jobs

You can find great job-hunting ideas by reading publications that have nothing ostensible to do with job hunting.

Example: a new book by seminal marketer, Jay Abraham, called "The Sticking Point Solution."

What, you may ask, does a book for entrepreneurs and marketing/sales professionals have to do with your job search?

Nothing. And a whole lot.

You’ll find nothing in it if you’re satisfied with ordinary job-search tactics. There are no mentions of networking, dressing for success, or answers to the top 10 interview questions, for example.

But Abraham’s new book (or any good marketing publication) can help you a lot if you extract just one new idea to use in your search for work.

Because, ultimately, every job search is really a marketing campaign.

To that end, here are two marketing ideas of Abraham’s that can get you hired faster….

1) Get all you can out of all you’re doing

If you’re like most job seekers, you’re rushing from job-search tactic to another. And it’s understandable, given human nature, which makes us eager to rush after the “new” and “improved” rather than slog it out and get the most from existing efforts.

As Abraham writes: “Optimization and innovation are both crucial to your success, but the order is important.” He goes on to describe that, in marketing (as in your job search), you should make current activities perform as effectively as possible before seeking out new, untried options.

OK. Time for some hard questions:

Question 1: Before giving up on and moving on to Employer B after applying and not hearing back from Employer A, have you verified that Employer A actually got your resume? Especially if you emailed or submitted it via their web site?

Question 2: Have you tried blogging to attract recruiters and employers … for about two weeks -- then given up and tried Twitter and/or Facebook?

Question 3: Have you tried “networking” by calling 10 people and asking if they knew anyone who was hiring … then given up and decided that networking didn’t work?

If you answered yes to one or more questions, you’re “innovating” at the expense of optimizing. And it’s prolonging your job search.

Action Step: Get the most out of your current job-search tactics before trying something new.

Start by analyzing your efforts -- if you’re not getting results, why not? Benchmark yourself against people who have succeeded. What did they do differently? How can you emulate them?