If you ask the typical job seeker, “Who hires people for jobs?”, they’ll answer that companies do.
However, this is the fundamental flaw that causes job seekers to be stuck in the seemingly never ending rat race of finding a job.
The real answer is that people hire other people for jobs.
There’s a decent chance that you’ve hired someone in the past, like an electrician, plumber, or babysitter. Just as you’re a person hiring another person, it’s no different for any full-time, white collar job.
But why does this matter? Why does it matter to understand that it’s not companies but people who hire other people?
The key to Job Hacking is getting into the mind of the hiring manger. By understanding the psyche of the person who opens the job position and subsequently fills it, we can reveal the secret horde of tips and tricks that we call Job Hacking.
So, let’s start reading the mind of the hiring manager.
If you’ve ever hired a babysitter like described above, then you already know exactly how a hiring manager thinks.
The hiring manager always begins with a problem. In our babysitter example, the problem may be: “I’d like to go out for a quiet dinner with my spouse, but we have a two-year-old son who we don’t exactly want to take along. If we don’t want to bring him to the restaurant, then we have to leave him at home. But who will stay with him to make sure he’s okay?”
The same applies to a hiring manager at a business. Let’s take Maria, the owner of a graphic-design firm of 15 employees. Maria has a problem: “We’ve been in business for just over 2 years, and we’ve grown at a rapid pace, bringing in a tremendous amount of new business in the past four months alone. We have a lot of revenue, but now that we’ve added ten new designers, we also have a lot of expenses! Cash flow is tricky, and really need to keep track all the incoming revenue and scheduled payrolls to make sure we always have enough cash on hand to make payroll. Also, tax season is coming, and we’ve really lost track of our finances. I used to take care of this, but I’m now too busy managing all of our people and projects!”
This hiring manager has an immediate need, just like the parents who want to go out for dinner. In order to solve their need, they have no choice but to hire someone to help.
Let’s return to the couple. What do they do next?
Of course, they need to hire a babysitter – but how do they go about that? Do they put up a job posting on Craigslist?
I hope not! Instead, they ask family and friends for someone they recommend to babysit.
What does Maria do next? She needs to hire a bookkeeper. Does she put up an opening on Indeed? Well, perhaps she could…
But she’d much rather ask friends and colleagues who they’d recommend, wouldn’t she?
And this, my friends, is the secret of the hidden job market. Job hacking involves hacking into this mysterious, hidden job market, and I’ll teach you how to do just that in future postings. But next, let’s debunk one of the great myths of job searching. Stay tuned for the next post!