5 Tips To Get A Job In A Recession

I hear it all the time… If only the economy wasn’t so bad, I’d be able to find a job. Maybe you would, maybe you wouldn’t. What I can tell you is that if you follow the following exponential marketing strategies, you’ll be able to find that job a lot faster and easier.

Recession Job Finding Tip #1

Go to www.LinkedIn.com and sign up for a FREE account. Invite anyone you know to join you. Connect to me on Linked In and you will INSTANTLY get 1.2 Million connections.

View Marc Dussault's profile on LinkedIn

Once you’re on Linked In, you want to make sure your profile is 100% complete so search consultants (a.k.a. head hunters) can find you to offer you positions that otherwise are not advertised anywhere.

This is a skill you can acquire in my Internet Mastery Silver Momentum Membership to get jobs offered to you EFFORTLESSLY.

I have a 5-part article series that explains step-by-step how you can get and leverage 7 million connections on Linked in in 3 days. It’s part of all my Internet Mastery Programs.

Several years ago, I had the job search function activated within Linked In and I got ‘offers’ posted to my homepage every single day…

Imagine that – job opportunities coming to YOU automatically.

The secret is to know how to create a KEYWORD rich profile in Linked In so that employers and head hunters can find you. I’ve explained this concept quite a bit in my Internet Mastery Blog and as a contributing blogger on AustralianBlogs.com.au. The full details are in my Linked In article series – part of my Memberships.

If you just want to get your hands on this – you can purchase the Internet Mastery Quick Start Bundle for $97. You’ll see it’s included as a BONUS.

Recession Job Finding Tip #2

Make sure your CV or resume is as long as possible.

That’s right – make it as long as possible. The last time I updated mine, it was over 30 pages long.

It was 17 pages long when I graduated from University. Yes, 17 pages.

Everyone told me it was too long. I had my photo on the front cover. The format I used was non-standard with 3 columns. The first column was the name of the position I held, the middle column described the position and/or my accomplishments and the third the time period I had this position.

I worked for a printing company as a student, working in 6 or 7 different roles over 7 or 8 years. I explained each one with accomplishments and explanations so a future employer would see the progression of my skills WITHIN the same company. Plus they appreciated the fact that worked part-time DURING the school year and FULL TIME during the summers – often working 7 days a week in the middle of the summer. I listed my role of messenger ‘boy’ Monday-Friday and photographic retoucher during the weekend.

My prospective employers were impressed at my hard work ethic, discipline and tenacity. That doesn’t come across in a 2-page resume.

EVERYONE LOOKS THE SAME ON 2 PAGES.

The reason head hunters and employers want a 2-page CV is to reduce their work load – NOT improve your chances of getting hired!

I had sections for Education, Seminars, Articles I had written, Sports I had played, Trophies and Awards I had won… Books I had read, computer software languages I knew (I was a computer programmer). I listed my skills in Word, Excel, Powerpoint, etc. so they KNEW my level of proficiency.

In my education, I went back all the way to kindergarten… Yes, I listed my kindergarten, grade schools and high school. My father is an engineer and we moved every two years when I was young. It’s important for employers to know that I adapt well to change and can make friends anywhere I go. Plus I was educated first in French then in English which is why I am fluently bilingual.

Interesting isn’t it?

Every single person I met for an interview told me my resume was too long.

Let me said that again.

Every single employer who met with me to consider offering me a job told me my CV was too long.

Every single one. All 27 of them.

27 interviews when my classmates were lucky to get 2 or 3.

With 27 job interviews, I was able to CHERRY PICK THE BEST JOB and not settle for what was being offered.

I remember one couple who ran a family business and both the husband and wife interviewed me BECAUSE of my resume’s unique format. I told them that if they didn’t offer me what I wanted, I couldn’t accept their offer.

They were, as we say, ‘gobsmacked’.

They thought I would be ‘desperate for a job’ trying to pull a ‘stunt’ like this.

They made me 3 offers, none of them close enough to what I wanted.

I got a job that paid me 50% more than my classmates at the time —> 50% more to pay for a new TV and stereo, new furniture, an annual vacation, a nice car, nice clothes…

Conclusion – BUILD your resume into a storytelling document so people are intrigued and interested to meet you.

