Dear Paul,
Now that I had a professional resume writer help me with my resume I want to make contact with some companies. It's tough to locate the right people to talk to. Any suggestions?
-James R.
James,
If you're looking for a job, it's inevitable that you're going to run across someone somewhere who doesn't want you getting access to the people you need. It's not because they don't like you. Really, they don't know enough about you to dislike you. What they're trying to do is cut down on the inordinately large number of individuals taking time away from a hiring manager who has, in addition to the filling of open company positions, about a million other tasks in the day keeping his or her attention. So, what then is a job seeker to do?
Almost every company has a record of their information in major databases like Hoover's. For a nominal fee, you can peruse the history of a company, its key financial indicators, and get the names and contacts for most of the primary roles within the company (including, many times, HR contacts). Since most of this information is public, there is no harm in accessing it, as it can only assist you with further understanding the company to which you'd like to offer your services. Hoover's is just one of many databases that contain this kind of information; worse comes to worse, a few careful views of the “about us” or “company information” section of company Web sites can reveal some invaluable information.
While it's perhaps a bit aggressive, some individuals have been known to accidentally call employees of other departments with the intention of getting transferred to HR after establishing the “understandable mix-up”. It seems a bit suspect, but the technique is a lot more honest than say, lying to a gatekeeper in the hopes that you'll manage to get through to someone. At least this way, you won't burn company bridges. It's all about comfort levels and not everyone is going to feel this is an appropriate tactic, which is why the few who do can often benefit from the chance taken.