A very good friend of mine is a brilliant fellow named Otis Collier. We have worked together on several occasions and are planning to do a VERY cool project together in the near-future, but more on that later. I wanted to share with you guys a job hunting strategy that he shared with me that was like… “Wow, why didn’t I think of that? Its like… so obvious and would work too.” But I digress, here is his plan, something I call “The Otis Collier Method” (Patent pending)
Step 1: Find a job that you want.
Step 2: Find out if the company has an employee referral program. (And who doesn’t these days?)
Step 3: Approach someone in the company and say, in so many words, how would you like to make a couple of bucks? All you have to do is forward my resume to your company recruiter. If I get hired, you get the employee referral bonus. If I do not get hired, its bad for me, but nothing happens to you. Its a no-risk way to earn extra cash with VERY little work.
How smart is that? I thought it was very smart. In fact, as soon as he shared that gem with me, the little hamster in my mind started running in a wheel. Does every company have an employee referral program? Hmm… The quickest (and easiest) way to find out is to go to the career section of the company I am interested in and look at their Career section. I am chomping on some Frosted Flakes as I brainstorm this, so let me look up the Kellogg’s website to show you what I mean.
Okay, so, if employee referral programs are mentioned on company career pages… Hmm… yup! There is a way I can search that on Google. For example…
- “employee referral program” (“career rewards” OR “career opportunities”) intitle:career “employee referral”
- “Our company” “we offer” “referral bonuses”
Hmm… For that matter, I could do the same thing on a job board.
Okay as I look at the results I am getting, I am thinking that they are just too broad, so I refine my searches a bit more by adding more keywords like a job title or industry. For example…
- “Our company” “we offer” “referral bonuses” semiconductor engineer
- “employee referral program” (“career rewards” OR “career opportunities”) “project manager” intitle:jobs “referral bonus” accountant
Okay, so I say okay a lot, I’m still thinking.
Oh!
Once you have confirmed the company you have an interest in has an employee referral program or you have found another company that does, contact an employee who works there. How? There are a lot of ways to do that, but I suggest researching Linkedin. Do you know how to do that? If not let me know and maybe I will write up something on that.
For now, happy hunting!
Jim
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Really interesting idea. I had not thought about the company referral approach. It might also be worth it to give that person your resume. They could very easily be apprehensive about vouching for you if they don’t know you. I know I would be apprehensive about vouching for a complete stranger. That’s my name and reputation on the line if they turn out to be crazy.