Perhaps you’ve gotten emails like this:

• Do you know a recruiter who specializes in IT (or project management, or supply chain, etc.)?
• Do you know a recruiter in Seattle (or Houston, or D.C., or Podunk, USA)?

When I get this question I cringe.  Not because the job seeker is doing the wrong thing (they are just trying to get a job), but because they are barking up the wrong tree.  Here’s why I say that, based on my experience and observations. I’d love to know what your experience has been…

Recruiters don’t work for you and they don’t care about you.

Really.  Maybe some of them do (okay, I know some of them who do care about you, as a human being), but their job is to match a company’s needs with a candidate who fits those needs.  They work for the company, not you, and when it comes down to it, they get their multi-thousand dollar commission because they placed the right person, not because they spent the time to coach all of the wrong people.

Recruiters aren’t really good at networking.

In Never Eat Alone Keith Ferrazzi includes “headhunters” as that elite group called “power connectors.”  The idea is they talk to people all the time, know everyone, know what opportunities are coming up, and can likely introduce you to the person you really need to talk to.

Wrong.

My experience with most recruiters is they (a) are so busy they don’t know which way is up and which way is down, and can’t take a second to spend any real time with you, (b) are very protective of their network because this is how they make a living (protective of your peers because they might eventually place them one day; protective of company contacts because that’s how they get those big-commission opportunities in the first place – not by charitably help you, rather by signing a contract with the company so they get a piece of the pie when you are hired).

Now, I say they aren’t good at networking, but in fact they are excellent at networking as it pertains to their job.  Don’t expect them to put their networking mojo on to help you figure out who you should talk to – perhaps I should say “recruiters aren’t really good at networking for you.”

When you find that right recruiter, you make THE mistake.

I bet 99% of the people do this.  If you ask me for a tech recruiter in Podunk, USA, and I give you a name or send an email introduction, you do the wrong thing.

What is the wrong thing?

You become a needy job seeker, just like the other 5,000 needy job seekers in their database.

You send them a well-thought-out email that looks a lot like a cover letter, talking about all of your great strengths and accomplishments, and a resume.  You have prepared hours to send this stuff, which makes you sound and look very professional, so you think.

But you look just like 80% of the rest of their candidates.

And then you don’t follow up right.  You ask them a week or two later if they got your email, what did they think, and do they know of any positions open.

Here’s the problem: you are using them like a tool, and they are considering you like a candidate.

UNLESS they have a position open right then that exactly matches what you showed them, or if they can recognize some very special qualities and qualifications and know something might come up where you’ll be the perfect match, you are mentally (and virtually) filed into some “add one more to my 5,000-person database” bucket.

You have marginalized yourself because you played right into the system, instead of actually “networking” with the recruiter.

How do you get around this stuff?  Realize that, as human beings, not all recruiters are the same.  I’d say most that I’ve met fit into this stereotype, but there are some out there who care more about you as a human being I’ve given them credit for.  I’d listen to anything that Steve Levy, Heather Gardner, Nick Corcodilos (aka, Ask the Headhunter – get on his awesome newsletter) recommends.

Here’s my advice, if you get the name of “a recruiter who specializes in….”:

NETWORK WITH THEM.

Don’t send them a resume and cover letter or intro email.

From one professional (that’s you) to another (that’s them), send them an email or make a phone call and network.  Work on a long-term relationship. Nurture it.  I’d start off asking them questions about their openings and how I can help them.  I OFFER to make introductions to my industry peers.  I bring something to them to help them do their job and get that commission. I try and become a power connector FOR them. I try to become helpful, and memorable.

Sure, they’ll know I’m looking, but I’ll stand out from the other 5,000 candidates they have in their database.

My followups won’t be “do you have anything for me yet,” or “have you heard anything at my target companies?”  That is focused on me… rather my followups would be “what can I do for you, how can I help you with your current openings, what kind of professional do you want to get to know.”

Perhaps I’m way off-base on this one – what do you think?

Not a book, not a DVD.  Cereal

You know how this is done (if you don’t, read about other Monday Giveaways here)… the question is:

What was your funniest or most awkward job experience?

Leave your answer in the blog comment, below!  Good luck!

Dear FTC: this cereal giveaway is possible because of General Mills.  I’m not touching the boxes, they’ll ship it directly.  I’m just a blogger trying to have fun.  Go chase someone else. This is for legal residents of the US who are 18 or older, although I have no idea how they are going to determine that.  I didn’t even get 12 boxes for myself… any other questions, Mr/Ms FTC? If so, contact the person who left an email address here.

My buddy Daniel Johnson changes his status regularly, and this one caught my attention:

Dan doesn’t know I’m writing this post right now. He just knows I contributed, that’s all.

Dan is… how do I put this… the salt of the earth.  Dan is one of those really good, genuine people.  We’ve known each other virtually since 2006.  I have always had a lot of respect for what Dan does for job seekers (a lot).

