Winning the Job Interview

FROM THE INTERVIEW HERO…

Hello Friend,

My name is unimportant. For now, I must remain in the shadows. You can just call me Hero.
What I’m about to tell you could make you angry. It could make you very angry. And frankly it should make you angry. In fact, I hope it makes you furious. I hope it makes you so furious that you’ll pay attention. Very close attention. Even after all these years, when I think about it, it still makes me mad. I’ll tell you why I’m so mad in a minute…

BUT FIRST LET ME TELL YOU WHO I AM.

I’m an executive recruiter, a search consultant, or more commonly known as a Headhunter. My job is to help companies find top talent so the companies can accomplish their goals, profit and grow. Paid by the companies… to accomplish their objectives… so they can grow. And I’m paid very very well. I’m supposed to represent them…not you the job seeker. In the process I have become one of the most successful, sought-out and highest paid recruiters in America. I’ve made millions. I say this not to boast, but to assure you that this is the “real deal”. I am not some ex-Human Resources Director that couldn’t make it in my world if their life depended on it.
I am the real deal and I’ve come here to help you.

HERE’S WHY…

Over the years, I began to think about all the people who don’t have the huge advantage of a professional search consultant on their side. Someone who can guide them, coach them, and show them how to win their “Dream Job”. I thought, “Those poor folks are at a terrible disadvantage. What about those folks whose industry has been hard-hit? Who will help them? Will they just be left to twist in the wind? Left without a chance to win their dream job? Where can they turn to get accurate and effective job-hunting and interviewing strategies? Who will be their champion? Who would be their hero?”

So I looked around and found nothing…then I asked my colleagues the same questions …and they just laughed and it made me mad. “No will help them,” they said. Then it occurred to me that no one cared …that, “Those folks would just have to figure it out themselves.” You know…a lot of people think that you should “look out for number one” and the devil can take the rest. Well I don’t.

THE MORE I THOUGHT ABOUT IT …THE MORE MAD IT MADE ME …FUMING MAD!

And that’s just the tip of the iceberg. It may surprise you to find out another little-known truth that could really make you crazy…I’ll get to that in a minute. But first,

HOW DID WE END UP HERE?

While most of us were living our lives and dreaming our dreams of the future; a future filled with promise and security… the world changed. For some of us it happened slowly over a period of years.
For others it happened overnight. A downsizing… a right sizing… a reduction in force… no matter what they called it, somebody just lost their job. “Somebody” by the millions. Maybe it’s you; maybe it’s not you but someone you know. As I write this, unemployment is almost 9% and in some places it’s over 10%! That’s 1 in every 10 people out of work!

And it’s getting worse, not better…

And I guarantee that even if you have a job, unemployment is like a rock tossed in a pond. The ripples are affecting you. They’re affecting you in so many ways that you don’t even know and can’t even count.

Maybe you are unemployed, underemployed, in the wrong industry or profession, or maybe your whole industry just became obsolete. Maybe you’re lucky and it’s not so bad. Maybe you just want to look at options to upgrade your current job. Or maybe it’s just a gnawing tummy-twisting sense of insecurity. A feeling you can’t define …a feeling you can’t shake …a feeling that something isn’t right. A feeling that something needs to change or else those dreams you hold so dearly will evaporate just like the value of those stocks we had in our 401Ks. I hope not, but maybe …JUST MAYBE.

YES, I’M MAD AND I’M GOING TO DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT!
I’ll BE YOUR CHAMPION…
I’ll BE YOUR HERO!

After being involved in literally thousands of interviews from staff level to senior executives, there’s one little-known truth about winning your dream job and advancing your career and really having a shot at your dreams, that outshines every other truth. I studied it backward and forward, I analyzed it up and down hoping I was wrong, praying that I was missing something. But I realized, it simply “is what it is…”

AND WHEN, I FINALLY HAD TO ACCEPT THIS LITTLE-KNOWN TRUTH IT JUST MADE ME CRAZY.

