Strategy Groups by Teleconference:
Moving Job Hunters Towards Their Goals  
 by David Madison, Ph.D.

Being Ready for the Right Opportunity
 “I thought I knew everything about networking and looking for a job,” Calvin admits, although he hadn’t been in the job market for a long time. He had been caught in a downsizing after almost a decade with this company, primarily in a PR role, and upon the suggestion of a co-worker, had asked for Five O’Clock Club outplacement. Since it was summertime and he wanted to spend time at his home at the shore, Calvin opted to attend weekly club meetings by teleconference—but not right away. 

After a few weeks off, however, he was not so sure that taking it easy was the best strategy. “I kept hearing that the market was bad and that people were taking a year or more to find a job. I needed some structure, I needed some help—I needed to suspend disbelief and get with the program.” Even so, he resisted his coach at first, but “once I found out that he was right on a couple of issues, I realized he knew what he was talking about and I should just put my faith in him.”

Calvin tackled the Seven Stories exercise and found that it provided a helpful foundation. “It was really great for me. It helped identity what I should be doing. I saw the threads in my life that brought
satisfaction.”

“You can't be lazy.
Commit to the method
and talk to everyone.”

He attacked the job market by networking heavily, mainly because he had so many contacts in the public relations world, but also because writing targeted letters didn’t appeal to him. “It was bad enough that I had to deal with unreturned phone calls from people I knew!” And the lead that turned into his next job indeed came through somebody he knew, but he’s thankful that this connection didn’t come before he had learned important techniques about job search at the Club. “My résumé was a mess, I needed practice, I hadn’t mastered my Two-Minute Pitch, I wasn’t all that clear about my objectives. If I had talked to my new employer when I was just getting started, I wouldn’t have been hired.”

“The synthesis of all the elements was very helpful,” Calvin points out. “The books, the CDs, the group and the coach—it all worked. I just had to buy in, even if I had my doubts.” All doubt was certainly removed at the end of the process when he was offered the job he wanted at a PR firm. “I was prepared to take a step back on money, but my coach said no way—and he helped me negotiate salary. I had about ten things in the works, including another offer. It was an embarrassment of riches. So I didn’t have to step back. I got 50 percent more money and a better title.”

“The group was so helpful. It's not about ‘woe is me’—it's about what you need to do.”

Calvin advises job-hunters, “Don’t get freaked out by the Club’s advice to target 200 positions. You can get to that number pretty easily if you just open your mind and expand what you’re willing to do. You can’t be lazy. Commit to the method and talk to everyone. Whatever is working, just keep doing more of it.”

Calvin attended his telephone group for ten sessions. His coach was Bill Belknap.

A Targeted Letter to the
President of Stores
Beatrice had been manager of a major retail store when she got the news that she would be part of a major downsizing. It turned out not to be such bad news after all because she ended up having to move a couple of hundred miles away for personal reasons. Her company provided Five O’Clock Club outplacement, and she embraced the Club method enthusiastically. “The process is very important—I loved it, doing the Seven Stories and the Forty-Year Vision. The books are very helpful. I’ve got them all marked up, and put tabs in them. And the CDs remind you of the essentials. If you don’t listen to them over and over you can get off track.”

“I needed some structure,
I needed some help. I needed to suspend disbelief and get with the program.”

Since Beatrice was targeting positions far from home, she decided to rely less on networking and more on direct contact. Now when she tells how she landed her new job with one of the nation’s major retailers, she gets startled reactions from co-workers. “I sent my résumé and cover letter to the president of stores. Everybody says, ‘Are you kidding me?’, but it worked.” The president passed her résumé along and she was called in for an informational interview, which lead to a second meeting, a job interview. But her targeted mail campaign paid off across the board. “While I didn’t get to 6 to 10 things in the works, I did have 4 to 5,” and she was weighing two other offers when she got the one she wanted. In her new position she supervises five departments with annual sales of $23
million.