He’s one of the first bloggers I wanted to get to know, and I can say that having known him has enriched my life.

You may have already given at the office, given at church and given to Haiti. I’m just asking you if you’ll give to Keisha, so she can get hearing aids.  Just a few bucks.

I know Dan will greatly appreciate it.  And Keisha will (probably) love you for it.

Send $10 (or any amount) on PayPal.  Or use the widget below.

Much appreciated!

I know Pam and Jill… and strongly encourage you to sign up for this no-cost webinar tomorrow. From an email Jill just sent out:

Hi All, In the past few weeks, we’ve seen numerous articles on how long it’s taking  to find a new position today. Plus, there’s been lots of talk on the need for job seekers to be entrepreneurial and the growing trend for people to have multiple jobs concurrently. That’s why this upcoming webinar is so darn important for you to attend. It’s about how to live, survive and even thrive in this changing economy of ours. You need to attend, even if you desperately want to return to “cubicle nation.” Why? Because it’s really about taking back control of your life again. UPCOMING F-R-E-E Webinar Escape from Cubicle Nation When: Wednesday, January 20 Time: 1pm ET, 12 noon CT, 11am MT, 10am PT Busy at that time? Sign up now and listen later Click to register: https://www2.gotomeeting.com/register/844810859 The collapse of our world economy in 2009 brought tremendous hardship, but also tremendous opportunity.

If no work configuration is secure, we are all self-employed. This gives us many ways to earn a living, if we just know the way to research opportunities and market ourselves as employee and entrepreneur.

Join Pamela Slim, business coach and author of Escape from Cubicle Nation as she guides you through a way to develop a career strategy that will translate regardless of your personal work situation.

In this session you’ll learn:

• The starting place for any career path: a sound life plan
• The critical steps to start a business
• How to build a supportive tribe of supporters, peers and mentors to further your opportunities

Register now: https://www2.gotomeeting.com/register/844810859

Self-employment is SCARY, but so is long-term unemployment.

For that matter, so is working for a company and not ever knowing when you might get the ax.

On the way home I was a blender of emotions.  Elated to be free of the crap.  Sad to feel betrayed.  Useless since I was a tool.  Many, many emotions.

But heck, look at me know.  I’m still ALIVE.

And I’m doing better than ever.

I’m happier.

I’m more powerful (because I’m EMPOWERED).

I’m positioned to really tackle MY goals, not some other guy’s goals.

I’m OKAY.

And if your last day is today (or yesterday, or yesteryear, or next month), I’ll tell you, YOU WILL BE OKAY.

YOU WILL BE OKAY.

It might take four months.  It make take two years.  But YOU WILL BE OKAY!

I really want to do a bunch of giveaways this year… I want to do it weekly, but not sure if I’ll stick to it.  I have more than 50 things to give away this year.

Today we start the 2010 Giveaway thing … here’s how it works:

1. You answer a question (see below) in the comments,
2. Someone judges it (in this case, Alex is going to be the judge!) after 72 hours, which gives some time for those who get the post the next day via email,
3. Whoever wins gets her newest book, New Job, New You (subtitle: a guide to reinventing yourself in a bright new career)

I like Alex - she’s a very sharp career person who has been writing and thinking about this stuff for a long time.  I like her ideas, and her writing style, and I bet YOU will like her book!

If you aren’t the lucky one to win the book, you can get your own from Amazon.

The question:

“What will you do in 2010 for your career to really get it going in the right direction?  Think Career Management!!”

Go for it – answer in the comments OF THIS BLOG POST (not Facebook, or Twitter, etc.).  Short or long, I don’t care.  Alex is the judge (a sentence or two might not be enough… :p)

The title of this book is 100 Job Search Tips from FORTUNE 500 Recruiters.

Get a highlighter and then print this book out (17 pages) – there are so many gems in here it is crazy.  It’s free, and yes, it’s priceless.

I got a sneak peak of this book and thought it would be cool and informative. I grossly underestimated the amount of information and value the book provides.

In this book EMC recruiters questions like:

• What is your favorite recruiting story?
• What are your top recruiting sources?
• What are the top 3 common mistakes that job seekers make?
• What are your top 10 job search strategies?
• Any final words?

The input is AMAZING.

Some stories are funny, some are sad.

The “recruiting sources” (where these recruiters look for talent) might surprise you!

I’m not going to go on anymore…. go download the free ebook and see for yourself!

Monday I blogged about not ever allowing one person to have control over my income again.  Thom Allen has seen me go from job seeker to business owner and professional career manager over the last few years.  I was surprised to see this in the comments from him:

I have seen [Jason (me)] change over the past few years.

Oh boy… here it comes… what exactly has changed?  I’m still the same brilliant (lol) person I was three years ago.  He continues:

He’s more confident, which is probably a far cry from where he was when he started JibberJobber.