Here it is…THE TRUTH:
On any given day, in any hiring manager’s office, in virtually any company in the USA and probably throughout the planet, the truth is this: It doesn’t matter that you are the most qualified, the smartest, or the hardest working. It really doesn’t matter! Someone else will probably get your dream job…

WHY? I know it’s hard to believe, and IT’S NOT FAIR…but with alarming regularity, the most qualified, deserving, and capable candidates will finish 2nd, 3rd or not even get invited back for a 2nd interview.
I’ve seen it over and over… hardworking deserving family men and women miss out on jobs that were a perfect fit. I’ve seen one person’s career take off like a shot out of a cannon while a “more qualified” person continued to struggle. I’ve seen it happen hundreds of times. Don’t fool yourself. It’s probably happened to you. You know I’m right…and yes, IT’S NOT FAIR.

HOW CAN THIS BE HAPPENING?

It’s the God’s honest truth. I know it’s not fair, but the people who consistently win the great jobs are not always the most qualified. The truth is that the people who consistently win the great jobs are the ones who win the interview.

THIS IS SO VERY IMPORTANT, I WILL REPEAT MYSELF… THE PEOPLE WHO CONSISTENTLY WIN THE GREAT JOBS ARE THE ONES WHO WIN THE INTERVIEW.

To put it plainly and simply, he who WINS the interview is he who WINS the job. I know this because I have often been the one who helped them win it.

AND NOW I AM GOING TO HELP YOU WIN TOO!

THE SECRET INFORMATION THAT USED TO BE AVAILABLE ONLY TO A PRIVILEGED FEW IS NOW AVAILABLE TO YOU!

This is what this website is all about; winning your dream job. I use the term “win” because I want you to really get it. I want you to really understand that this is a competition.

IT’S REAL AND IT’S FIERCE AND IT’S NEVER BEEN MORE COMPETITIVE THAN IT IS RIGHT NOW. AND IT’S GOING TO GET WORSE BEFORE IT GETS BETTER.

BUT LOSING DOESN’T HAVE TO HAPPEN TO YOU OR YOUR FRIENDS AND LOVED ONES.

After I finally calmed down, I decided to do something about it. I decided to do something for the underdog. I decided to do something for the guy or gal who does not have an inside track or great relationship with a headhunter who can give them that edge…can give them that huge advantage that will help them win. If you already have a great headhunter, then you might know what I know and you’ll go into your next interview with an unfair advantage. But if not, get my SECRET GUIDE TO WINNING THE JOB and you’ll go into your next interview with a huge advantage. You will have the deck stacked in your favor for a change. You’ll be able to compete on a level playing field with the candidates who do have someone like me coaching them. You’ll be able to compete because you have me, your Hero, on your side.

AND I CAN HELP YOU WIN, AGAIN AND AGAIN!

One thing is for sure; nothing will change until you change. With the help of the SECRET GUIDE TO WINNING THE JOB, available here, you can make the necessary changes and create real and lasting change for the better in your life by nailing your next interview and winning your dream job.

THE GOOD NEWS IS…

This deep recession and sluggish economy won’t last forever. That robust economy that seems so long ago will return. But when it does you’d better be ready. You’d better be prepared. If you are prepared, your life will flourish! And if you are not ready? Well …what has the last year gotten you? Expect a lot more of the same.

DON’T WAIT UNTIL IT’S TOO LATE! Take advantage of this SECRET GUIDE TO WINNING THE JOB now. Get a jump on the millions who will whine and complain about the tough times then wait until the last minute to act! I’m amazed at how few really seem to understand that THIS IS NOT A DRESS REHEARSAL, THIS IS YOUR LIFE!

WHAT I AM OFFERING YOU HERE WILL MAKE MY FELLOW HEADHUNTERS FURIOUS.
QUITE FRANKLY, I DON’T CARE! THIS IS JUST TOO IMPORTANT. YOU ARE TOO IMPORTANT.

