#33: Guerrilla Marketing for Job Hunters 2.0

Guerrilla Marketing for Job Hunters 2.0: 1,001 Unconventional Tips, Tricks, and Tactics for Landing Your Dream Job, by Jay Conrad Levinson and David E. Perry (Hoboken, NJ: Jay Wiley & Sons, 2009)

Summary:
"Do you know why Jay Conrad Levinson and David Pery use the word guerrilla in the titles of all their books and talks? The answer is that guerrillas pursue conventional goals in unconventional ways. Guerrillas ... have a better perspective on reality that their conventional opponents who tend to pursue their dreams by the book.

"Never before have guerrillas had such a competitive advantage. In the job market, doing things 'by the book' is a fairly certain path to disaster and frustration -- unless you operate according to the principles and insights in this book. This book ushers you into the land of conventional goals attained, to reality as it is, rather than as it was. It guides you to a new world that remains unknown to other job hunters -- a world in which guerrillas reign supreme. It has been said that in a dog-eat-dog economy, the Doberman is king. We're in that kind of economy right now -- and the guerrilla is king.

"It takes a lot to b a true guerrilla, and this book provides a lot to accomplish that goal. Wanting to be a guerrilla is part of the job, but the heavy lifting of becoming a guerrilla is is being a master of details. Where do you learn those details? The answer is in the pages ahead. It's not necessarily an easy answer, but it's a correct answer.

"You absolutely must be aware of how the job market has changed dramatically just in the last decade. This is not your father's generation; it is yours. But it only belongs to you if you have the wisdom and awareness of the guerrilla. You'll gain those invaluable attributes if you soak up that wisdom and become aware of today's realities. This book was written both to help you open doors to jobs others dream about and to show you how to get one.

"To many, getting the job of their dreams is close to impossible. But guerrillas are experts at learning the art of the impossible. Their knowledge of what is really happening in the job market transforms the impossible into the probable. Lightning has been captured in these pages. Minds will be changed. Lives will be changed. Light will illuminate the way.

"Can all that really happen with just a book? It's a beginning. If you're not a guerrilla job hunter, we wish you success, but if you are a guerrilla job hunter, we predict success." -from the Forward by Darren Hardy

Table of Contents:

• Chapter 1 - Why You Need to Become a Guerrilla Job Hunter: The New Global America

Part I - Your Guerrilla Mind

• Chapter 2 - Personal Branding Guerrilla Style: Shape Up Your Brand with Attitude
• Chapter 3 - Your Guerrilla Job-Hunting Strategy: Think Like a General -- Work Like a Sergeant
• Chapter 4 - Your Research Plan: Research -- The Guerrilla's Competitive Edge

Part II - Weapons That Make You a Guerrilla

• Chapter 5 - Resume Writing and Cover Letter Boot Camp: How to Overhaul Your Personal Marketing Materials
• Chapter 6 - Twenty-First Century Digital Weapons: If You Build It, They Will Come for You ...
• Chapter 7 - Recruiternomics 2.0: How to Work Your Job Search Commandos

Part III - Tactics That Make You a Guerrilla

• Chapter 8 - Guerrilla Networking: A Radical Approach
• Chapter 9 - Fearless Warm Calling: A Fresh Alternative
• Chapter 10 - Creative Ways to Find a Job: Breakthrough Strategies

Part IV - Your Guerrilla Job-Hunting Campaign

• Chapter 11 - 3 Sample Campaigns: The Force Multiplier Effect in Action
• Chapter 12 - Hand-to-Hand Combat: Winning the Face-to-Face Interview
• Chapter 13 - Negotiating the Deal: How to Bargain with Confidence
• Chapter 14 - Ready Aye Ready

My Take:
So, as you may have gathered from the above, if you're offended by a surfeit of either military analogies or plain old over-the-top gung-ho marketing stuff, this ain't the job search book for you. OTOH, if you can set that aside, there's actually quite a lot of good advice in this book -- enough that I've now borrowed it twice from the library, and just may end up breaking down and buying my own copy.

Believe me -- even before this, my latest appearance in the job search Olympics (cripes, Levinson & Perry have me doing it now!), I've read a ton of job search and car. At the moment, I've also got two of the Knock 'Em Dead guides out, which are OK, but ... frankly, I can only look at so many different resume formats and sample cover letters before my eyes glass over. Read enough of this stuff while you're what yesterday's interviewer tactfully called "unencumbered," and it's like reading a steady diet of What to Expect books while you're pregnant: try to follow everyone's advice to the letter, and you'll only make yourself crazy. But this book's different. Yes, the analogies and some of the advice is a bit out there, especially for some fields (like, um, higher ed administration?) So you take it with a grain of salt. The book still contains some excellent, in-depth information about how to successfully, effectively use the internet in your job search (in brief, Google is your friend when it comes to research, but don't rely too heavily on the job boards). There's also some outstanding advice on negotiating an offer, and some good points on questions to ask your interviewer about the company that will help increase the chances of an offer's being put forth. As for some of the other, harder-sell techniques recommended, many don't quite seem like they'd fit in the companies/ industry I'm most familiar with, but hey -- they may indeed be well-suited for marketing or sales positions, and there's no reason the skeptical-but-creative among us can't take and adapt what works, and leave the rest.