Hm.  Interesting observation. I thought that when I started JibberJobber I was pretty confident (or, cocky).  But Thom has seen me in various network settings and lunches over time, and he’s got a different perspective than I do.

As I’ve thought about it I wondered where my confidence level was at back then… and where it is at today.  I admit today I’m more confident because I’m three years into my business, and I have accomplished a lot.  Back then I really had no idea if could measure up to the challenge.

I wonder what people would say about YOUR confidence level, right now?

If you are in a job search, or an extended job search, I bet your confidence level is lower than you might think.

This week at my networking event I met plenty of capable, accomplished executives who seemed to have low confidence levels.

Do me a favor – go read one of my favorite blog posts talking about this very issue – it’s called I Smell Blood.

And think about how you can change your confidence level – because it really does make a difference.

Nick Corcodilos is the man behind the famous Ask The Headhunter.  Nick’s advice, opinion and wisdom has been read by hundreds of thousands – he has been syndicated for a long time.  Anytime I’ve read Nick’s stuff I found myself agreeing – even if I didn’t want to, his logic and perspective was strong.

Nick recently came out with a new book called How To Work With Headhunters.  I’ll write more about that later.

I sent Nick a LinkedIn for Job Seekers DVD and hoped he would weigh in on it.  I was more than pleasantly surprised by the in-depth and two-thumbs-up report he gave on his blog.  You can read the entire post at LinkedIn for Job Seekers: A personal tutor.  Here are some things from his post that I really liked:

“I don’t write about many products or services because it’s rare that I find one worth writing about. Let’s face it, the Net is rife with hyped-up garbag-io.”

Totally – we’ve been beyond information overload for a long time.

“I expected a slick video of Jason in a suit lecturing me. (I dunno about you, but I can’t stand scripted videos and droning talking heads.) What makes this video so effective is that it focuses entirely on the LinkedIn screen while Jason stands over your shoulder and walks you through every important page, screen, feature and tool LinkedIn has to offer. There’s no droning…”

I hear this a lot – people expect me to be on a stage telling you what to do… in fact, you can see a short preview here, or a long preview here – you don’t see me speaking at all – it’s all my screen as I walk you through Linkedin, with my commentary and advice.

“My plan to skip around and get a feel for the DVD was dashed. I wound up taking my time and taking notes!”

There is a ton of meat in the DVD…

“I’m not job hunting, but I learned much of what I need to know to use LinkedIn for my business.”

Great point – I say it’s “not just for job seekers.”

“I think this product works so well because Jason Alba is immersed in JibberJobber and he spends all day long thinking about what helps job hunters.”

Another great point.  I actually think about social tools from two perspectives: (1) from the professional in career management, whether they are in a job search or not, and (2) from an entrepreneur/marketing perspective, so I can figure out how to grow my own business.

“LinkedIn for Job Seekers costs $49 (if you catch the current promo price). An hour with a tutor will cost you more than that.”

I charge $250/hour for consulting.  My DVD is over 2 hours long. The math is simple on this one

Nick, thanks a ton for this review, it really made my week when I saw it in my Google Alerts

Three years ago I started to learn about this industry I had never heard of – outplacement.

I hadn’t heard of it because the company that laid me off doesn’t do outplacement.  When I got let go I got a very small severance and advice to go to a free resume clinic.

Outplacement, I learned, is a service provided by a company to help an employee who is being terminated to land on their feet.  Outplacement services typically include some coaching (individual or group), learning opportunities (seminars, webinars, etc.), and sometimes office space.  There are other perks of receiving outplacement, but those are at the core.

Outplacement packages typically start around $1,200 and commonly are more than $2,000.  Executive outplacement packages can easily be five figures.

As I was learning about this industry I thought about how cool it would be to offer something to companies like mine – there is no way they would have spent $1,200 per termination, but perhaps they would spend a few hundred dollars on each of us.  To that company, outplacement was too expensive.

Interestingly, traditional outplacement firms are not interested in going below a certain price point – there is a lot of overhead associated with traditional outplacement and they just can’t go that low.

My idea was to create an offering that could satisfy that price point.

Fast forward three years… I got an email from a recruiter a couple of months ago saying he was just let go and did I know of any opportunities.  After not doing anything with my idea for three years because (a) I didn’t have the mental bandwidth, and (b) I’m not a sales professional, I thought I’d throw the idea at him.

And here we are today, with a new website called Affordable Outplacement.  We’re definitely not going head-to-head with traditional outplacement, rather we are going where they have chosen not to go.

There’s more to the story, but I’ll leave it at this for now.  I think it’s quite exciting, and I’m anxious to see how things unfold over the next 12 months!

Oh yeah, I should mention, YES, we are looking for talent to help us move this forward.  Specifically (and only), right now we are looking for inside sales reps: