Customer Reviews

Unlock the Hidden Job Market: 6 Steps to a Successful Job Search When Times Are Tough

5 star:		(19)
4 star:		(21)
3 star:		(8)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

As a Human Resources professional who has landed every job in his career -- now going on 25 years -- through proactive networking precisely the way this book describes, I am delighted to see the process so well documented. This book does not uncover profoundly new angles on landing a job; however, it clearly describes the steps needed even in these tough times, and especially for those who have had frustrations using traditional methods. Using the techniques in this book moves the job-seeker "upstream" into conversations with hiring managers in the planning stages before a job is posted publicly - and that's how almost all jobs are being filled right now.

In a world of instant virtual access to people and information, and net-enabled social networking, the steps described in this book are clearly detailed and made easy to plan and execute -- even for those who may not consider themselves strong networkers. Given the amount of time you may devote to finding a job using the futile "sit at home, search the internet and blast resumes" approach, this guide has 100's of tips on how to use that time more wisely, and in ways that will actually help you land a job.

Books on career and job-finding abound and it's hard to find ones that have anything new to say. "Unlock the Hidden Job Market" is a good basic guide to the job search, but doesn't really present any information you won't find in 20 other books. The word "hidden" implies there's some secret job market out there we haven't found-- but when you read the book you learn that this "hidden" market is really just the usual advice to network, look for connections to organizations to learn about jobs before they're advertised, etc. Richard Bolles covered that years ago in What Color Is Your Parachute? 2010: A Practical Manual for Job-Hunters and Career-Changers. "Unlock the Hidden Job Market" is well-written and well-organized, but if you've read other books on the job search you probably won't find anything new here.

This is a great book about job search with principles that can be used at any time, but most useful in a tough job market. The authors really understand what it's like to be looking for a job and they have true sense of how people feel about the networking process. This empathy provides them with the knowledge needed to provide really practical insights on how to go about networking and most importantly setting the groundwork for you to be noticed, remembered, and ultimately hired by people who don't have posted job openings but might still be interested in meeting a really talented person. This book is full of tangible tools, strategies, techniques, and words to use, it is not just a theoretical guide. It's worth every penny!

I have been unemployed for 18 months now and have become a little desperate in finding a job (before I move overseas or go work for the postal service). So I read this book. The basic message here is simple: most real job opportunities are never advertised (true), you have to work hard to find such opportunities (true), and this book can help you succeed in finding a job (hmm...).

The authors, a recruiter and a consultant, break the process involved in their proposed approach into six steps. In discussing these six steps, they do not shy away from sharing with you what they have seen as the mistakes almost every job seeks commits. I think this is the most valuable feature of the book. Some of their statements can be startling at first; for example, chap. 17 tells you that "your resume is not your friend." When you actually read the chapter, however, you realize that the authors are not saying you should not have a resume, but rather how you should have a powerful resume and, more importantly, when and how you should present it to a potential employer. Pretty useful tips! And there are many other eye-opening tips in the rest of the book.

One thing I wish the authors had done a better job at is organize the materials better, especially for an unemployed looking for essential information on the hidden job market. The book is actually fun to read, but you really need to read through the whole book carefully, with a highlighter in hand, in order to understand what you should do. Printed in small fonts, this book is not friendly to a desperate and ageing job seeker like myself!

How to surf, network, meet, subvert and rebuild yourself and your career value while beating your competition by making yourself closer, smarter and looking a lot hipper.

The jobs that click are NEVER going to be published and the only way to beat the depressing BULL of writing resumes to job search sites. Take this instead of feeling frustrated and DO SOMETHING for yourself!

Look, my whole career for the past 20 years started with a really good cover letter that was, in reality, a tear-out-your-heart secret attack. It not only worked to get me in the door when the job was already filled, it got me there for 8 years, reinvented me, and opened up a whole new rock layer. UNLOCK spells out what I've not only learned myself, but how to go even farther.

Stop bitching about job searches! MAKE IT HAPPEN! Here's how, and I support it 100%. This, and a lot of guts will show you how to become what nobody even knows they need: YOU!

As most of the previous reviewers point out, this is the book that lets you take back control of your job search. It's well written, and the strategy Is very believable and also genuine. But the power of the method wasn't completely apparent to me until I sat down and started to implement my own Hidden Job Market (HJM) plan. Once I started typing company names and contacts, I began imagining the conversations I would have with my target individuals.

The Target Opportunity Profile that you create gives you a conversation piece, which helps facilitate the meetings. As I started filling in the blanks, it became my ticket to a new position, at least in my imagination. And hopefully for real.

