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Unicorn Hunting

It is time to solve the iceberg problem. What is the iceberg problem? Depending on which market you're looking at, up to 80% of the opportunities available in any given market are invisible. They're not listed publicly. "I applied to everything," right? How many of you, or probably your friends, you know, "I went online, looked up everything. "I sent in 250 resumes, I applied to everything, and nothing came back," right? That happens all the time because of this iceberg problem. Now, you know, if you're in the public sector, the government requires that you might post the job, you know, that sort of thing, but very often, the job has, frankly, all ready been signed up for somebody they like. They're just posing it because they're legally obligated to. I'm just posting it so I can hire my friend. Everybody applies, they all fail. So, who's run into this? I mean, how do you find these things? So we're gonna solve that problem for you, which means it's time to go Unicorn Hunting. And ...

when going Unicorn Hunting, can we in fact find those things that you're not even sure exist, and are very hard to see? Yes, you can. It's a very important tool, the Unicorn Hunting tool. So we're gonna reframe what this whole job searching process is about. So if in fact it's true that up to 80% of jobs are never publicly listed, what are you gonna do with those? What do you do? So there's you, the job seeker outside the market, and there's this domain of the marketplace, or the world with its for-profit, not-for-profit, government, whatever it might be. It doesn't matter which domain of the world, and you're trying to get in there. All you can see are these two jobs posted on the outside wall. You can't see the stuff going on inside. That's a problem. Well, what's really going on in the situation is, of corse, what's happening in there are not jobs, what's happening in there are people. People hanging out and doing things. Doing things in companies, and projects, and organizations, collaborating across institutions, all this activity between people, and that activity generates opportunity called job openings. The little stars that pop up and say, "We need some help." So including the ones on the outside wall that you can see, so you're just looking at those two, because that's all you can see, and, or corse, that's all everybody can see. You go for it, and so does everybody else. You know, and it gets really crowded. Have we had that experience where there was something, "Ooh, that looks really attractive and interesting," and when you got there, there was a thousand people looking to go in? People get banged on the door, especially in the really cool companies, you know? You go, "Oh, I know, I'd like to go work for, like, Facebook." "Oh, okay, you and the other two billion people who had that idea this week." So that's really a crowded experience. I don't want to do that. So if I want to do something else, how to I get in? I don't get into the job, I get into the person. It's all about the people. If I can connect to a person inside that community, that industry, that market, that person is connected to other people in that network of collaboration, and it's in those collaborations. So that person knows about that opportunity, and that person knows other people, and those people know about those opportunities, and on it goes, until I finally find there are a bunch of opportunities in there that might be interesting to me. And one really cool thing that happens is, there is that yellow opportunity, that special yellow one, which was created, live, before my very eyes. There I was, I was chatting with Chris during the lunch break, and in telling about the stuff we were doing with a song, and he goes, "Well, gosh, you know, we were thinking about "whether or not we needed to bring in a lifestyle person, "but actually, maybe what we need is a life designer. "Hey, Casey, come here, let's talk about blah, blah, blah." You know, they start talking, and go, "You know, we were thinking about forming a requisition, "you know, we just got approved by HR. "Maybe we should add in a lifestyle person. "Maybe that's not it, maybe it's this life design thing. "Maybe we should hire a tag-in." And you actually saw an opportunity created in real time, in front of your very eyes, because you were there. And that's not necessarily a better opportunity, but it's a really interesting one, and by the way, that happens all the time. How many of you have experienced that happen to you, or you were one of the people that did one of those real time creations? Yeah, this is actually the way the world actually works. Okay, so let's-- It's also where the really interesting jobs are, because the ones that are posted on the outside are pretty typically not, you know they're-- Yeah. And by the way, the thing where you sent 200 resumes in, and the jobs were listed, and they were perfect for you, just, like, your resume fit, and you got-- I was just here, they said they were looking. Sent out 200 cover letters, 200 resumes. If you hit the national average, you got four answers, and you wasted 196 cover letters, and guess what? It's not that you were bad, or you were rejected. No one ever read your resume. It went into one of these resume telemanagement systems, and your keywords didn't show up when they sorted, and you were never, ever even