At the beginning of the process Beatrice confessed that she hadn’t done a résumé in six years, but she worked with her private coach, Ernesto Donadio, on hammering out résumés tailored to different positions. And she attended Ernesto’s weekly phone group steadily for about two months. “The group was most helpful. When you hear other people making progress, you want your own successes, so you try harder. It’s not about ‘woe is me’—it’s about what you need to do. You just have to make sure you stay focused.”

Beatrice has already referred friends—and her mother—to the Club, but cautions that the process won’t work without resolve. “There are days when the last thing you want to do is read the books or listen to the CDs, but do it—you’ve got to do it, because it works, it really does. Stay optimistic and upbeat.”

“I have a lot of discipline and a lot of energy. But a job hunt is about strategy, coaching and group support."

Outclassing the Competition at Age 58
When Bernard’s job was eliminated in a merger, he was allowed to pick his own outplacement firm. A little Internet snooping brought him to the Five O’Clock Club website—and he liked what he saw. Although he was in Texas, the company purchased the Club’s outplacement package for him, and he was soon enrolled with a private coach and a full year of group sessions in the Insider Program. Bernard had been head of operations for a law firm, responsible for all non-legal areas, which included finance, human resources, facilities, information systems, marketing and strategic planning. He knew that the market in his city for this specialty was limited—there weren’t all that many large law firms. While his skills could be transferred to another field, he wanted to continue his career in the law-firm arena.

Although Bernard had been using a functional two-page résumé to make his age less obvious, on the advice of his the Five O’Clock Club coach, Bill Belknap, he switched to a chronological résumé. He had misgivings since this meant having a four-page résumé to bring out the richness and depth of his background, but he admits that  “rethinking the résumé made a big difference.” Recognizing the tight market that his own city presented, Bernard followed Club advice about expanding his targets geographically and launched a multi-state campaign and for several months was traveling to other states for interviews.

By the grapevine, however, Bernard had heard of an anticipated opening at a local law firm, even though it was many months away. He submitted his résumé and did occasional follow-up—even as he pursued his campaigns in other cities. Of course the local grapevine had alerted many other candidates as well, so Bernard was among the 14 people who were called in when the firm began interviewing for the position. And he turned out to be one of three finalists. “But I bet they didn’t know about the Two-Minute Pitch and how to write the right kind of follow-up letters,” Bernard says. Working with Bill, he strategized the letters to send after the final interview, during which he had met with 13 people: he wrote the same letter to the six people who would be on his staff, but individualized letters to seven attorneys. Bernard also asked his small group for advice on follow-up, and was encouraged to send a book to one of the attorneys—during the final interview he had described a book on firm management. “Someone in the group said, ‘Send the book,’ so I ordered it overnight and sent it on. When the partner called to offer me the job he mentioned the book.” Bernard had obviously outclassed the competition by demonstrating that age was not a factor. 

In looking back on his progress through the job search, Bernard recalled several highlights. “The Seven Stories exercise helps capture the things you like to do. Putting the words on paper livens up what you say. And knowing the Two-Minute Pitch was so important. Obviously a lot of people will ask about your background, and unless you’re prepared, you will wander too much.” He recommends faithfully reviewing the CDs and the books—and was drawn especially to the motivational quotes found throughout the books: “They help you focus on the long term rather than on the ups and downs of the day-to-day struggle.” Since Bernard’s outplacement package entitled him to call into his weekly group for a year, he made a point of faithful attendance. “It’s a good process, you know you’re not in this alone. Getting the Five O’Clock Club package was the right thing to do.”

“It's important to stay focused so that your
calendar will be full
a month from now."

 
Getting Her First Job in the U.S.
One of the first things Brenda had to concentrate on after arriving in the U.S. from England was her job search. Her husband’s company had arranged a relocation package for them that included a Cultural Awareness Day, and one of the speakers recommended the Five O’Clock Club to help trailing spouses find new jobs.

