"Everything but a job": the key to the network approach, provided you avoid misunderstandings
When you pick up a network interview, all the difficulty is there: do not ask for a position to your contact, while ensuring that it helps you find one.
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Most positions for executives are not distributed in the "open market" of employment. They are in a "hidden" market, not because it is hidden, but simply because it is not published. It works by word of mouth and the confidence that a recommendation represents. To access them, the specialists recommend asking for interviews with professionals from the targeted sectors in order to gather information, advice, and contacts. And not to meet them to find a job directly. This is what they summarize by "Everything but a job!", An expression to take however with tweezers because it can be a source of misunderstanding.
To start a network approach is a real effort: you must solicit people to ask them for the time when they have very little, to support that they do not immediately respond to your request for maintenance, relaunch them, insist ... Then, go meet them when you have no job and the relationship seems unbalanced ... What a costly effort! But the statistics are there and are repeated year after year: 80% of senior management positions are filled through the network. So, you do not really have a choice.
20% no more
Undertaking this approach does not prevent us from using the other channels as well: job offers published on the job boards and via the leading hunting firms. You will spend just 20% of your time there, a percentage that is immediately correlated with the probability that this source will be successful.
The labor market approach via job boards or recruitment agencies is relatively passive: it is about throwing nets in the water and waiting for something to come back. You are going to create a profile on some job posting engines and define the criteria for the positions you are looking for. In parallel, you will send your application to some well-targeted recruitment firms. Then, you will just refresh or relaunch these two sources regularly and wait for a fish to bite the hook.
On the other side, a radically different approach: the network approach. It's you who is in charge and who drive the pace. Active approach par excellence, the network approach gives you back the power because it puts you in the driver's seat: you have to define a target (sector, company) and build a watch on this theme, identify the interlocutors likely to inform you about this target, get their contact details, contact them, prepare the interview, adapt your pitch, list your questions, drive and then debrief the interview, thank, maintain contact, organize the follow-up of your actions. Full-time jobs!
A triple objective
The network approach is, once past the tedious beginnings that will push you outside your comfort zone, an excellent energy booster. But what do you ask for during a network interview? The reason for the meeting is threefold: get information on the sector of activity of the person contacted, seek his advice and feedback on your approach, and finally ask for contacts that will allow you to continue the process. If you call someone from one of his contacts asking for information and advice, the most likely is that he agrees. For two reasons: you ask him something he can give, and you call him from someone he knows, which immediately creates a climate of trust: "I contact you from Sebastien Durand. He immediately thought of you when I told him about my project. He mentioned your excellent knowledge of the sector and he is convinced that we could have an interesting exchange. "
As for the request for contacts, a step always delicate, if you were clear and professional during the meeting, he will certainly accept to open his address book. Whereas if you had more directly mentioned your search for the professional opportunity ("I would like to meet you because your sector of activity interests me and perhaps there are opportunities in your group at the moment?" ), it is likely that things would have gone short. In such a case, your contact can quite easily bypass your maintenance request by proposing you nicely but rather inefficiently: "Send me your resume, I am not very aware of the recruitments in progress, but I will pass it to our human resources department.
Another advantage of the approach is that it allows meeting a large number of interlocutors. But multiplying contacts will help you become more visible on the market. Indeed, not only opportunities are difficult to access but you are not necessarily visible in the hidden job market.
Finally, because you have met your interlocutor and demonstrated your qualities and skills, you can hope that a special bond will be established between him and you. The ideal is that he speaks about you around him, that he becomes almost your ambassador.
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"I'm thinking of something that might interest you"
Saying in a network interview that you're looking for information, advice, and contacts (that is, anything but a job) can sometimes create a misunderstanding. Because you are looking for a job. The success of your approach depends a lot on the clarity of your posture. The purpose of these various network interviews is that at some point in the process, one of your contacts will point to an opportunity: "I am thinking of something that might interest you, the logistics manager of our largest business unit. retired at the end of the year. I will talk about you to our general manager. "
At this precise moment, you change your cap: of networker, you become a candidate. While until now, you avoid giving your resume, you are now entering the traditional recruitment process.
To remove any ambiguity, it will be necessary to clarify your situation from the start of the network interview: you have the choice between an implicit version ("In two words, I am marketing director, passionate about the revival of sleepy brands. spent my entire career in luxury, first at Cartier, then recently in the LVMH group "). To your interlocutor to understand between the lines that "recently" is not synonymous with "currently". Or play a card on the table: "I just left the Vinci group and I'm thinking of continuing my career in your industry. There are, in my opinion, many points in common between our two sectors, which is why I would like to have your eyes on my position. "
Avoid ambiguity
Clarifying your situation is important to avoid the embarrassment of the unsaid or misunderstanding about the purpose of the interview. You must show that you assume this situation and that you are looking to the future with confidence. Some contacts will not dare to clarify things, by delicacy, for fear of embarrassing you.
I recently sent one of the people I accompany in his career transition to one of my contacts, whom I meet by chance a few days later. He explains to me that my client did not tell him if he was still in post and that he was, therefore, cautious about the market information he sent him. The ambiguity he maintained about his situation did not allow my client to get as much from this meeting as he could have hoped.
Conversely, no confusion: your request for information and advice is not a false pretext for, under cover of an innocuous question, to reach your only objective which would be to detect an opportunity. Getting relevant information and advice is not meant to hide a hidden agenda. You authentically need this exchange to clarify your ideas and your knowledge of your target.
Before your interview, you will have conducted a very serious watch on the sector of activity that you target and for which works your interlocutor (white papers, trade shows, blogs, newsletters ...). You will have inquired about his company (corporate website, LinkedIn page or Twitter account) and about him (on Google, LinkedIn, etc.). You will also have prepared a list of suitable questions.
A double profit
This interview will be an opportunity to prove your expertise, including the relevance of your questions, expand your knowledge of the sector, detect new competing targets or partners. Thanks to this interview, you will probably also get a lot of insights into business sector issues, new projects, business combinations, trends, new players, and so on. Since, unlike your interlocutor, you have time to explore his sector of activity and conduct thorough monitoring, you can share the fruit with him.
As for the advice he will give you, they will allow you to validate your strengths, to reassure you about the relevance of your arguments, or conversely to bring you to rectify the direction of your project. For your part, your interlocutor will certainly appreciate being asked as a mentor, and that his advice is also valued.
Never lose sight of the fact that for the person contacted, the network maintenance is also rich and positive (read the column " Network maintenance: why you must accept when you are called upon "). Finally, by asking your interviewer if he thinks that a profile like yours can be relevant in a sector like his, you bring him to position himself and to adhere to your project, which should make him a good one. ambassador.
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