‘Tis the season to follow the money.

by Duncan Mathison

A client of mine got a verbal job offer but the job will not start until January. What’s going on here? Why can’t he start now? What’s the big deal of a of a months of pay when the hiring manager tells my client that her team is swamped with work and desperate for help?

Simple, this is not just the start of the holiday season, it’s budgeting season. October 1^st marks the beginning of the 4^th quarter for many employers’ fiscal year. Managers are scrambling to make their case for next year’s budget and getting the nod about what they can expect for the coming year.  After all of these layoffs remaining employees are struggling under the work load so any sane manager’s first request will be, “Can we add headcount yet?”

So what does this mean to those who are looking in the hidden job market?

Kick the networking into high gear. Your goal is to meet people who would be in the position to hire and manage someone with your skills and capabilities. When budget decisions are being made, there will be a manager who thinks. “I could use this person next year…”

Ask about budgets. Talking to someone from one of your target companies? Ask them if they know what the staffing plans are for the next year.  Don’t be put off by general statements that there “might be more cuts.” You are interested in knowing if they might add a position in your specific functional area.

Ask about the employer’s priorities for the coming year. Do they want to launch a new product? Open a new market? Improve their quality operations? Install a new system? Start a new program? In some situations this planning might be a closely kept secret, but for many managers it’s not. They don’t tell because nobody bothers to ask. Knowing what they will be working on may give you a clue about how your skills can help.

Do not assume a low-level or peer-level networking contact knows what the budget is. Job seekers will mistake one inside contact as the only contact as a source of information.  Could be a huge mistake. Only one person knows the budget and the hiring plan. That is the hiring manager and sometimes they are not even sure about what they will do. If you have migrated your connections to include the hiiring manager, then you might really be in the know. And don’t forget, your skills and qualifications might fit a number of different departments, divisions or even locations. Use this time to get deeper insight into an employer you would really like to work for.

 Keep your eye out for situations where your mix of talents might offer two for the price of one.  Sometimes employers think they have to hire two people when they think they cannot get the skill set in one person. (“We need one person who knows about X and another who knows about Y.”) You might bring both. Once a manager meets you and decides you would be an asset for their team, they will adjust the new position to meet your skills.

Start the process of getting hired before the position is approved.  Until the manager gets approval, they may be reluctant to promise a job. But you can always ask questions to get the ball rolling before other others get wind of the opportunity. For example, you might ask, “Are there other people you think I should meet as this new position is under consideration?” Or “If you get the budget, what would you suggest I do in the meantime to make myself the best candidate for the position? Do not fall into the holiday slump. The dumbest thing a job searcher can do now is put off the search until after the first of the year when there might be more jobs out there. True, people will be hired after the first of the year. But they will be the ones who got introduced to the hiring manager in the next few months.

The smart job searcher who is targeting the hidden job market understands that managers have the most flexibility in creating jobs during the budgeting season when they are looking at priorities and positions. Strike now when managers are making their holiday wish list.

Tags: Holidays, job search, Transferable Skills, Unlock the Hidden Job Market

This entry was posted on Monday, October 12th, 2009 at 12:33 am and is filed under Blog. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.