You can beat them at their own game. But you must be armed and prepared with the SECRET GUIDE TO WINNING THE JOB only available here. Order today by secure checkout and start WINNING!

If you are one of the millions who feel that it is time for a change in your career, a change for the better, you are in the right place at the right time. If you are unemployed, underemployed or just sick and tired of waiting for something to happen, this SECRET GUIDE TO WINNING THE JOB is written especially for you. The tools and techniques available in the SECRET GUIDE TO WINNING THE JOB can get you back into this highly competitive job market and can accelerate your career with real world techniques and information available only to the privileged few until now.

Sure there are some basic interviewing techniques that you can get online for free but that information is not even in the same ballpark as what I offer here. What they offer is weak and quite frankly there’s a reason it’s free. It’s worth exactly what they charge: $0…nada…zilch! Using their tired old information is like bringing a knife to a gunfight. Don’t.

If you want that “edge”, that “unfair advantage” and insider secrets that a lucky few get from top headhunters like me, then you should get my SECRET GUIDE TO WINNING THE JOB today.

TO WIN YOUR JOB INTERVIEW YOU NEED THIS BOOK.

And it’s finally available right here! Right now

The SECRET GUIDE TO WINNING THE JOB is available for INSTANT DOWNLOAD for only $9.95. Buy with confidence using PayPal secure checkout and get ready to WIN your interview!

Click to buy via PayPal secure checkout.

ORDER NOW FOR $29.95!

I know there are a few other interview guides out there. Believe me I’ve done my research. But most will cost you 3-10 times more than what my SECRET GUIDE TO WINNING THE JOB costs!
What’s more, most are written by human resources flunkies that couldn’t make it in my world if their life depended on it. Frankly, if these folks were any good, they would be working at one of the top executive search firms, like me, and making hundreds of thousands of dollars more than they make now.

Who would you rather trust? An expert at the top of his game who’s made millions helping people win the top jobs or an HR manager whose day consists of explaining health care benefits and maternity leave policy to their company’s staff? If you needed heart surgery, you’d want a heart surgeon right? You wouldn’t go to a general surgeon. You’d go to a specialist

LEARN MORE AT WWW.JOBINTERVIEWHERO.COM

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Of all the social networks out there, LinkedIn is used primarily by professionals for networking.  LinkedIn users post job postings, career change announcements, questions to professionals in certain industries, pitch ideas and much more.  The key is how to get connections to talk to and connect with?  Well, much in the same way Twitter is used to gain followers, there are some tips and secrets to get traction quickly.

To make it quick and easy, here’s how to add 500+ connections in 24 hours.

1. Setup a LinkedIn account (if you don’t have one)
2. Get your profile setup and add all your information until your profile is 100% complete
3. Join the TopLinked group – http://www.linkedin.com/groups?gid=42031
4. Get approved in TopLinked
5. Join the OpenNetworker group – http://www.OpenNetworker.com/a/?a=21398
6. Import the contacts provided
7. Send personal invitations to all
8. Reply to all the email thank you

That’s it.  Get 500+ connections from a wide array of people, industries, levels and interests.

Good luck in your network.

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Almost anybody can easily learn how to make money with Google Adsense. Before we enumerate the steps, let us understand how it works first. Every time a keyword is typed on Google, the search results page will also display paid advertisements by website owners through another Google program called AdWords.

This comes out as the “Sponsored Links.” Once you sign up for Adsense, the same advertisements are allowed to be placed on your website for free and you will receive a portion of the income each time a surfer will click on the link.

Now to make money, start off by filling up the Adsense application form and confirm the email automatically generated by Google. Afterwards, Google checks your website if it has potential to bring in traffic with which access to the account will be activated in one to three days.

If you don´t have a website, you can still set up a blogger account and created a blogger blog, fill it with some unique content post and then apply for Adsense through it.

