Using your skills, expertise and network to find the job you love.

1. 4 Steps to Your Next Job
Using your skills, expertise, and network to
find the job you love
Your Network Polish Kit
Connie Hampton
Hampton & Associates
Scientific and Executive Search Services
connie@networkpolishkit.com
www.networkpolishkit.com
December 2013

2. Hard truths
 Companies only hire when
they have a problem their
current employees can’t
solve.
 Even Mom can’t hire you
just because you need a job

5. And don’t wait
for the Job
Fairy!
Your job won’t just
fall out of the sky
Companies won’t
plan your career
path
Only you know
what you want and
what you want
next

6. Job Search has Changed
 Once upon a
time, to get a job
you looked in the
newspaper, went
to the company,
filled out an
application and
worked there for
30 years, retiring
with a pension
and a gold watch.
 Not anymore.

7. How are jobs filled?
Who do we know? Job Postings Recruiters

8. Job Search Is Rarely Taught
 Most jobs last from 3-5 years
 You will be looking for a new job at least 6
times in your career
 In some industries the companies may not
last five years

9. The Dilemma
 Companies only hire because they have a
problem they cannot solve with the people
they already pay
 You need a way to get your foot in the door
of the company you want to work for and
prove that you are the one to solve it

10. 4 Steps to Your Ideal Job for
Scientists
 Step 1:
All about you: your skills,
your expertise, your
profiles, your criteria for a
good job and good company

11. 4 Steps to Your Ideal Job for
Scientists
 Step 1:
All about you: your skills,
your expertise, your profile,
your criteria for a good job
and good company
 Step 2:
All about them: industry,
location, companies, who
works there, who knows
you

12. 4 Steps to Your Ideal Job for
Scientists
 Step 1:
All about you: your skills,
your expertise, your profile,
your criteria for a good job
and good company
 Step 2:
All about them: industry,
location, companies, who
works there, who knows
you
 Step 3:
How to network: what it is
and is not, how to do it and
how to follow up

13. 4 Steps to Your Ideal Job for
Scientists
 Step 1:
All about you: your skills,
your expertise, your profile,
your criteria for a good job
and good company
 Step 2:
All about them: industry,
location, companies, who
works there, who knows
you
 Step 3:
How to network: what it is
and is not, how to do it and
how to follow up
 Step 4:
The resume and interviews:
a resume is not all about
you and the interview goes
both ways

14. Step 1:
All about You
What do you have and what do you want?

15. Know Yourself
 You need to know which industry you want most:
 biopharma
 medical device
 Diagnostics
 life science
 You need to know what skills and expertise you bring to the
table and what that group of skills is typically titled.
 You need to know what the people who have those skills
 do,
 learn,
 produce,
 invent, etc.

16. What Skills do You have?
 Put together a list or spreadsheet of your skills,
expertise and keywords
 Decide which ones you want to use in your next job
 Decide which ones you want to develop
 Decide which ones you need to add
 Decide what you want to learn
 (and decide which ones you never want to exercise
again!)

17. Your Skills

18. What tasks do you want to do?
 What do you want to do, learn, produce, invent, etc.?
 What skills do you own that you want to use?
 Do you want to do these daily? Continuously? Rarely?

19. What job do you want?

20. What title do you want next?
 Pull these out of your spreadsheet and think about what
you would call the person who can do these things.
 Use that for a working title
 It might be
 Scientist
 Manager of QA
 CEO of a 15 person company

21. Your Ideal Job
 Write out a job
description for your next
job.
 And keep notes for the
one after that.
 Do these jobs lead you
to where you want your
career to go?

22. See what “they” need
 Go look for that title on LinkedIn or Indeed.com or
Biospace.com
 Compare the skills you have with the jobs that are
posted
 Are you missing any skills? In any is almost ready
room. We did put rupiah bronze arcs and she reached
herI like the unit I as of
 Should you step the title down a notch?
 Do you have more?
 What would be the next step up?
 You must “own” at least 85% of the requirements of a
job to be considered a “fit”.

23. Step 2:
All about Them
Which companies in which industry in which locations and
who works there

24. Which Companies?
 Geography/location
 Commute
 Therapeutic Area or Product type
 Size/financial stability/risk
 Women on the BOD
 What other things matter to you?

25. Develop your criteria for the right
company

26. How to find them
 BioSpace.com
 Hoovers.com
 Beaker.com
 LabRoots.com
 Local or state biotech hotbeds, incubators and economic
development sites
 Google and Google Maps
 Yahoo Directories

27. Develop more detail

28. What problems do you want to
solve?
 “A job, any job” will not usually take you toward
your goal, even as it puts food on the table.
 And remember that companies don’t hire for your
sparkling personality (or your desperation) but
because they have a problem they need someone
to solve.
 What problem do your companies have?

