The speculative approach of locating vacancies is often overlooked because is appears to be
least productive, however, looks can be deceiving.The speculative approach is where job applicant makes applications to companies who are not currently advertising a vacancy. In many ways this is similar to cold calling and like cold calling you can expect a similar number of rejections. Please, please, please realise that this does not mean that speculative approach is not working, in fact you will find it is working just fine.
Month after month statistics demanded of Jobclubs by Employment Services showed that more of our members found employment using speculative approach than by any other method.
Is that surprising?
It shouldn't be when you look at efficient method we used when employing speculative approach. Our Jobclub members had a target of 10 job leads a day. They typically looked for advertised vacancies first as these took longest to prepare for. The bulk of remaining applications came from speculative approach.
Job leads for speculative approach come from locating companies that employ people in your chosen field by using publications such as:-
Local Newspaper National Newspaper Specialist Trade Publications Personal Contacts Business Contacts Phone Directory Business Directories Local library Internet
One key piece of information that you should take time to locate is name of Human Resources Manager or if it is a small company business owner (CEO or Director) or a Manager in Department you are applying for a job in.
How do you get that information?
The quickest was is by phone. Call company, you will normally get a receptionist or switchboard operator answering. So ask them! Simply say something like...
"I have a letter for person that deals with job applications but I can't find their name, can you tell me who's name I should put on letter?"
How simple is that? Now I know some of you probably don't enjoy calling people you don't know by telephone, but does minor discomfort really matter compared to potential results? It's a sixty second call, easy.
Now if you can find out a little bit more about company, then you can make sure that you fine tune your approach to them.
But having located potential vacancy what should covering letter look like?
Before I show you an example, please understand that you should always write in your own style, but certain phrases within example are key to success of approach, in particular, one's that suggest why you are writing and closing statement that prompts employer to take action.
Have a close look at example below, we can discuss it afterwards (please ignore "." characters used for spacing):- -----------------------------------------------------------
.......................................123 Some Street .......................................Mytown .......................................Whatever County .......................................Postal Code
Named Person Company Name Street Town County Postal Code............................DATE
Dear Named Person,
It was with interest that I recently found details of your company in a local publication and it occurred to me that my previous experience may be a close match for any positions you may have available now or in near future.
As you can see from my enclosed resume, my experience with COMPANY NAME as a JOB TITLE would be suited to a similar position within your company. Previous employers have found my skills coupled with my ability to work as part of a team or on my own initiative to be a useful combination.
Should you have any suitable vacancies now or in near future, I would welcome opportunity to discuss my suitability with you.
I look forward to hearing from you in near future.
Yours sincerely
Signature
Your Name
