Hello, my name is Julian Placido, and for the past 10 years I've been working in the field of professional recruitment and staffing. And over the course of my career, I've had this incredible privilege of having successfully helped advance the careers of hundreds of individuals in a multitude of different job disciplines all over the country. And having this experience has given me this unique insight into what it actually takes to land a job. So the title of the training today is three keys to supercharge your job search. So in essence, what I've done in 10 years of experience in the recruiting and staffing world, I boiled them down into the three keys that I know absolutely moves the needle when it comes to landing the job that it is that you want. But before we jump into the technical training aspects of the conversation, I first wanted to share a little bit about my story, how I got here, and why I think it's relevant to the conversation today.

So I graduated from the University of North Texas Back in 2005, with a bachelor's degree in business administration, and at the time I thought that not having a degree was the only limiting factor that would prevent me from getting my first grown up white collar job in corporate America. And at this particular time in my life, I was really overconfident in my ability to go get a job once I got my degree, because I built a very successful career in the retail space. I worked for the technology retailer CompUSA and I worked for them for six years. I started off my career as a repair technician fixing desktop and also laptop PCs. And I was okay at that. But I think leadership took notice that my particular strengths more lent itself to dealing with the customer.

So they promoted me to management. And luckily for me, I was really good at management. And the service centers that I managed to always operate in the top 510 percent of the company in terms of profitability and also efficiency. They would actually move me from store to store to perform turnaround operations for locations that were lagging behind. And the last role that I held a copy of say was a trading position where I would share the best practices of running these tech departments with my particular region. So I was very much highly touted as this young up and coming guy who was going to help provide leadership to CompUSA one day, but I knew in the back of my head as soon as I got my degree, I wanted to escape the world of retail and go work in corporate America.

And what was silly also was like my notion of success, because I had no clue what kind of job that I wanted, or industry to pursue. I just had this ridiculous image that all I wanted to do was wear a suit and tie to work every day and work in a skyscraper in downtown. How superficial was I right? But nevertheless, there I was, with six years of technology experience, three years of management experience, one year retraining, technical certifications, a bachelor's degree in business administration, and now everyone around me telling me how great I am Was all this went to my head. So my notion of the job search was this once I would start applying to jobs, and submitting my resume to the marketplace was that companies would just start rolling out offers to me. Ladies and gentlemen, I can tell you with certainty that did not happen in my case, but rather what ensued for the next eight months.

Were some of the most humbling and challenging series of experiences I went through in my early career. I literally went on more than 35 interviews, experiencing rejection notice after rejection notice after rejection notice sometimes that apply to a job and then hear nothing back. Like I submitted my resume into a black hole. Sometimes it applied to a job, get a call back do a phone interview, declined notice like instantly right? But most of the time I would be invited for in person conversations doing multiple phase interviews technicals behaviors group panel discussions, Feeling like a nailed every step of the process, only to be followed by, you guessed it, another decline notice. And after being told no so many times in a row, I was really beginning to lose a heart and confidence in myself.

And I realized there are worse things in the world that can affect the human condition outside of not being able to get a job, right. But for me, that was my identity. I was the young successful kid who was supposed to go take on the world. And here I was charging out into the marketplace and no one wanted me. But something was happening during this process, which of course, I did not see at the time. I was learning how to shake hands.

I was learning how to make eye contact. I was learning how to conduct myself in an interview, I was learning the process of how to find a job And then finally, the one company that decided to make me an offer which ultimately I accepted was a company called Robert Half International. And Robert Half international is one of the most prestigious and delete staffing companies in the whole world. And I accepted the job of a sorcerer, which is like a junior recruiter. So there I was, instead of spending every waking hour of my day trying to find a job for myself. I was beginning a career where I was still doing just that.

But now in the service of others. And 10 years later, I've helped hundreds of people find employment active and passive job seekers. So I share the story with you for two reasons. Number one, if you're struggling, I can deeply empathize with that. But number two, if you are experiencing any kind of anxiety about your job search, I want to let you know that there's hope. But not just like the flimsy kind of hope, but a real systematic process that creates predictable results each and every time.

And that is what we're going to be talking about today. Cool. All right, let's jump into things. So everything we're going to be discussing today the three cases supercharger job search all encompass around landing an interview. This is the highest value event that can take place in anyone's job search. And notice why not saying it's like the offer stage, right?

Because it's not, because no matter how well you perform in an interview, there are X number of things that can happen in the back end that will kill the offer, whether it's they pull funding for a job, or a candidate comes in internally and supersedes your candidacy, any number of things. But getting offers is dependent on the quantity and quality of interviews that you can create for yourself. And that is an event that you can highly influence. So here's the agenda. These are the three keys. The first item we're going to discuss is your resume.

