It seems that over the last few years we've all heard the phrases "corporate downsizing" and "library cutbacks". As hard as I worked and tried to avoid these phrases, I was the next to hear them. I was a researcher providing in-depth company and industry research to a corporate finance group within a large accounting firm for over 10 years. I was proactive and tried to move with the times, involved with one-on-one training for the Intranet and Internet, and other expensive end user services. The firm took two routes (like many other large companies) one thought was that everything is available on the Internet and the other was to focus on industry sectors. The corporate finance group chose three industry sectors, which I assisted in the setup and design of the databases used for monitoring our key target companies, arranged for alert services for the weekly newsletters. About a year later, it seemed that the large research requests were fewer and far between and most of the requests could be answered by a junior researcher. So a parting of the ways was the next inevitable step. I happened to be one of the lucky ones that was offered career consulting services through a very reputable firm, which I believe was the best thing for me and would highly recommend it to anyone else who has the opportunity. I'm not just talking about the usual resume and cover letter assistance, which was good starting point. This particular firm that assisted me through the next few months, provided workshops on networking, marketing yourself and tips on connecting with people over the phone. (I understand that some of the employment insurance offices provide a few similar sessions if you ask for assistance, it may vary depending on the area and the instructors). We as information professionals know what we are capable of doing, however most of the general business and its executives don't understand us at all. Therefore the executives tend to think their answer to everything includes the following: a new MBA graduate and the Internet. We need to show them that sometimes we are the perfect fit for the position within their growing company. The course helped me to explain what I do and how I can help their company in layman terms. In the past I was able to call trade association executives and interview them on them industry trends, etc; however when it came time to marketing myself it was a nightmare. Once I took the workshops and practiced a little I found it was easier for me to cold call contacts I have met over the last ten years and ask for leads in the job market. Examples from my job searching:
Canada has a lot of really good
mid-market size companies that do not have any structured information
resources. Some of the good areas to target are the corporate development,
marketing and legal divisions. The next step was to call the company executives
within the organizations that I really wanted to work with. Through my phone
conversations I was able to obtain some proprietary information on the company,
landed a few interviews and made other contacts. During my three months of job
searching most of my interviews were for newly created positions; I only
received one interview for job site posting. I focused on the departments that
could use our skills that did not have a traditional library setting. This
process included sending resumes and information packages to the executives and
the human resources department at the same time. I believe that if you do not
get the executive interested first, then the human resources department will
not do much with your resume. |
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