142: Finding Hidden Jobs Everywhere You Look [Podcast]

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Finding hidden jobs is like finding a rare coin in your spare change – easy to go unnoticed but fun when you find it. And sometimes, valuable.

Clients and students often tell me how there are so few jobs available. But when others look, they see jobs everywhere.

In today’s podcast, I am going to give you some examples of how to see jobs everywhere you look.

Finding Hidden Jobs Everywhere You Look (Podcast Outline)

1. Your expertise and connections lead out to certain places
   • Friends invite you to their company 
   • You are in a new city driving around you see company names you have never heard of.
   • You are in your city, and you find something you have never heard of!
2. As you see what others are doing, you see other opportunities
   • Who supplies their core technology? 
   • Who buys from them? 
   • What kind of challenges are they having? 
   • Example – EITD NASA Operation led me to know about and an obscure company that makes cryogenic cooling elements for satellites — https://www.sunpowerinc.com/
3. To help you unlock these hidden opportunities
   • Check-in with your friends. Ask them what they do. What kind of problems do they have? 
   • Be curious – ask about their supplies and customers. 
   • Be active in professional associations
     • Speakers coming in with varied backgrounds
     • Tours of places you have not seen
   • When you travel
     • Go to your professional association meetings in other towns. 
     • Look at the industry makeup. Who are these people? Get on LinkedIn and see who you know. 
     • Do a LinkedIn search before you go to another city to find out who you know there. Great time to connect. 
   • Be local
     • There is more going on than you think there is. Jim Little of New Capital Partners (Private Equity Firm) told me that he is constantly finding new companies doing great stuff that he never knew about – right under his nose. And his job is to know about possible investments. 
     • Do tours – See what friends and associates are doing by looking at their operations. They may not be technical at all – but could lead to an opportunity. 
     • Talk to others – Ask questions of people in your industry and in your professional organizations about what they do and their challenges
   • Give them a shout out- When you learn about something new – post about it and the people on social media – LINKEDIN mostly
   • Seek out customers of your product. 
     • The job finder guide “What Color is Your Parachute?” tells the story of a guy looking for a printing job. Instead of going to the printers, he went to major offices and asked who did their printing.
       • Learned the good and the bad
       • He got to know the customers. Many were happy to talk to him and offered to give him connections. 

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Links mentioned in this episode:

• UAB Engineering and Innovation Technology Development (EITD)
• Sunpower – Makers of Cryogenic coolers
• What Color is Your Parachute? Book for job hunters
• New Capital Partners – Private Equity
• Episode 119: Developing an Entrepreneurial Mindset
• Master of Engineering Management in Information Engineering and Management