Category: Career

In the most recent installment of this blog series, I walked you through an example of an interaction I had with a company last summer and wrote about some of the HubSpot tools and features that I was able to leverage at the beginning phases of my job search. In this installment, I wanted to dive deeper into that process and talk about the tool I found to be the most valuable in managing my job search from a CRM.

Let’s jump back in!

• 

• 

So when we left off, I had gone through an initial phone screen, which naturally transitions into an email follow-up. This is where the most important feature of using a CRM to manage your job search comes into play.

HubSpot gives you the ability to log all of the emails that you send into the CRM and track them. Tracking them gives you a window of insight into what is happening (or what is not happening) to your emails after you send them.

For example, from the first example above, the email that I sent to the company above ended up in a thread and was opened a total of 21 times. As a candidate, this is a really good sign. You can make the reasonable assumption that if your emails are being opened that many times, there is some level of interest on the part of the recipient un you as a candidate.

Moreover, the second photo shows that after my email was sent, it was opened six minutes after it was received and it was opened again the following morning at 8:29 AM. This is another really positive sign.

The key takeaway is this: you want to stay as close as you can to the positions that are reciprocating interest in you, and as far away as you can from the ones that are not.

Here was a tactic that I would deploy when I came across a position that I was interested in: after submitting an application through the company website, I would do some investigation and find someone at the company (a recruiter in HR would be the best person) and send that person an email. Make sure that you take advantage of HubSpot’s email open tracking so you get the data that you need to optimize your search.

From there, the onus is on you to knock their socks off with a killer interview experience. When you do so, you have to swim against the current. Don’t take anything for granted, and make sure you do your homework and come prepared to wow and delight your audience.

Do you have any other questions about this blog series, or anything else related to sales or sales management? I’d love to help. Drop me a comment, fill out the contact form on my website, or shoot me an email. I’d love to help!

In part I of this series, I discussed the concept of using a CRM to manage your job search process, and laid out the deal stages that I customized to navigate the sales (or job search) process. Here is part II, we are going to take a closer look at an example from my search in 2019 and the features in HubSpot’s CRM that I was able to use to optimize my process.

Let’s dive in!

My Dashboard

So there are a few things going on here that I would like to point out. First, in the Team Activity section, your able to view a snapshot of some of the communication that was flowing between myself and a few of the companies that I was looking into working for. We’ll talk more about email tracking and the BIG advantage that gives you as a job seeker in the future.

The one other thing that I would like to point out here is that a job search, much like sales, is a numbers game. From my dashboard, I was very easily able to view my production levels and set some goals for myself on the numbers of contacts that I added to the CRM, as well as some activity based goals on the number of emails that I wanted to send, calls I wanted to make, tasks I wanted to complete, etc.

However, where I spent the majority of my time and attention during my search process was on the individual contacts associated with the companies and jobs that I was most interested in. I am going to take you through an interaction that I had with a company that ultimately I ended up not selecting, in a city (Austin, Texas) that I was strongly considering relocating to.

Ok there is a lot going on here, but as you might be able to surmise, I applied for an SDR Manager position with this company that I found on LinkedIn (pro tip: LinkedIn is the best source to locate jobs directly from companies). And not long after I applied, I was contacted by a recruiter at the company who wanted to speak with me. BOOM!

Whenever that happened, I created a new deal (or job) in the CRM and, once the interview was scheduled, I staged that job accordingly. That looked something like this:

You tracking with me so far? Awesome. Moving on…

One thing that I always did before an interview (or phone interview) was do some research on the person that I was going to speak with and add those as notes to the CRM. In addition to that, I added a linked to their LinkedIn profile incase I need to reference that again in the future.

Additionally, anytime that I had a conversation with a recruiter, I logged all of the important information associated with that position I learned during the call, as well as what the action step (or next step) was from there.

So there you have part II. We are now past the initial interview and into the portion of the process where things can really accelerate.

Coming up in part III, I’ll show you what I consider to be the most valuable feature in managing your job search through HubSpot, and how you can make some reasonable assumptions on the interest level of the company based upon the engagement and activity you are viewing with your emails.

Do you have any questions? Feel free to comment below or send me an email to nathan.bliss.nb@gmail.com. I’d love to help!

At some point in your career, your are going to be looking for your next job. It is an inevitability. There are a million blogs and posts on this subject and what to do.

This blog post is not about what to do.

It is about how to do it.

You see, in the summer of 2019, I was at a moment in my career where I was looking for my next position, and I had a pretty clear vision for what I was looking for in my next job. But as I first started to launch into the search process, I started to grow frustrated with not having line of sight into the recruiters and hiring managers that were most interested in me. My thought was: if I could spend more time on the jobs and recruiters that were most interested in me, I could maximize the time that I spent in my job search on the positions I was most interested in and that I was most likely to land.

So I decided to sign up for a free version of HubSpot to manage my career search, and run the process like I was trying to make a sale.

You see, in sales, the CRM is the tool that you use to manage the entire process. And, unlike in sales, I didn’t have to make a monthly or quarterly quota in my job search.

I just had to make one “sale”.

So I decided to set the “deal stages” (aka the job search stages) up like this:

What was my thought process with each process stage? Here is how I defined each one:

• Job Prospects – when I came across a position on a job board, or when I networked with someone that let me know about a position, I would apply for the job and create a new deal in HubSpot and name the deal whatever the job title was.
• Recruiter Activated – these were the jobs where an action was taken on behalf of the company. Most often, that came from (or comes from) a recruiter in HR. Once there was clear interest on the part of the company and they reached out to me about scheduling a first interview for a position (which is most often a phone screen), I would update the deal stage of the job accordingly.
• Interview Scheduled – Once the back and forth process of with the recruiter was complete, and we had an interview on the calendar, I would move the deals (or jobs) to this stage. Once this conversation was completed, I would try and have clarity not only on the title of the role and the role itself, but also on the expected salary or OTE (on-target earnings).
• 2nd Interview – This deal/job stage is exactly like it sounds. If I made it past the initial phone screen and onto a 2nd interview with a hiring manager (or decision maker like in the sales process), once that conversation was scheduled, I would move the deal (or job) to this stage.
• Onsite Interview – Most often, companies are going to bring you in for some sort of onsite/final interview. That could be in the form of a 2nd interview, but that all depends on the type of role that you are searching for. Because most of the jobs I were looking for were at the management level or above, and in another state (Texas), I decided to separate this stage of the process out.
• Negotiating Offer – If I got this far down into the process, by now I should definitely have a clear picture of the offer, expected close date (or start date for the position), and all of the other information that was necessary to make a decision on the position. Moreover, if I had multiple offers at this stage, I could use this deal stage as a way to manage that process and maximize my earnings and package based on my goals and what was important to me.
• Job Accepted – Ring the bell my friend. You just got yourself a new job. 🍾🎉🥳
• Job Lost – The stage I used for jobs as I determined that employers were not interested, or as I personally removed them from consideration. Remember, you don’t need a yes or a no. You just need to know so you can focus your time, energy, and effort on the positions that you are mostly likely to land and that you are most interested in.

Really, setting up the process was that simple. In part II of this blog, I’ll show you some examples of how the process played out, as well as the most important feature in HubSpot I was able to take advantage of to determine if a company was actually interested in me as a candidate.

Do you have any questions about setting up HubSpot or the deal/job stages? Let me know in the comments below. I’d be happy to help!