Original content can be tracked by Google, and make sure that your website is worth catching attention. Put yourself in an unbiased shoe and ask yourself: if I did not make this website, will I even be browsing this page?

The content need not be literary awarding winning pieces but it should read well and simple to understand. Plus, it should provide some useful information for the searcher.

Once approved, you can now log in your account and carefully read the terms and Conditions. There are several ad layouts you can choose and just paste the ad code in your website´s page.

Properly evaluate which ads are relevant to your content and which ones have the strongest possibility of bringing revenue. Strategize the location of each ad. Having that fixed, also focus on your content and make it look professional.

Not all topics pay out equally as well. To make money in adsense, you need to develop content for high paying adsense keywords such as mortgage, loans, insurance etc.

Learn how to make money with google adsense. Check out the best tools and services that can help explode your adsense income.

Article Source: How To Make Money With Google Adsense – Earn Passive Income Online With Adsense

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Here are the places where B-school students most want to work, according to a survey by research firm Universum, for an exclusive Fortune.com list. Not only are these top 15 employers popular, but even in this economy most are looking for talent.

The search engine giant tops the 100 Top MBA Employers list for the third year in a row and it’s not because of the fitness classes and free massages, or the fact that lunch offerings like Thai beef salad and grilled wild king salmon are on the company’s dime (although Google has cut back on perks like its annual all-expenses paid ski trip and complimentary dinner service this year).

Rather, one fifth of all B-school grads strive to be “Nooglers” (new Google employees) because of the company’s stellar reputation and innovative work environment, says Claudia Tattanelli, CEO of Universum North America.

Getting in the door is no easy task, though. Google doesn’t have a hiring program specifically geared toward MBAs. And applicants must endure a phone interview, problem-solving assessments and at least four interviews with managers and potential colleagues, the company’s careers site says, adding: “Yes, it takes longer, but we believe it’s worth it.”

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How to get a job

It’s brutal out there. But the people getting hired aren’t necessarily the most connected – they’re the most creative. From food diarists to Twitter stalkers to candidates tapping the “hidden” job market, here’s what’s working now.

(Fortune Magazine) — Rob Sparno recently did something that 12.5 million Americans would kill to do. He did something that has never been attempted by this many people at once in the 60 years the government has been keeping records. He did something that’s getting only more difficult with every day.

He got a job. A really good job. A ‘pay the mortgage and still be able to pay your kid’s private college tuition’ kind of job.

When Sparno, 55, a longtime salesman, lost his position at Oracle (ORCL, Fortune 500), he knew the search wasn’t going to be easy. He had friends who were out of work and struggling to find jobs. He knew that getting back in the game would require every skill he’d spent his career honing. Methodical by nature, Sparno made a trip to Staples, where he bought a black hardcover lined notebook. He vowed to record every day what he did, whom he talked to, how he felt, how many miles he ran. He even wrote down what he ate.

To keep his spirits up (another must if you’re in the persuasion business), he organized a group of seven other executives – including a former COO and CFO – who also lived in his community of Princeton, N.J. They got together every few weeks on Saturday morning in the back corner of a local diner and shared tips, like what to do in a second-round interview and how to gather job leads. And by 9 a.m. each morning Sparno and another jobless friend would call each other and check: Okay, what are we going to do with this day.

Rather than blast out resumes, Sparno drew up a list of about 15 former colleagues who were now in leadership positions – his prospect list, in sales parlance. Then he sat down to write them e-mails. One note was to someone he hadn’t talked to in years, an old colleague from Netscape who now worked at Salesforce.com. In his e-mail Sparno wrote that he was looking for the “next new thing.” Minutes later he got a text message from his contact’s BlackBerry with two words: “Call me.”