Brenda called the Club and the following week attended her first telephone group, facilitated by coach Sylvan Von Burg. Being new to job search in the U.S., she found the Five O’Clock Club methodology a crucial roadmap for navigating an unfamiliar job market. “I used the whole process. I don’t think it would be a good idea to follow just bits of it,” she advises. “At the beginning I was saying, ‘What am I doing?’ Then I could see how it all fit together, changing my whole way of thinking. The Forty-Year Vision was helpful to see where I wanted to go—so I didn’t just jump at any job.” The books turned out to be her primary guide: “I’m very much a book person. I used them all the time for reference—I read them every day.”

In England Brenda had been a bank auditor, and not surprisingly, she got the cold shoulder from most agencies since her U.K. experience didn’t seem to align well with audit openings here. And since she knew almost no one, networking presented a challenge. Thus, direct contact and responding to ads were the approaches she worked the most. It was six months into her search that Brenda spotted an ad in a local newspaper for a compliance position with a multinational audit company; she checked out the company’s website and found the listing there as well. Using the Five O’Clock Club template for the cover letter, Brenda submitted her résumé; the next day she was invited in for interviews—which turned into an offer. Because she had made the effort to get 6 to 10 things in the works, she had three other offers the same week—and several months into her new job she was still getting responses to her résumé. So now she has an American network and does not intend to let it die. “I send emails to everyone every few months.” 

Throughout her tough search, Brenda attended her weekly group by phone 18 times. “Being in the group I had the feeling that I wasn’t on my own. When I got the very negative responses from agencies, it was useful to have the group and the coach tell me that this way okay. The Two-Minute Pitch is so useful. I practiced it in the group to get feedback before I went on interviews. There were a few people I saw all the way through their job searches. It was always very exciting when people landed jobs.” “My coach was excellent,” Brenda adds. “Sylvan was so helpful, so patient.”    

He had misgivings, but his new four-page résumé brought out the richness and depth of his background.

 
Everybody Heard
Her Two-Minute Pitch
Juliana had been in her job for 11 years managing a call center when her job was eliminated. She was offered Five O’Clock Club outplacement, and believes in making full use of the right tools for getting a task done—especially when the tools are provided free of charge. “The books are phenomenal,” she reports. “I read them all cover to cover, especially the résumé book. I never would have had my résumé look the way it does with out that. It really stands out.” Juliana also relied on the CDs. “These were very handy, especially when I had an hour-long car ride on the way to an interview. They help get you in the right frame of mind.”

“When I was feeling lost or down in the dumps, I found the CDs to be very helpful.”

Juliana realized that a polished Two-Minute Pitch would be crucial for her search, and once it had been perfected, “I told everybody. When I went to the beach, I told the people I used to sail with, I told cashiers at the grocery store and people I met when I went for a walk. All my best friends heard it—I didn’t assume that they knew what I was looking for.”

And she took seriously the goal of identifying 200 positions and having 6 to 10 things in the works—which meant using all four ways of getting meetings. “I networked like crazy. I talked to people I hadn’t been in touch with for years. I used targeted mail for direct contact. I spent a lot of time on the phone getting the right names and I got in to see people. I went to open houses, not to apply for the positions advertised, but just to be able to hand my résumé to someone in person.” Now several months into her new position, she reports that she’s still getting call from companies wanting her to come in for interviews.

Juliana was put on the trail of her new job when she saw a tiny ad in the newspaper. She was not surprised when she arrived at the interview to see the two-inch stack of résumés that the ad had pulled in. She suspects, however, that she was the only finalist because her résumé made her accomplishments and experience stand out. She was hired to be assistant reservations manager for a prestigious tour company, partly on the strength of her knowledge of call center systems. Her follow-up probably clinched the deal. “I listened to the CD about follow-up letters—how they have to stand out just like your résumé.” During the final interview she had met with three people. “I wrote three totally different letters, explaining what I could do and how I could solve their problems. Actually about a third of my time in the job search process was spent on follow-up.”

She found the Club
methodology a crucial roadmap for navigating an unfamiliar job market.

Juliana relied on her phone group as well, attending 12 sessions during the course of her search. “This was very beneficial. Hearing what the others were doing motivated you to have something to report as well. Our coach, Ernesto, was fabulous. He had a lot of good input I never would have thought of.”