29. Remember
 You are not a generic employee
 You don’t want a generic job

30. How to look for a job
 From a job seeker’s point of view, networking will give
you the most “bang for your buck”
 Do spend time preparing to network
 Then spend 80% of your time networking

31. Gather your power partners
 Bring all of your contacts, LinkedIn contacts, email lists,
family holiday card lists, etc. together in one document.
 Tag them by category: in my industry, not in my
industry, close friend, distant acquaintance, etc. Gmail
contacts is a good way to do this and exports easily or
use a spreadsheet.
 Pull out the ones that will be your career network for the
length of your career

32. My Network

33. Match the people you know to
the companies you want
 Do any of the people you already have in your network
currently work at any of the companies you have
identified as desirable?
 If you don’t know anyone at that company, use LinkedIn
to see if you are a 2nd degree connection with anyone
there and put the person who knows you both on your
network sheet.

34. What is Networking?
Networking is when you have
 a goal,
 a strategy
 and a step by step plan
 to give things (ideas, appreciation, time, connections)
 to the people in your network most likely to give you the
information, ideas, things that you need.

35. How to network into the company
 Develop a plan to meet with each person you know
who works at a company you think is interesting.
 This should NOT be the hiring manager, and probably
not even someone from your ideal department.
 This should be someone who will give you the inside
scoop so you can decide if the company should stay on
your top ten companies list.

36. Getting closer to the right people
 If, and only if, the company sounds good to you, then
ask to be introduced to someone in the department you
are interested in.
 Network with that person.
 Buy the coffee

37. Give more than you ask for
 Give at least four times more than what you ask for
 This is networking, not interviewing.
 Don’t take a resume
 Don’t be Oliver Twist. Don’t beg.

38. Networking is not interviewing
 Position yourself as the expert in their particular problem
by listening very carefully, asking good, geeky questions
and offering more information about solving the
problem, something like “In the XYZ lab last year, we
had a similar issue. We tried this and that, but that did
not work. I suggested this other thing, and it did.”
 At the end of the meeting, say something like, “This is
such an interesting problem! You must be having such a
good time solving it.”

39. Target Your Networking
 Remember that you can’t network
with everyone
 And you don’t want to work for
every company
 Just because a certain place of
business is well-known, it doesn’t
mean they use your particular skills

40. 1st Follow-up
 After the 2nd networking meeting (the one with the
person in your desired department), go sit in the lobby
and write a handwritten thank you note. Either put it in
the mail right then or ask the receptionist to put it in the
mailbox of the person you just saw.
 In that note say, “Thank you so much for your time! I
really enjoyed talking with you about (the problem).
Please let me know if there is anything I can do for you”
 Write down all the jargon and particular language your
networking partner used to describe the problem, issue,
company, department, etc. You will need this later.

41. Follow-up after that
 In a few days, email another thank you note.
 Then an invitation to LinkIn (if they are not already
Linked directly to you.)
 Then a “saw this and thought of you” email
 Then a “Here is an interesting link about our
conversation”
 And so on.
 Make friends!

42. Coming Attractions
 Jumpstart your job search with an online workshop All
About You Saturday January 11th with weekly
teleseminars after that about:
 Find your ideal companies with a teleseminar on How to
find your companies
 Plan your reach out and networking campaign with a
teleseminar
 Write your tailored resumes and plan your interviews
 More information at:
http://networkpolishkit.com/jumpstart-job-search-2014-
2/

43. Step 4:
Resumes and
Interviews
Where your homework proves that you are the best person
to solve their problem

44. What not to do
 Do not post a generic resume
all over the internet
 Do not send a generic resume
to everyone you can think of

45. A resume is not all about you
 A resume is not your LinkedIn Profile
 It is a piece of marketing collateral that shows how you
can solve that particular company’s particular problem
 You only get 6 seconds to show that

46. Recommended Resume Format
 Name and contact information in the body of the
document
 3-5 bullet points about the things that company needs to
have done, that you know you can do and that you like
to do
 Use the language and jargon that your networking
partner used in your meeting
 Reverse chronological proof that you can do them. Use
PAR statements – company or department’s Problem,
Action you took, Results (use numbers if you can)
 Education at the bottom unless you just graduated

47. Resume for Recent Grads
 Name and contact info
 3-5 bullets about what they need to have done that you
know you can do
 Education
 PAR Statements showing that you can do them.
 Use the language that your networking partner used.

48. Interviews
 Once you have done everything we have discussed, you
are in much better shape for the interview.
 You can be calm and confident that this job is one you
want and can do.
 Be prepared with questions for the interviewer and with
answers to the “standard” questions.
 Because you know what their problem is, you can ask
very relevant questions and not be just another job
seeker.

49. Networking for the rest of your
Career
 The people you network
with now will be in your
network for the rest of
your career
 Keep it shiny
 Stay in touch!

50. Sign up for our monthly
newsletter!
Please do sign up here for our monthly newsletter
with more job search tips at
http://eepurl.com/gaaUL
You will also receive my “5 Networking Secrets to
Steer Your Career to Greater Heights” and white
paper on “How the economy affects your job
search”
I will never reveal your personal information
without your explicit approval

51. Contact information
 connie@networkpolishkit.com
 www.networkpolishkit.com
 (510) 601-1343