As every salesperson knows, getting prospective buyers to meet with you is just the first step. The key is figuring out, What do they want? What keeps them up at night? Sparno read every story he could find on Salesforce.com (CRM). He watched YouTube videos of CEO Marc Benioff being interviewed by reporters, all the while taking notes. (”It was just like cramming for an exam.”) To organize his thoughts, he assembled a five-slide PowerPoint presentation going through exactly how he would approach the job and what he would accomplish in the first 30, 60, and 90 days.

By the time he went for the final interview – his seventh – he had his pitch down perfectly. Halfway through the meeting, Sparno and the manager started discussing how to target a client Sparno had worked with before. The manager went up to the whiteboard to throw out some ideas, and Sparno leaped up to join him, until the two were standing shoulder to shoulder, markers in hand, batting strategies back and forth.

Two-and-a-half months after leaving Oracle, Sparno got the job. All it took was a scheduled daily pep talk, a fraternity of out-of-work neighbors, voluminous research, seven rounds of interviews, a bout of inspiration at the whiteboard, and, of course, a food diary.

You may have heard – it’s rough out there. Not only is the unemployment rate the highest it’s been in 25 years, but the situation is deteriorating fast. This is not your run-of-the-mill recessionary job market. If unemployment hits 10% next year, as some economists expect, the country will have seen the fastest rise in joblessness since the 1930s. What’s more, as you’ve no doubt noticed from talking to neighbors and friends, the phenomenon is hitting a broad swath of the population: The unemployment rate of college graduates, 4.1%, is the highest on record since the government started keeping track in 1992. At this pace, economists at the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute estimate that in 2010 fully one-third of the U.S. population will at some point in the year be unemployed, or working part-time when they’d rather be full-time.

It’s enough to drive the average job seeker to distraction. Like just about every unemployed twentysomething, Jamie Varon, 23, had her heart set on working at Twitter. She had already applied for a position through the company’s website. And asked a contact at Google to put in a good word for her. And showed up at the company’s headquarters with a bag of cookies in an attempt to charm a recruiter into talking to her. But she still hadn’t landed an interview.

What Varon did next made her feel a little crazy. But then, it’s a crazy time to be looking for a job. She created a website called twittershouldhireme.com, including her resume, recommendations, and a blog tracking her quest. Within 24 hours the company contacted her. She had a lunch meeting set up at Twitter, and in the meantime got two job offers from tech companies that had noticed her site, which has even spawned imitators: googleshouldhireme.com and facebookshouldhireme.com.

Getting noticed is a big accomplishment: Many companies have so many applicants that they’re leery of advertising open positions. Just four hours after the Phoenix Coyotes of the National Hockey League posted a position for an assistant on Jobing.com, a manager called the site pleading for the ad to be taken down; the company had already received 180 resumes. UnitedHealthcare, for instance, asked Fortune not to disclose the number of jobs it has open. The spokesperson said he feared an onslaught of job seekers, citing a recent incident he had heard about where 700 people applied for a janitorial position at an Ohio school.

Still, hiring has not stalled entirely. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, while 2.5 million people were laid off in January, 4.4 million new workers were hired (bet that’s a number you missed amid all the depressing news). But with the ratio of job seekers to openings at 3.9, vs. 1.7 at the start of the recession, the tactics that might have worked when the economy stalled in 1991 or 2001 simply won’t cut it anymore. Just finding openings is a project in and of itself. “When you’re in a recession and employers are all going stealth, you’re probably looking at 90% or more [positions] being in the hidden job market,” says David Perry of executive search firm Perry-Martel International and co-author of Guerrilla Marketing for Job Hunters.

Meaning a job seeker must be part detective, part consultant, part salesperson. Rob Sparno and Jamie Varon were willing to do whatever it took. Are you?

It’s hot inside the National Capital Region Job Fair in Falls Church, Va., and it smells like sweat. Hundreds of nervous job seekers are navigating narrow hallways and waiting to talk with recruiters. You know it’s bad when even the line for Freddie Mac is long.