And we're not going to talk about punctuation or grammar or anything like that. We're going to talk about the real Important things that matter, which is the search ability, the readability and the relevance of your resume. The second item is job leads. So I'd like in this whole job search process is a sales process, which it truly is. And the more leads you have, the more opportunity you can choose from choices and land the job that it is that you want. And we're going to talk about a couple ways and how you can generate sort of a perpetual list of leads from your warm and also your cold market.

Number three, follow up. If there is nothing you guys learn for me today, this is the one silver bullet that I've seen time and time again, make the difference and landing an interview and not. So we're going to talk about some creative ways and how to follow up and get you in front of that decision maker. So your resume. So this is kind of a funny graphic, but to me, I think it spells the truth in two ways. Number one, the candidates perspective.

You're a job seeker and you are actually competing with many other people for that position. Sure we get that right. But this is not too far of an example in terms of what actually happens in real life. But number two, this on the on the employer side demonstrates work. Maybe not someone is physically sifting through these resumes, but at least in someone's database, someone has to do work to look through all these candidates to see who's the best one. So the better your resume serves you in the way of landing yourself in front of the hiring manager, the better off that it is.

So is it searchable? We live in the digital age? How do you guys find information online? using keywords? Right? Well, the same thing when it comes to applying for a position, every discipline, every job that ever exists, has certain terminology associated with it.

For example, if you're a project manager professional, what kind of styles of project management Do you have experience with? With sdlc? With waterfall with lean with agile? Or how about the different tools that you've used before? Do you have experience using Microsoft Project or JIRA or X number of tools? Or even on the accounting side?

Do you have experience with Quicken or QuickBooks Are you a CPA, there's certain keywords associated with a discipline that need to be present on your resume if that's what you're actually going for. What you're looking at now is actually the back office to the search function of LinkedIn. This is LinkedIn. But it has a very similar functionality to every high powered recruitment tool out there, whether it's a dice, or a monster or a Career Builder. So let's take a look at these fields. first name, last name, title, company, school location, country, postal code, there's a number of different ways that hiring managers and recruiting professionals can try to find candidates.

But there's only one field here that I want you to focus on. And it's this one key words. So that's a clue. Why does every single high powered recruitment tool out there have this field? It's because it's important and they need to be relevant. So today, I work for a mobile solutions studio.

And all day long. I hire software engineers, not just software engineers, but mobile engineers, not just mobile engineers, but iOS Engineers, so folks have programmed for the iPhone and also the iPad. Well, the operating system for this particular, this particular development methodology is iOS, and the actual language is Objective C. So if I'm going to be looking for iPhone programmers, I'm going to input iOS and Objective C that and is a Boolean operator, meaning I need to see people with iOS and Objective C. So think through that when it comes to putting keywords in your resume. So when I run the search, what comes up? What only comes up are candidates with both iOS and Objective C on your background and what what happens, it pulls up search results. And you know what the search results become?

My call list. Those are the people that I'm going to be reaching out to. Yes, what we're looking at as our LinkedIn is the LinkedIn profile search results, but this is the same process that recruiters do for resumes as well make sure that your resume is searchable and available on the radar of the hiring manager. So is that readable? So let's say you have all the right keywords on Your resume and you show up, we met imagine that stack of the stack of resumes. So now you're probably down to like maybe a fourth of them that actually are doing this correctly.

Now, is it readable? So the purpose of a resume is to punch that employer in the face as many times as possible as quickly as you can without creating any kinds of barriers of comprehension of who you are with that resume, right? So here's a common mistake. This is actually my resume. But, but this is a common mistake. I see resumes all day long written paragraph form.

Do you see how dense that is? What you do not want to do is to create a novel for your ultimate customer because you want it to be easy to read. Here's the same content in bulleted form. Do you see the contrast? Do you see the contrast between a novel and also bulleted form? They're bite sized chunks of information, bite sized chunks of value that you can add to the organization.

So make sure your resume is readable. Lastly, is it relevant? So you apply to a job now Who cares? So now you're really down to maybe like the 10 15% of people that have had the the keywords on it. Now it's like readable and people actually seriously considering you now. Now people are taking more time and actually reading the content in your resume.

So does it matter? If you think about what a job is it's a solution to that particular employer. Right. So are you the solution to that employers problem? Well, a good litmus test to find out if you are is to look at the job description that is posted. This is an example of an accounting.

Actually, no, this is an office administration position, right, that we posted a few months back, look at the responsibilities, purchasing supplies, maintaining inventory, organizing meetings. If you were applying to this job, does it not make sense for these kinds of functional functional requirements to show up on your resume? What I'm not saying is to copy and paste this verbatim and put them in your resume, right? But if you if you have done it, it makes sense for it to be there. So tailor your resume to the actual job description. you're applying job leads.