One of the authors' suggestions is to write a daily journal. The journal will help you to focus on what you are good at and what you love.

Write about all the activities you love, work projects that stand out in your mind, people you worked with. I'm not a journaler, but I found myself lost in my recollections of those career moments - the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat. What did you learn? What skills did you exercise? I'd budgeted 30 minutes, and had to stop myself after an hour. There were a few a-ha's and I expect many more.

Even if you don't choose to follow the HJM path, there are many tips in this book that will be helpful to job-seekers, such as getting past gatekeepers and leaving room for followup. I recommend it highly.

I'm in the IT field and my position was recently outsourced to an off-shore team. So I picked up this book to see what else I could be doing.

As many of the reviewers have mentioned, this book is oriented towards a very "interpersonal" time-intensive process which will help folks who are looking or jobs that are focused on "soft skills" such as sales/marketing, project management. However, for folks who have built their careers on hard technical skills, it is going to be difficult to implement "the plan" laid out in this book unless you are looking to move into a position that is more oriented towards soft-skills.

However, if you were good at the soft-skills, you would probably be in that type of position to begin with and your job would not have been outsourced to a group in India.

While it is true that every job benefits from a combination of soft skills and hard-core tech skills, it is also true that in certain occupations, employers are more interested in how quickly/accurately you can code rather than your ability to lead/direct individuals. Not everyone gets to be a "chief"... and frankly not everyone even WANTS to be a chief! If you try to implement this process and you are not comfortable using the "sales"/"meeting" approach described in this book, you could actually make yourself look worse than if you had done nothing -- you have put yourself in a position where you are displaying your weaknesses. And unless you are on the "inside", intellectual property issues will prohibit you from being given the opportunity to show off your strengths.

I also agree with the reviewer that makes the point that the approach advocated in this book definitely is oriented towards "elite" white-collar jobs and that folks fresh out of school or people who are not looking for a management-type job will not be successful because they simply will not have the level of experience needed to pull off the suggestions laid out in this book.

So before you pick up this book -- first analyze the type of job you are looking for... if it is one oriented towards soft-skills, go for it. However, if you are a proud computer geek -- you might be better off pursuing additional certifications and training that will highlight your hard skill bonafides.

[NCJVR]

I was hoping for some new insights from this book, but there are no new ideas in the book. Networking has not been the Hidden Jobmarket since 2004, it's been eight years since that "hidden" market has become mainstream mainly because of LinkedIn, Plaxo, facebook. For the seasoned job hunter this book is not useful, but I will recommend it for the recently displaced workforce that has worked for a company for over 25 years.

As a current career counselor, I was delighted to find this timely and very practical book, written in such a clear and concise manner. A lot of my mature clients who never had trouble finding work before are discouraged by all the changes in the job search market that have created effective barriers to their job search success until they learn the new "rules of engagement" that are explained here. The idea of networking isn't new, but how it's done today is, and it's a baffling process to most folks. But this book spells it out well.

My clients continue to report back that Unlock the Hidden Job Market has opened their eyes, shown them exactly what the need to do and reinforces much of what I teach. This book is a key tool in my job search strategies toolbox that I recommend it to all my clients.

Initially I had a hard time getting the right "mood" to read this book. I've read a few other job hunting books and they tend to be dry and hard to get through. Unlock the Hidden Job Market is a very readable book- short chapters are not overly wordy and include real-life examples plus do and don't lists of how to execute what was discussed in the chapter. While there are some solid tips to be found, there is nothing really that new or revolutionary covered here. It's all about networking- not only to find a job but to find the contacts that can help you find that job. I didn't get that much out of the book, but that doesn't mean that there isn't something in it for you. Considering the plethora of job books in the market now, this one at least provides relevant tips for the currently unemployed- offering hope as well as guidance.

This book is specifically targetted towards the unemployed worker. So as an employed individual looking for a new job, this book was really not that helpful to me. It comes right out and says that in order to fully execute this job search technique it needs your devotion on a full-time basis. And when you're already working 9-5 it's going to be a challenge to arrange for meet and greets with other business people in off hours. Unless you have a flexible lunchtime...

Overall, it is a readable job marketing tool. But unless you have the time and energy to committ to the networking full-time, you're really not going to get that much out of this book. The one thing is that you need to look at more than just online job postings... and we knew that already so... ? I would suggest checking it out from the library before spending the money on it. Even if you're currently unemployed and have the time to use this book for its intended purpose, still check it out of the library and save the money for other things...