Lisa Hamm, a recruiter for consulting firm Booz Allen Hamilton, takes a swig from her Aquafina bottle. It’s all she has time for between talks with job hunters. People are waiting as long as an hour for just a few minutes of her time. The more impatient give up and simply plop their resumes onto a pile and walk away. You get the sense they’re just buying an extra lottery ticket.

When Fortune called Hamm after the job fair, she reported that Booz Allen had received 250 resumes that day, but only four people were immediately asked in for interviews. In other words, those fair attendees might as well have played the lottery. “The thing to avoid is thinking that by sending out a ton of resumes, you’re looking for a job. You’re not,” says Steven J. Greenberg, publisher of Jobs4point0.com, a website targeted at job seekers over 40.

That was a lesson Alfred Garcia, 43, learned fast. At the end of last year he found himself job hunting for the first time in his professional life when he had to shutter his Internet startup after funding fell through. “I came out of law school in ‘89, ‘90. You didn’t so much look for a job as a job found you,” he says.

The jobs he saw online were far below his experience and pay grade. So he hit the phones, calling about 40 former colleagues. A month into his search he reached a contact from his days at AOL who had started his own firm, Perfect Sense Digital, which helps companies manage their online strategy. As they chatted, it emerged that the CEO did know of some opportunities – at his own company. He hired Garcia as a contract consultant and a month later brought him in full-time.

Garcia had an enviable contact list at the ready. That’s the best-case scenario. But what if you don’t know a soul?

Jonathan Kooker, 31, graduated last spring from Georgetown’s law school, and by his own admission he wasn’t the glad-handing type. While his fellow students schmoozed at bars with big-firm recruiters, to Kooker “it felt like a hazing ritual.”

So instead of embarking on a job search, Kooker went on a mentor search. He found the website of an immigration-lawyers group and started cold e-mailing. Kooker explains, “I’d e-mail, ‘I’m interested in how you developed your career because I’d like to have that position in 20 years. Would you let me come interview you?’”

Before a meeting, Kooker would smooth out his curly dark hair and put on a suit, and he always arrived with ideas on how firms could attract more clients. He once walked into a meeting with the head of a firm’s immigration department, and the woman said she would have to cancel because she was inundated with clients dealing with a new compliance rule. Kooker immediately responded, “Well, it’s my opinion that this is a good thing, because I see it as an area to home in on for business.” The attorney agreed to give him 15 minutes while she ate a sandwich at her desk. They ended up talking for 45 minutes, and by the end she basically said, “You’re incredible. We’re going to have to find you a job.”

She referred him, and the next day Kooker received a call from another firm, which turned into his first offer. Another lawyer with 13 years’ experience proposed a joint venture with Kooker. He even got an offer from a firm in Israel for some of its caseload – a job that Kooker took on. After contacting 60 lawyers and talking with 25, Kooker found it difficult to stop networking because he was learning so much. “They’re all potential mentors, and although they may not have a job now, in four years they might. And they’ll remember me,” he says.

If you need to fill out your network quickly, one of the easiest moves is to join a professional association. David Stevens sensed he was on the verge of losing his job selling ads for two radio stations, so he joined his local chamber of commerce in Santa Clara, Calif. In the span of three months, while still working, Stevens forced himself to attend as many events as possible. Anytime he met someone at an event, Stevens would add him as a contact on LinkedIn, the social-networking site aimed at professionals. “When the time came, he says, I updated my [LinkedIn] status to ‘I’m up for grabs – who wants me?’” Soon after, the CEO of the Santa Clara Chamber of Commerce called. There was an opening at the Mountain View Chamber of Commerce. Within a week Stevens, 28, was at his new desk.

Another way to build new contacts is to volunteer. Robin Palchus lost her job as a senior HR director at a national accounting firm last March, so she started spending more time working with a career-networking support group at her church. One evening she was paired with a man who needed help tweaking his resume and preparing for an interview. She gave him some tips, and within two weeks he sent her an e-mail saying he had a job. He thanked her, then offered to refer her to his new company, Booz Allen Hamilton. A few days later Palchus received a call from a recruiter there, and after 11 interviews she joined the company as a senior associate.

