Getting Inside Hiring Companies
Probably the most difficult task for a college student to undertake is to penetrate the armor of a company where they have no internal leads or contacts. The dreaded "cold call" of phoning someone they have never met and asking them for time on their calendar can seem to be an insurmountable task. Fear of rejection? It's running on spin cycle here.
Getting through to a key contact should not be a practice in generating raw numbers. It should be pure quality. It doesn't matter how many arrows you fire if none of them hits the mark. So with all of your preparation in getting to this point, make sure you drive home your point by aiming for the right target.
Who your main contact within the company is will depend greatly on the size/structure of the company and your personal timing. For those companies with large, well-established entry level hiring programs, there may be one or more dedicated resources that are focused solely on hiring you, the college student. But remember that their criteria may be limiting--even to the point of counting you out before you even get in the door. Your main objective in any contact should be to secure an in-person interview. And you can't accomplish this if you are screened out. Why would you be? Most common is the school you attend. "It's not on our list." Or your GPA. "Too low for our standards." Or your major. "We're not hiring any of your kind this year." Or timing. "We've done all our entry level hiring for this year." Rather cold, but it's the reality of the typical College Recruiter. But don't consider it the end of the line. The real decision-maker if you need to get past the College Recruiter is the hiring manager or line manager. Establish the College Recruiter as your target prospect only as it serves your needs. Once that becomes a dead-end or point of no further progress, you should be willing to immediately move on to the hiring manager as your target prospect.
Who is the hiring manager? You'll need to have a target title to focus toward. This can be either an industry-accepted title (such as "Controller" for accounting) or you can simply ask for the head of that particular department. For example, if you are an accounting major seeking a position in corporate accounting, you could either ask for the name of the Accounting Manager or ask, "Who is the manager of your Accounting Department?"
Once you have established the target title, you need to find out the specific name and title of your target contact at your target company. If you have already received this information either via your research or through a contact referral, you are ready to go on to the next step.
Your starting point for researching the name of this contact should always be back at the Placement Office on campus. If the desired information is not available there and your other research sources also fail your needs, you will need to make direct contact with the company.
You should follow a two-step process in making contact. In the first step, you should do all of your research and information gathering, including identifying your target prospect. The second step is the actual direct contact with your target prospect.
In that first step, it may be required to actually call the company to gather the needed information, such as finding out the name and title of the target prospect. Even if the receptionist or other contact person offers to immediately connect you with your target contact, you should refuse: "Thank you, but this is the only information I need at this time." It may appear to be a rather futile step to waste a phone call on just finding out whom your target is, so let me explain the real-life reason for using this two-step method.
Think about what happens on the other end of the line. You have made an inquiry as to the name of the hiring manager, your target prospect. As the person on the other end of the phone, I might give you the information on the person, then offer to put you through to that person's phone. You say that would be fine. Now I ask (if I haven't already) who you are and what the call is regarding. You have just been screened. Not just for this call, but also for all future calls. I tell the manager that there is someone on the phone who was asking who you are and what your title is and that person is looking for entry level employment. The manager tells me to take a message. I do. And your chances of ever getting through to the hiring manager are greatly diminished.
Why is it so different doing it in two steps? Because when you use a second, separate step in contacting your target prospect, you can ask for them by name, which puts your call at a different level from the information gathering call. You have a great deal more leverage in getting through to the person and past the "guardian of the gate" who might have otherwise screened you out.
In my next column, we'll discuss the actual format and content of this direct connection with the company and your target contact.