So job leads are quite literally the lifeblood of your job search, it makes sense to say the more leads you have the more shots that you have of getting a job that you want, right? So, when someone comes to me and says, Hey, Julian, I need help with finding a job. The first place I have them go to is their warm market, family, friends, and also professional colleagues. So what do you do with these people, you put everyone on blast, and let them know that you're looking for a job. Part of that is also knowing the value that you have, right? If you're an accounting position, you ask your mom, your dad, your brother, your sister, your best friend and all your professional colleagues, who do you know that's looking for this, this is a great way to start generating leads.

And once you have a lead, you already have a warm connection into that decision maker. So leverage that number to cold market. So this is where companies publicly advertise their positions. So the first place I would recommend that you go on the cold market is Indeed, and it's exactly what it's branding says one search all jobs, because it's a job search aggregator. You go to one search engine and upholstered dice for a monster and careerbuilder. It's like the granddaddy of all like search engine.

So definitely check that out. The second one is LinkedIn. If you haven't developed a LinkedIn profile yet, I highly encourage you to do so. It's like It's like Facebook, but for professionals, right? And I'd say I'd say I don't know of any recruiting professional or HR manager that doesn't use LinkedIn to recruit for talent. So definitely develop your your LinkedIn profile.

And lastly, competition. So what do we mean by that? So I told a story earlier how I worked for CompUSA for six years, right? If ever one day I walked into the office or the or the location that I was at and was fed up, I could easily go to a Best Buy a fries, a Circuit City or any other technology retailer and say, Hey, this is what I am. I think I could be a fit for you. That's a great way to leverage leads and you know what, because you worked for Like company that increases your chances of being relevant to them.

So check out the competition and see what openings that they have the value of recruiters Okay, so before I became a recruiter, I had no idea this this industry existed but this is a multi multi multi billion dollar market of third party headhunters, serving companies by getting them talent. Now, I don't want any one of these keys to be like the one thing that you rely on, this is just another tool in your toolkit. Now the truth about recruiters is that they are governed third party recruiters are governed by the client that they represent. But if you are a true fit for a position that they are hiring for these high powered professional salespeople will move mountains to make sure you get the right conversation. So definitely leverage a few recruiters and there's a bunch of different recruiters out there that had specific niche skill sets like I work for Robert Half right, but they also have a management resource and office team are creative and I work for technology.

So develop a few relationships. With some of these third party recruiters follow up. So earlier I said you could forget everything except for this because this truly is the game changer. And I've seen it happen over and over and over again. So this is what candidates feel like whenever they apply. I know I did.

And I know a lot of I know a lot of other people feel this way too. But this is how candidates think they're perceived when they're playing. Look at me, I'm a person, I'm a human being, I have value. I have six years of technology, retail experience, I got a bachelor's degree people tell me I'm amazing. This is what I see myself as the company. This is quite literally what you look like to a company.

What you're looking at is an ETS or an applicant tracking system. You remember that black hole I tell you about the people submit, you don't end up in a black hole, you end up in someone's database, and you quite literally become a number to them. So here's the illustration I want to make. This is for a real posting that we made I think about a year ago now. It's gonna count Position accounting clerk position. So that very same day, I had 25 applicants and take note of how many search results that I have.

There's 15. So by the end of the week 259 applicants for one job, that's crazy, that stack of resumes in the beginning isn't looking so crazy now is it? Here's the person who got the job. Her name is Kathy. So Kathy, although she got the job was not one of those 250 plus candidates that applied. Does it make sense?

Right. So Kathy, first off did go to indeed and she found her posting on one of the job boards, right. So instead of just applying and being traditional and hoping somebody calls back, she looked up the company website, research thoroughly our product offering and everything that we did, and she was super appreciative what we did, looked up her dress, drove to the studio, knocked on our door and asked to speak with me because my name was on that posting. So here I was not even At the very beginning stages of sifting through these resumes, and here was a candidate wanting to talk to me about a position that I had anxiety about reaching out to you for all these 259 applicants. Well, I took about 15 minutes to interview Kathy and she, within 15 minutes, I knew that the force was strong within her right. So it turns out, Kathy was the former comptroller to a very well known medical institution here in the Dallas area.

And immediately I knew she was a fit for the position. So I passed her on to Gary, who was my boss, very next day we hired Kathy. So is it unfair that all the 259 applicants who went through the normal channels didn't even get a look? No, because when you're whenever you're looking for a job, you want to make sure that you're clear on your value, and you make it easy for the employer to recognize your value to them. So what's your sizzle? So in the world of professional recruitment and staffing, now, these are professional recruiters who represent candidates to pitch them to clients.

