By Mark Bartz

I just finished a book, Bait & Switch, by Barbara Ehrenreich. It’s a good book from the standpoint of what not to do in today’s job search. In short, she goes undercover to discover what it’s like to be a white collar professional in today’s job search. This is a “How to do everything wrong in job searching” book. This gal had a miserable experience trying to find a new job. Instead of telling you what she did – which obviously didn’t work, I’ll list what works today; bear in mind my job is getting people into medical sales roles. There is an old saying that if you want to know how to bat .300 in the major leagues you should speak with someone who is batting .300 in the major leagues – not someone who is batting .240.  Yet the only people Barbara was talking to were those batting .240 – she never spoke to the winners. On that note, here are five key steps that work that she didn’t employ:

1. She never leveraged her relationships – talk to the winners and you’ll find 100% of them had “inside contacts” at the employers where they landed jobs. She admits in the book she “couldn’t” because she was undercover – well, now you have 2 strikes on you . . .hard to hit .300 with 2 strikes always on you.

2. Learn how to network effectively – master the use of LinkedIn – get a mentor to train you. There is a lot to successfully using LinkedIn and there is a learning curve here.

3. Never submit a resume as is for a job – always customize the resume for the job posting.

4. Most jobs are found in the unadvertised job market – she NEVER aimed for that market – and never asked the winners how they successfully navigated within that market.

5. It doesn’t sound like she used specialists for coaching or her resume or LinkedIn profile. Specialists know the “devils in the details” key elements generalists simply do not know – they offer a major competitive advantage.