How to get people talking about you in your job search

Around a third of vacancies in Australia are filled without ever being advertised. Someone mentions that a role is coming up, a name gets passed along, and the position is filled before it reaches a job board. That is word of mouth, and it has been the quiet engine of hiring for as long as people have been hiring.

If your whole search is built around applying to advertised roles, you’re competing for the smaller half of the market against the largest number of applicants. The good news is that word of mouth isn’t luck. It’s something you can build on purpose, and it doesn’t necessarily require you to be a natural networker. What it does take is making this a deliberate part of your job search strategy, with the same structure and effort you would give your applications.

Networking is quieter than you think

Say the word networking and most people picture a room full of strangers, name badges, and forced small talk. That version of networking rarely produces a job.

What works is much less dramatic. It’s staying in contact with people who already know you and can vouch for how you work. Former colleagues, supervisors, suppliers, people from your last training course. They already have an opinion of you. All you’re doing is making sure they know you’re available.

Tell people you’re looking, and be specific

“I’m looking for work” gives someone nothing to act on. It sounds like a problem they can’t solve, so they say something kind and move on.

Give them something they can match instead. “I’m after a warehouse supervisor role in western Sydney, ideally with an early start” is a sentence someone can hold onto. When they hear that a friend’s depot is short a supervisor, your name surfaces.

Write your own version down and use the same wording every time. Two sentences: the kind of role you want, and where you want it.

Build a list of 100 people

Sit down and write out everyone who would be glad to see you land on your feet. Family, friends, former workmates, neighbours, people from your sporting club, your kids’ school, church, your old TAFE or university course, your physio. Think wide before you narrow.

Then prioritise, and take a targeted approach to your job seeking rather than a broad one. The people worth contacting first are the ones who live where you want to work or who are connected to the industry you want to be in. A well-connected neighbour is worth more than a cousin interstate.

Ask for advice, not a job

When you reach out to someone you don’t know well, asking for a job puts them on the spot. Most people can’t give you one, so they give you nothing.

Asking for advice is different. “You’ve been in this industry a while. If you were me, where would you be looking?” is a question almost anyone will answer, and it costs them nothing but a few minutes. You come away with better information, and you are now someone they will think of when a role opens up.

Make yourself easy to find

While you’re reaching out to people, other people are looking you up. Type your own name into Google and see what an employer would see.

·      Update your LinkedIn profile with your current skills and switch on the setting that tells recruiters you are open to work

·      Upload your resume to Seek and Indeed with the right job titles and industry keywords, so employers searching for candidates can find you

·      Check that your public social media reflects how you want to be seen at work

·      Post once, publicly, about the kind of role you are looking for. Your network can’t help with something they don’t know about

Then close the loop

If someone puts your name forward, their reputation is attached to yours. Reply quickly, turn up prepared, and let them know how it went either way. Thank the people who helped, even when the lead came to nothing.

And when you land the role, stay in touch. The strongest networks belong to people who keep them warm in the good years, not just the hard ones. Somewhere down the track someone will call you the way you called them, and you will be able to help.

A realistic timeframe

None of this pays off the day you start. Contacts take time to warm up, and the right role won’t always be open when you need it. Give it a few months of steady effort rather than a fortnight and treat it as a second track running alongside your applications, not a replacement for them.