Now a caveat: Nobody has a free hour to hear your sob story. You have to make a compelling case for busy people to clear time for you. “Just meeting people to network in the industry broadly – no one has time for that now,” says Lisa Rutherford, president of tech startup Twofish, which supports transactions in online games and social networks. You’re best off coming with a referral and having a very specific request. “For example, if someone said to me, ‘I’m looking at all the different mobile payment gateway providers, and I’d love to understand your perspective on these competitors,’ obviously I can help with that,” explains Rutherford.

One surefire way to grab people’s attention is to offer intel on their competitors. David Perry, the headhunter, advises gathering such tidbits whenever you go on an interview. When the hiring manager asks whether you have any questions, Perry recommends saying, “Yes, as a matter of fact I do. I understand your five competitors are such and such. What is it about ABC Company that makes you guys nervous?” Take notes, and when you get to your car, pick up the phone and call those competitors: ‘I just left an interview at XYZ Corp. Apparently you’re doing this and this, and it’s keeping them up at night. Do you have time for coffee?’”

It’s hard to know how aggressive to be these days. Allen Wright and his son were just digging into their pancakes at an IHOP restaurant in Gainesville, Texas – they were coming back from the annual Texas-Oklahoma football game – when Wright spotted Larry Nichols, the CEO of Devon Energy, walking through the door with his wife. Wright was looking for a job after leaving Koch Industries to move to Oklahoma City, and Nichols was on his list of people to contact. Despite being unshaven and wearing a T-shirt and shorts, Wright caught Nichols and set up a meeting for the next week. After several more follow-up phone calls (about one a week), he eventually got the job as director of public affairs and employee engagement at Devon, the country’s largest independent natural gas and oil producer. So being a bit of a noodge worked for Wright.

But Sara Laschever, co-author of “Women Don’t Ask” with Linda C. Babcock, an economics professor at Carnegie Mellon, points out that for women especially, the pushiness required in this job market may be tough to pull off. “When men are being aggressive or being forthright or focused, we think, ‘He’s very goal-oriented,’” she says. “And when a woman does it, it’s ‘God, who does she think she is?’” Like it or not, says Laschever, their research shows that “for women to be persuasive, they need to be perceived as likable. Men just need to be perceived as confident.”

On a recent morning in Columbus, Ga., 19 Aflac employees were seated around a table, discussing some IT positions they needed to fill. Aflac has never had layoffs in its 54-year history and is now in the enviable position of attracting more talent than it has room for.

The recruiters are doing a status check on several open positions. An IT manager, Octavio Herrera, who’s wearing a yellow tie with white Aflac ducks, says he’s found some candidates on LinkedIn for a systems security administration position. For another opening, LaShena Smith, the senior technical recruiter at Aflac, reports that she interviewed someone whose manner she found too aggressive for the position. The candidate was dinged. As Herrera later notes, “Technology can always be taught. [I want] great communication skills and someone who works well with others.”

Like many large companies, Aflac keeps a huge database of job applicants it can search for certain key words like “supervised staff” if the company wants someone with management experience. Anyone who applies online is funneled through this system.

Typically a recruiter will present four or five candidates to the manager, so perfecting your resume is critical. “The reality is we have a ‘no’ pile and a ‘maybe’ pile, and it takes four seconds to know where it winds up,” says Glenn Fox, AOL’s former head of recruiting and the CEO of BusinessElite, an invitation-only website for senior executives and those who hire them.

Always include metrics that describe your work: How many direct reports did you have? What was your budget? And be sure to mirror your resume to the description of the job you want. If the position is “product marketer” and you’ve done that kind of work before, actually use the words “product marketing” to describe your experience.

