Lecture, Tutorial
How to get a job (part 6) @ Cambridge University
Getting a Job: Leads, Conversion, and Negotiation
- Job search as a sales process: The process involves generating leads, converting them into offers, and negotiating terms.
- Leads volume: Candidates should aim for 10 to 100 leads, as experiencing 20 consecutive rejections is normal.
- Standardized vs. informal hiring:
- Standardized processes (e.g., consulting, civil service fast streams, some teaching roles) require following rigid website applications and steps.
- Cold emailing has a success rate of only a couple of percent.
- Referral dominance:
- Referrals are the preferred and most reliable method for employers, as referred candidates are statistically more likely to succeed.
- Approximately 50% of jobs are filled through connections and are never advertised; ignoring this misses roughly half of available opportunities, including top roles.
- Strategies to secure referrals:
- Direct inquiry: Ask personal networks if they know of openings or can introduce candidates to employers.
- LinkedIn triangulation: Identify target organizations, find employees via LinkedIn, and locate a "linking person" (someone who knows both the candidate and the employee) to facilitate introductions.
- Career services: Utilize university alumni networks and career services to find advisers and introductions.
- Community networks: Engage with specific communities (e.g., the 80,000 Hours LinkedIn group) to seek advice and connections.
- Converting leads into offers:
- Employer perspective: Employers seek confidence in a candidate's ability to deliver useful work.
- Pre-interview project: Spend time solving a specific problem the employer faces (e.g., redesigning a career quiz or analyzing booking friction) and present the solution before the interview.
- Briefcase technique: Bring a multi-page document to interviews outlining three key role challenges and proposed solutions.
- Trial work: Offer to work for free for a month or two to remove hiring risk; this places the candidate in the top 20% of applicants.
- Negotiation:
- When to negotiate: Avoid negotiation in highly standardized roles (e.g., Civil Service fast stream, Teach First) with fixed scales; pursue it when holding multiple offers or when roles allow flexibility.
- Leverage: Mentioning a competing offer can yield a 10% salary increase, as the cost of re-hiring often outweighs the salary difference for the employer.
- Non-monetary terms: Consider negotiating work-from-home days or skill-development opportunities to build "career capital."
- Timing: Negotiation can occur after the first year of employment if performance has improved.
- Resources: William Ury's Getting Past No is recommended as a negotiation guide.
- Networking approach:
- Core principle: Meet people you like and help them without expectation of return (referencing the "Give and Take" mindset).
- Acquisition: Use referral chains (Link A to Link B) to meet new contacts rather than attending awkward general networking events.
- Expansion: Ask contacts for further introductions to expand the network organically.
- Resource: The book The Go-Giver (referred to by tone/context as a practical networking guide despite "grating American tone") is cited as the best available guide.
- Motivation management:
- Reality check: Job searching is a high-rejection process often lacking the support structures of academic applications.
- Action: Utilize motivational techniques and books like Nick Winter's The Motivation Hacker to sustain effort through months of rejection.
One-Page Career Summary
- Goal: A fulfilling, high-impact career achieved by doing what is valuable and contributes to pressing social problems.
- Sequence:
- Explore options: Identify the best causes, methods, and personal fit.
- Build flexible career capital: Develop skills and assets to increase future impact.
- Solve problems: Apply capital to high-impact work.
- Adapt: Continuously adjust the plan over time based on new information.