to be a conversation that makes sense.

[00:10:16] We won't know when those jobs are going to be open because this is not a applied to a position via click. This is applied to a position via a conversation. So that's the next piece. What are those companies that are going to have those types of openings? And then the next piece of that, the next layer is who are the people that I may know? Who are the people that I may have contact with?

[00:10:41] Who are the people in my network that would have contact with somebody in those organizations that can help me to have a conversation with that person? Typically, if you're being introduced to them, their chances are they're at least going to have a chat back and forth. It may not be lunch, but it may be coffee, maybe a phone call, maybe a video conference. But that's usually a great way to get started.

[00:11:06] So, again, this is a situation where we are now at a point in time where AI is helping people to build resumes that are largely built off of what that job description is looking for. The problem with that is all of the resumes are starting to look alike. It's difficult to tell which resumes are real and which resumes are fake.

[00:11:31] The very same way that when you're in job search, which job postings are actually serious about wanting this person to be able to do all of these different criteria at an expert level and which ones are throwing those things in there because they feel like if the person happens to have this information, that's a nice to have. So, that's a big differentiator.

[00:11:56] We're looking at how do you separate yourself from being one of the 50 resumes that look very similar that may or may not be human beings and how do you get the person to then pull that resume and call you? That's a big ask. You're putting an awful lot of your job search in the hands of luck. Let's take that job search out of luck and put it more into language, put it more into having a conversation, put it more into coffee.

[00:12:25] Let's figure out how to have connections that you're working with. And let's work on those connections throughout your career, not just at a point in time where you really need somebody to help you. Are they going to help you? Yes. Yes. But they're going to help you a whole lot more if they know you're the type of person who's going to reciprocate when they need it. And that's really what this is about, is making that part of your brand. It doesn't take very long to help somebody along the way who needs some help.

[00:12:54] So, reach out and make sure that you're doing that. You're reciprocating. Beyond there. So, you have the square to where you have this conversation happening. What is the next step? Now you've had this chat and you've learned that the culture seems like exactly what you're looking for. The person seems genuinely thrilled to be working there. They mentioned maybe that they'd love to be able to talk to you some more about opportunities as they come along.

[00:13:20] Let them know if something pops up is a nice way to shift that back onto you so that you're the one who's searching for opportunities. That's not a ghost. That's not a door closing. That might be something where they're saying, I want to see that you're actually genuinely interested in this. And so I'm going to ask you to go find a role that's open and come back to me.

[00:13:42] The flip side of that may be, why don't we talk about how to connect you to somebody in the organization in this specific part that's doing that work now? That's what you're truly looking for. It may take a little longer if they're asking you to find a description. It's much faster if it runs the other way.

[00:14:02] So having a prepared direction in terms of what you want to do, what you like to do, and some examples of that from your past is something you're going to want to have handy.

[00:14:18] You're going to want to have that down to the point where it's almost like your elevator so that they are comfortable with what you're passionate about, what you're interested in doing, the direction that you want to go with your career. If this is something where it takes a lot of thought for you to come up with these ideas or thoughts to come up with what you're interested in, it becomes a little less believable.

[00:14:43] We want it to be something that is, you know, this is the culture I'm looking to work in. These are the projects I enjoy working with. These are some of the projects I've worked with in the past. Ideally, I see myself fitting in an organization that is X, Y and Z. And I feel like I could contribute to a team that's so that behaves in this manner. Right. Something similar to that so that they can get a really good idea of where that fits.

[00:15:10] They can ask questions based on what you say to help them to to link you to the proper hiring person. So those are things you have to have ready. Right. They need to be things that you have essentially rehearsed and you're very comfortable talking through. And you're going to have to have examples of what that looks like. By the way, in your purely networking conversation, don't be surprised if that comes up.

[00:15:39] So if it's just a networking chat, they may turn that into like, hey, I think you'd be a great fit here. We should have you talk to some additional people. You might want to be ready with some type of return volley around these are the things I'm interested in. So that would be great if we could have a conversation with that person because I'm really passionate about that. So that needs to be ready hand in hand with your elevator when you're networking.

[00:16:07] The next piece is, you know, what does this look like in terms of follow on? Right. So you've gone from the point where we've essentially built that screen that the screen has had. So that's a lot of things that these are things I want to do. These are companies I'm interested in. These are the people I can talk to. I've talked to some people. Next step would be hopefully I'm coming back to talk to more people there because of that conversation.

[00:16:34] Also keeping in mind that people are busy. This is a very challenging point for people who are in job search. We forget that people are busy, just like we forget sometimes that somebody may be having a conversation with the passenger in their car and they miss the fact that the light turned red or turned green already. Hopefully not red. Turned green already.

[00:17:00] And so we beep on the horn or maybe we slam on the horn. Hopefully we're not slamming on the horn, but we may beep the horn to bring them back so that they know the light screen and we can all continue moving forward. The response to your message is a similar thing.