As for cover letters, recruiters and managers are split on how much weight they carry. Some advocate writing only a few compelling sentences, because no one has time to read a drawn-out letter. Others still recommend the traditional format of three or four paragraphs to show off your writing prowess. Kevin Donlin, president of Guaranteed resumes, advises clients to add a PS note at the bottom of a cover letter with a punchy sentence on why you’d be great for the job. People tend to read those out of curiosity.

Clever packaging can only take you so far, though. Peter Cappelli, a professor of management at the Wharton School, argues that since the 1980s there’s been a fundamental shift in the way companies hire. As with just-in-time manufacturing, in which companies lower inventory to reduce carrying costs, Cappelli says employers are adjusting to changing markets by plugging in perfectly suited workers from the outside when they’re needed, then dropping them when they’re done. He calls it the “just-in-time workforce.”

That is bad news for job seekers who are hoping to reinvent themselves in this recession. “You’re not going to change your career in this downturn,” he says. “Nobody’s going to hire you and say, ‘I know you were in finance, but we’re going to retrain you to be in marketing.’” Adds Neil Davies, a Microsoft staffing manager. “If we need five things, in the current market we’re not really moving forward on people who have four out of the five.”

Sometimes, though, even when you’re not perfect on paper, you can make a great case for yourself.

“I have no reason to hire you,” said the hiring manager at SAS, the software company, when Pat Bennett walked in for an interview. Bennett, 52, had no background selling technology software. But she pitched herself as a perfect fit in a unit targeting financial services clients. Her last job had been at LexisNexis, handling high-strung attorneys every day. Surely she could deal with hedge fund managers too. In her second-round interview, Bennett gave a presentation showing how she’d approach the business in her first 30 days. She got the job.

In this environment, companies simply can’t afford to hope you’ll be able to do the job. You need to demonstrate it. “Gone is the time when you could have the first year to prove yourself,” says Juliet Flint, a partner at Kleiner Perkins Caufield Byers who advises the firm’s portfolio companies on talent and recruiting. “You need to have immediate impact in the first 30 days.”

Well before you’re hired, there are ways to show off your strengths. The CEO of tech startup AdaptiveBlue said the company just hired an engineer who found three problems in the software he’d be testing before he even came in for an interview.

Michael J.A. Ehrlich, laid off from his job in research equity sales at Oppenheimer, found another clever way to show prospective employers he would bring in new business. He persuaded one former client, a hedge fund, to let him use its office to conduct his job search. The boutique research shop JNK Securities Corp. was so impressed that it hired him less than three weeks later.

If you dazzle a company enough, it might even create a position to make use of your talents. After Chris DeBrusk sold his consulting firm, he started kicking around an idea for a product to help financial services catch any ethical lapses by doing surveillance on their own trading activity. He took his idea to half-a-dozen companies, including Sapient in Boston, where he had worked eight years earlier. His presentations laid out the business opportunity, what kind of revenue upside it could bring, and when. Sapient brought him on in February. “In my experience most firms have open requirements,” says DeBrusk. “It’s about building the relationship first and then finding the job.”

So when you’re following up on an interview, don’t just send a pat thank-you note. Think about what you learned from the interview and show how it sparked some new ideas about the job. If you’re reading an article that seems relevant, send it along with some commentary. “Every so often I would send an article to a vice president to let him know I was thinking about the market,” says Sparno. “I’d write, ‘Hey, John, interesting article on market dynamics,’ just to show him this is a guy who’s thinking not just about a job – I’m someone who can think strategically.”

Even though the market is brutal right now, the worst thing you can do for your career is to take a job that doesn’t fit you. Not only will you not do your best work, but when the recession ends (and it will), you’ll be moving in the wrong direction.

“I didn’t want any job just to have a job,” says Jonathan Kooker, the law school grad, “because then, when people start hiring again in two years, I’d be stuck with experience I didn’t want.” Sure, he’s only 31. He doesn’t have kids or a mortgage. But he does have something 12.5 million people desperately want: an employer.

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