evaluated, but you feel like crap, because you feel like you got 196 rejections. You just used a really ineffective process. Two percent, two to four percent of replies from resumes going into the internet. If you want to do that, you can, but you're just beating yourself up. Yeah, people do get jobs that way. Those outside jobs do get placed, it's just the numbers are not on your side. So if you want to get access to these conversations, and by the way, the conversations you're having, what do you do? There's only one way we know how to do this. You have to be in the conversation of the community of interest that's going on in that field, in that world, and the way you do that is to have Life Design Interviews, which you acquire through networking, in order to discover and create opportunities. So this is one of the great two-fors of all time. It turns out the most important way to get a job is to not ask for the job. It's to ask for the story, because the successful way to get into these conversations is to do what you were just talking about doing. Having conversations, what we would consider a prototype conversation, by using a Life Design Interview, where I want the story not the job. "Hi, could I have a job." "No, we're not even hiring right now." "Oh, well, when you do--" "No." "Oh, I've discovered you're fascinating, can we talk about that?" "Oh, okay." Most of the time when you want to talk to somebody, the reason they don't talk to you is because the thing you want from them, a job, they don't have right now. That's true most of the time. That's why it's no most of the time. But if all I want is your story, so Bill... Now, do you know anything about Bill? I know lots about Bill. That's great, because that's actually what I want to hear about. I've known Bill for a while. Turns out everybody has a story, and so you at least have that chance of succeeding, because I want to know more about this Anne getting stuck thing, so talk to me about that. Then Anne would know. And it turns out, in our experience, about seven out of 10 people will actually say yes, if you get to them in an appropriate manner, we'll tell you how to do that. And of the three who say no, you know, two will say, "Oh, gosh, you know, I'd love to talk, but, you know, "I've got to catch a plane, I'm gonna be gone, you know. "The dog's about to have puppies, I'd love to but I can't." And the 10th person is a jerk, and they just blow you off, it's okay, don't worry about it. So there's still a couple of jerks out there, but not too many. Which means this Life Design Interview, we've all ready talked about it, is the power tool, and the most critical thing in Unicorn Hunting is you are not looking for a job. Absolutely crucial that you are not looking for a job, and by the way, if you say, "But I am looking for a job, Dave, that was what we did this for." At the moment you're not, and they even say, "So Dave, you looking for a job?" "Why no, I'm not. Today, I'm not today looking for a job." Because today I just want the story, because it's through that conversation. Oh, well, when does the conversation turn into the job story? More then half the time, they will make the flip. I'm talking to the third person in the organization I've met. I've talked to Chris, and then I was talking to Kim, and then I finally got to Casey, and Casey kind of goes, "You know, everybody kind of likes you here, Dave. "Have you ever thought about working in a place like this?" That comes up more then half the time, and if it hasn't, you say, "Boy, I really like this CreativeLive outfit, "I think I want to stay." You know, then I could say, "So Chris, you willing to hire me?" Eh, no, that's the wrong question. You go, "So Chris, you know, "we've really had a lovely conversation here. "I wonder, could we shift the discussion? "What would be involved if, you know, we were exploring "what would be involved in someone like me "becoming a member of this team?" Now that's a how question. A discussion of what would it be like for somebody like me to sort of join this place, not like, and are you gonna buy me today? I'm not gonna go for the close yet, and that's still a conversation. So a very organic thing to do, it's easy to do. So when you're not looking for a job, you're looking for the story, you can convert that story conversation into a job conversation at the appropriate time very easily. By the way, two ways to fail: bring a resume to your information interview. This was a set up, you just tricked me. That's the worst thing you could do. Do not bring a resume, do not be prepared to talk about your credentials. This is not about you. It's about the person you're talking to. That's one, and the second one is to make some unreasonable demand on their time. "I need 90 minutes, and I really want to go through your bio." No, it's 30 minutes, maybe 15, do something that's reasonable. At a time convenient to you, and if it goes well... Now, how many of you have had these kind of conversations, where you're just trying to explore things, and you schedule a 30 minute coffee, does it go for 30 minutes? No, how long does it go? Hour, hour and a half? If you do it on Skype or the phone, it usually is just that long because they schedule something right behind it. You know, why do these conversations end up doubling and tripling in length? Why does that happen? They're talking about themselves. We both share this interest, you're so cool.