[00:17:17] Sending an email that doesn't get responded to immediately does not mean that your conversation went poorly, that you had coffee beans on your teeth, that they didn't like the the amount of creamer that you put in your coffee. None of this matters. All right. So when you're reaching out to somebody and and hoping that they will help you and they're not responding right away, please take a moment and realize when you start to feel that like, why aren't they responding?

[00:17:47] What's going on? Stop. Stop that cycle. They're allowed to spend a couple of days to get back to you because their job is actually not to get you a job. Their job is to do what they're supposed to be doing and what they're doing to help you is purely them helping you. So reaching out to them. A few days later to just follow up. Sometimes a nice way to do that is to send them an article about something you talked about.

[00:18:16] Maybe there's a resource you said you would share with them. Maybe you talked about this places to go visit. All right. It could be anything like that. Something that you can share with them just to kind of remind them that you're still here. You're looking forward to talking to somebody that's there without actually having to say that multiple times. So keep that in mind. Right. You're just building your bridge and you're building your connection with them with your follow up. How often can you follow up?

[00:18:45] So if it's an informational interview, I would say no more than like once every three or four days if they haven't responded. If they've responded, then it's a weekly follow up would be fine. You're going to be answering their message. They're answering yours. Good. Good. But if it's a situation where you feel like, OK, they said they wanted me to come back and talk to them or talk to somebody else on their team. I haven't heard back from my message yet.

[00:19:10] A couple of days later, it's OK to give them a prompt and just say, hey, I've got some meetings that are happening this week. I want to make sure I have time for the meeting with you. Can you let me know if there's been any headway made in terms of when that meeting might happen? So these are things to keep in mind as you're moving forward that I encourage you. I encourage you to make sure that you're giving that person the benefit of the doubt.

[00:19:36] I also encourage you to keep in mind that not everybody spends all day on LinkedIn. So when you are gainfully employed, typically LinkedIn is not the place that you spend your morning, lunch and evening. And therefore, they may not have seen the message that you sent them yet. It may take a couple of days for them to see it. Two things.

[00:19:58] One, you can always email them directly if you have their email to give them the space to be able to read that message and respond and also to be able to take action on it. So it may not all happen in the span of five minutes. So keep that in mind. Lastly, keep a device where you can track your networking conversations, your informational interviews especially.

[00:20:25] Make sure that that tool, whether it's a spreadsheet or a CRM, whatever you want to use, make sure that that is your gold in terms of tools that you have from today to the rest of your career. The people who respond to you from that spreadsheet are a class of their own because they're willing to have a chat with you, even though there's no job description that's out there. There's no posting that's out there.

[00:20:53] And they're people that should always get first advantage in terms of if you can return that favor. Keep track of those. That is a very important favor to return going forward. And frankly, it's something that is how people build that network and how people get to a place where when there are organizational changes with their employer, they're able to reach out to that group pretty quickly and have some positive conversations spinning out of that that outreach very, very quickly.

[00:21:23] So make sure you're taking care of those folks. Make sure you've identified them. Make sure that you have some notes in terms of the interactions that you had with them, whether it be their kids names or whether it be their pets name or whether it be where you met for coffee or what you talked about, whatever it may be. As much information as you can so that you can be informed when you're returning that favor. So those are important things. So that's a great question.

[00:21:49] This is really about moving into the direction of being a little safer with what you're considering for your next opportunity. I know it sounds daunting. I know it sounds scary because you're talking to people that you don't know. But the bottom line is the only way for you to know if this is the right organization for you to talk to or not is by getting to know the people who work there.

[00:22:15] And frankly, being able to come in this way from an informational interview perspective is a really nice way to understand what is it like to be there? What are the teams like? What are their expectations? Do I fit here? Do I do I? Maybe you have that informational conversation and it's something you want nothing to do with. The organization just is not what you thought it was. It's not a good match for you. Doesn't make them a bad organization. Just means it's not the right one for you. This is a real easy, clear way to do that.

[00:22:45] These are all tools that can help you that you should be doing along with applying. I'm not saying not to apply. I'm just saying this is a vital part of that. The majority of the people that we work with who are successful in finding something new, which for the most part is every one of them, make sure they are also providing outreach for themselves to people who can connect with them.

[00:23:08] And they're having those informational conversations. That is a critical piece of the interviewing and career strategy step. I hope you've enjoyed this podcast. Wanted to cover a little bit. This is a brief one. Wanted to cover a little bit around how to continue to move your search forward, even when there are not necessarily postings that are there for you to read to apply to.

[00:23:32] But really how to get results quickly and to take it out of the hands of a computer, of an applicant tracking system or luck, frankly, and figure out how to have some meaningful, gainful chats with people that you may know or people that you may know soon. If you've enjoyed this podcast, please go ahead and give us five stars and share it with somebody who may need to help. Maybe there's somebody that you know that's having a tough time with the networking piece. Share this with them. This may be a nice tool for them.

[00:24:02] Go ahead and subscribe. We'll see you next time. Bye.