Recession Job Finding Tip #3

With an out-of-the-ordinary resume, you’re going to get MORE job offers.

Once in the Interview, you need to learn this mirror and matching strategy that will get you MORE job offers.

Repeat the SAME words they say to you. Not the same sentence, but the SAME words…

For example, if the interviewer says “We’re looking for someone who is autonomous, self-motivated and energetic.”

Don’t say you’re “enthusiastic and passionate and you can think for yourself” — those words all mean the same thing, but THEY WON’T BUILD RAPPORT.

You have to say something like “Many people who have worked with me say that I’m energetic and they are amazed at how self-motivated I am because I do things without be told. I guess that what’s I liked about this role, it seems like it would be good for someone who is autonomous… Am I right?”

I coached someone to do this in the heart of the last recession. She was devastated because she had been to 20 job interviews without a single job offer.

Within one week, she used this strategy to get 5 job offers from her next 6 interviews.

She accepted the one she liked the most and the rest, as they say is… history.

Recession Job Finding Tip #4

You want to play the numbers – prepare a keyword rich resume (CV) and cover letter and send them to as many people and companies as possible. These days, all search firms use WORD and PDF document scanning technology to find you in their database.

You want to get your resume or CV to as many possible search consultants and legitimate job sites as you can.

In my last job search several years ago, I sent out more than 700 resumes.

Yes, 700. That was pre ‘Web 2.0’…

I played the numbers. Then I got serious with the responses that were relevant to me.

First you go WIDE and then you go DEEP.

Recession Job Finding Tip #5

You want to do your research for the jobs you really want. Not every job, just the ones you’re really interested in. For the others, you want to keep playing the numbers.

That means when you have an interview, you want to do basic research. Google the company, check Linked In and do a generic search so that you know IF the job and company meet YOUR requirements.

Once it does meet with your approval and you get past the ‘first interview’, you want to go full steam ahead AS THOUGH you have the job.

That’s exactly what I did to land my last job as an employee.

I invested more than 40 hours for a 1-hour interview.

40 hours. That’s a full week of full-time effort for one job interview.

I learned about the health care sector, printed over 1,000 pages of reports, charts, whitepapers about hospitals, databases, informatics, security, redundancies and system architecture. I printed more than 500 pages of competitor information so that I knew exactly what they were offering so I could speak intelligently about them at the interview.

I printed these documents and bound them in THREE 4″ binders, labelled them with a cover and spine and placed post it notes all over so I could get to ANY DOCUMENT in seconds.

I put them in my MBA briefcase (a big one like lawyers use to bring their documents to court) and when asked, I pulled them out DURING the interview.

My interviewers – there were 4 of them – couldn’t believe it. I knew more than they did about the Australian Healthcare market even though they had been serving clients here for over 10 years.

I had done all this BEFORE even being offered the job.

I got the job.

Now I understand you can’t do that for EVERY job – just the one you really want. I only did that for the ONE job I really wanted. My second picks only got 5 to 10 hours of effort. Had I not been offered this job, I would have shifted to my second pick all the way down the list.

By doing this, you stack the odds in YOUR favour.

If you don’t, the odds are against you.

Think about it. If you’re on a short list of 5 candidates, you have only a 20% chance of getting the job.

Those are NOT good odds.

You want to stack the deck in YOUR FAVOUR.

You can IF you have an Exponential Mindset. If not, the one who does will get YOUR JOB.

Want to know more about how to get this ‘Exponential Mindset‘?

Check out my website the Exponential MasterMind or my personal website www.MarcDussault.com.

As you can see, I have a different way of seeing and doing things. I call it antimimeticisomorphism. It’s all about doing out-of-the-ordinary things to get extra-ordinary results.

Extra-ordinary results like getting 3, 4 or 5 job offers in the middle of a recession.

Give it a go and let me know what happens!

2 Responses to “5 Tips To Get A Job In A Recession”


  • Wow! Great blog post Marc, I really enjoyed reading this one. Those tips for getting a job in a recession are fantastic!

  • Marc,

    Your blog is timely and makes a great deal of sense.

    Your interview technique (of printing off volumes of information and tagging them for quick reference) is also fantastic on so many levels.

    Thanks for sharing at a critical time of need for many. Your advice/suggestions are extremely powerful.

    Regards,

    Mike K

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