Get Creative to Land a Job with Your Dream Company

by Peter Vogt

MonsterTRAK Career Coach

You know exactly which company you want to work for after graduation, so you've been doing everything you can think of to uncover entry-level opportunities there. You've been using Monster and MonsterTRAK faithfully, visiting your target company's Web site each day to look for job openings, and you've sent your resume to the company's HR department in hopes of nabbing an interview.

These are all great strategies. Chances are, however, you'll need to get a little more creative if you want to land a job at your dream company. Here are five ways to do that:

Seek Inside Advice

One of the best tactics you can use in any job hunt is informational interviewing -- meeting briefly with people working in your target industry and getting their suggestions for your search. Informational interviewing is even more helpful and more critical when you're trying to break into a specific company. So see if you can meet with, or at least talk to (via phone or email), someone who works for your target organization. Perhaps a career counselor at your school can help you identify some alumni employed by the company. Or maybe one of your friends knows someone you can contact at the company. The inside advice you gather through informational interviewing will help you spot opportunities, often before they're ever advertised publicly.

Impress Company Newsmakers

Start reading all you can about your target company, in newspapers, in trade publications, on industry-related Web sites and on the company's own Web site. Before long, you'll start getting a sense not only of what's going on in the company, but also who the players are -- the people who are quoted most often in news articles, for instance. Once you identify these key personnel, contact them. Tell them you've been reading about them in various media outlets (It never hurts to flatter a person's ego), and then offer some specific ideas on how someone with your background could help the company in the various pursuits you've been reading about. Very few job seekers go to such lengths to demonstrate their knowledge, interest and motivation in a company, so when you do, you might just impress someone enough to get a callback.

Join Relevant Professional Groups

All industries have professional organizations. So if you find a professional group that your target company's employees are likely a part of, make sure you join the group as well. If, for example, some of Company X's financial staffers are members of the state's chapter of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants, you can meet some of those employees in person by joining the group yourself and attending its regular meetings. That way, you'll get to know people who work for the company and, just as importantly, they'll get to know you.

Track Down Company Recruiters at Career Fairs

stories if you're willing to invest a little time in marketing yourself in person.

Take an Internship or Temp Job with the Company

Watch for career fairs -- at your school, in your community and in other cities -- where your target company's recruiters are likely to appear. Then, go to those events and make a point of talking to the company personnel you meet. Ask them how you can best present yourself to the organization, and then point out what you can offer in the way of your skills, experience and education. The company recruiters who attend job fairs want to find viable candidates for the organization; you can be one of their success

Whenever employers have a choice, they'll almost always hire known quantities -- people they're already familiar with. It's cheaper, faster and less risky than hiring a relative stranger who responds to a job ad. So if you can get an internship or a temporary/contract assignment with your target company, you'll give yourself an opportunity to try out for a full-time position there. Pass that tryout, and the odds are good you'll become a permanent fixture within the organization.

© 2008 MonsterTRAK