Each and every recruiter creates a sizzle A marketing statement or in other words, an elevator pitch. And this is key even just as an exercise, you have to know what your value is to an organization and be able to clearly effectively and succinctly describe that to whoever you're going to pitch, right. So this is my sizzle, for example. Hi, I'm Julian. I'm a senior corporate recruiter with 10 years of experience. Currently, I manage recruiting for one of the world's premier mobile developers, and have saved them over half a million dollars in hiring fees in the last three years.

Before I came to the studio, they were almost exclusively using third party recruiters. And fees are really expensive. A lot of times it's upwards of 20% of that individual salary. So software engineers, let's say average salaries about 100,000. Right? Well, every hire that they make from an agency they pay $20,000.

That's insane. Well, since I've been there, we've at least quadrupled in size and we haven't paid a single agency fee. So things that employers listen to how have you ever created efficiency Within a department, have you ever saved a company money? For me, I always go for the juggler, because just because despite whatever stakeholder you talk to in a company, if you could show them that you save them money. That's golden. A lesson from Alex.

So I met Alex from an account manager posting that we had at our studio. And account managers are really seasoned salespeople, usually between eight to 12 years experience, deep account management, working with big brands. Alex, on the other hand, he graduated from college about two years ago. So I did see his resume, but I put him on a low priority. And the only reason I considered him because he wrote me a very kind of compelling sales email, right, but he wasn't a fit for the job. So what did Alex do?

He sent an email to a gentleman I work with his name is Calvin. And in this email, he says who he is, what he's done, which by the way, he's built an app that's made about $22,000. And he's really interested in sales. So what does this look like? It's a sizzle. He's communicating.

His value to this company that's relevant to his background, and who did he send it to? Calvin is actually the CEO of my company. So Calvin also has a soft spot for really passionate folks most entrepreneurs are. And he sent this email to me and says, Hey, call Alex. I know he's a low priority, but go ahead and give him a shot. Well, that's my CEO, right?

So I got to give him a call. Well, I finally got on the phone with Alex and I fell in love with a guy also because he's so passionate and so genuine. And I didn't, he still wasn't a fit. So I wasn't like blowing smoke or anything like that. But I did get him in touch with quality assurance is where it's where is a good sort of entry level point to learn software? Well, he started working in QA for about eight months, he continued to develop relationships within the organization caught the eye of sales because he still had passion.

And about a week and a half ago, we hired him as a junior sales associate. What do you learn from that? two things number one, the sizzle works, know your value and that's how you pitch it. But number two, go as high as You can serve recruiters like myself and also Human Resources office management, we have a tendency, the truth is we are kind of gatekeepers, right we screen people out. But if you go as high as you can the CEO, for example, they pull the strings of the various organization if it wasn't for Calvin pulling my strings, I probably wouldn't have spoken with Alex for the position because on paper, he wasn't a fit for the job. So to kind of sum up this whole silver bullet of how to follow up, you can truly use this quote here for many aspects of your life but it's so rings true when it comes to follow up.

Whenever you find yourself in the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect. So when it comes to follow up, do something that's shocking and ah, you know, do something different stop by the office, send cookies, send someone a LinkedIn in mail and say something like, Hey, mister hiring manager, honestly, I don't know if I'm a fit for this position. But I'd love to buy you lunch in at least explore this together. Do something different. Don't just apply and quit. Do something different So let's review what we discussed.

So we talked about the resume the first key and the things that actually matter which is searchability readability. And also relevance. Number two, we talked about a way to generate perpetual leads from your warm, and also your cold market. And then lastly, follow up the silver bullet, you don't even have to have a resume, you don't even have to really have well, you do have to have leads, but at least a target idea of who you want to go after. But it's all about how you follow up and get your message in front of the decision maker. Right.

So those are the three keys to supercharge your job search. But I wanted to end on one thing, because it's so sort of near and dear to me. For those of you college graduates who now have a degree but you have no clue about what you want to do in life very much like I did, and that's why I struggled so much. One of the most difficult people to help is the person that doesn't know what they want to do or be. And it's this as early on as you can in life. Find out What you are passionate about?

What are the activities that you invest yourself in that just time melts away? Find out what you're passionate about. Number two, find out what you seem to be naturally gifted in. Everybody has unique talents, what are things that people say that you do better than anybody else. And then you take and combine those things and see how you can create an income in the marketplace with it. Whether it's finding a job or starting a business, because when you find that intersection of what your passion is, what's your most, what you what your passion is, and what you're naturally gifted in and what creates an income you found more than just a job.

You found a career. You found a calling. Thank you very much for your time, ladies and gentlemen, and good luck in the job search.