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CNN Live Saturday

Interview With Rick Cobb

Aired August 10, 2002 - 12:32   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

KRIS OSBORN, CNN ANCHOR: These are tough times for Americans looking for a job. So, what's the key to landing a job in this tight market? Rick Cobb joins us from Chicago, with some advice. He's with Challenger, Gray & Christmas, a company that specializes in workplace consulting. Hello, Mr. Cobb.
RICK COBB, V.P., CHALLENGER, GRAY & CHRISTMAS: Hello, Kris, how are you.

OSBORN: Some alarming numbers: 13.2 million currently looking for work, 86,000 saying I'm so fed up with trying that I'm just going to stop. What do you say to them?

COBB: Well, the last decade of robust economy has gotten people somewhat complacent about how to go to market. They want to sit back and send out resumes via e-mail and expect that someone is going to find them. And that is not a realistic approach to a market like this.

OSBORN: I wanted to ask you about -- you have a specific guidebook, which is a prescription, if you will, for those who might currently be seeking the job. You mentioned the resume. Let's talk about that. It's not all the resume, though?

COBB: No, actually the resume, particularly in larger companies, is a method for filtering. If you get 300 resumes sent to you in the human resources department, your job is not to find the best employee; your job is to get that stack of 300 down to five or six. So you've increased the likelihood you will be filtered by sending the resume, if that's your first point of contact.

OSBORN: You mentioned contacts. Now, another bullet point in your guidebook is contacts and knowing people. Of course, the old saying, "it's who you know," right?

COBB: Absolutely. If you were to canvas most populations, I would give you 2:1 odds that less than 10 percent of them find work through an ad in the newspaper or through a search firm. Most people find work through people they know or those people that know somebody as well. So it's important when you are actually out of work to expand your circles as large as you can. Rather than go to ground and be embarrassed about being unemployed, you need to make sure that anybody who has any sort of interest in you at all knows that you're looking.

OSBORN: You know, on that point, one of the things that I've heard from a lot of people in the world of business is that, you know, it used to be that you had to have a job to get a job, but these days, with so many very highly qualified, highly skilled people unemployed, it's no longer as bad, is it?

COBB: Well, the stigma, I suppose, of being unemployed is certainly not what it used to be back in the '50s and '60s. But there is so much, I wouldn't call it a cottage industry, but there is so much misinformation about how people find work. Most of the ways people used to look for work have to do with the tangible, being able to send a resume out or write a perfect cover letter. And the reality is, organizations are made up of people, and the person who is going to hire you is somebody who likes you. The likelihood of them liking you is going to be directly connected to how they meet you and how you make -- what kind of impression you make.

OSBORN: I wanted to ask you about another item on your guidebook, which is getting an interview, of course. You talked about it; people need to like you, that face-to-face time.

COBB: Right. I think that if you -- if you focus your market -- and sort of like dating. If you say there is only one person in the world for me, what happens if they're in another country? You have to open yourself up to the opportunities whenever they present themselves, which means you get in front of as many decision makers as you possibly can.

So the idea is that to put yourself in situations where you are not necessarily looking for work but you are looking for advice, you're trying to get in front of decision makers and organizations, learn about them, get face to face, establish some chemistry. And out of that pursue opportunities. You have to be asked to dance. You can't stand back and just wait for someone to come get you. So you have to make yourself available to the marketplace whenever possible.

OSBORN: So people need to really show some initiative?

COBB: Absolutely. There are three variables to finding work. There's who you see, there's how often you see people, and there is what you say when you get there. And I tell people, if they have lost control over anyone of those three variables, they need to fall back and regroup on their strategies.

OSBORN: Rick Cobb, thank you so much for your sage advice in this very difficult time for many people who are looking for jobs. So it's a pleasure talking to you.

COBB: Thanks for having me.

OSBORN: Sure.

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