Connection is just a part of puzzle in seeking job

There is a company in mycity that I would love to work for. I just found out that a friend of my husband is friends with the CEO. How can I leverage this?

Dale: First, although I’m sure you didn’t mean it this way, there is something about the notion of “leveraging” a friendship that grates on me. Perhaps I am hyper-sensitive; after all, my work has allowed me to get to know a number of CEOs, and there are some people who have a kind of networking lust come over them when such connections come up in conversation. It’s creepy.

J.T.: Remember, too, that we probably are talking about a time-crunched CEO, who probably gets solicited for jobs all the time. So we must be careful how we approach it.

Dale: The first thing is to make sure that you would be an asset to the company: The “Hey, I sure could use a job” approach is doomed to fail. However, if you have ideas about how you could contribute to the company, you enter the connection process with the right mind-set.

J.T.: Assuming your husband is willing to ask his friend to chat with you about the CEO, that will give you your first chance to talk about the company and how you might be a valuable hire. Ask the friend for feedback about the best way to approach the CEO. If all goes well, the friend will facilitate an introduction. There is a good chance that this will happen via e-mail. If so, it will help if you put your thoughts about the company and its mission into an e-mail to the friend. That way, he can pass it along to the CEO, who can review it and either respond to you di- rectly or forward it to someone in the company who is better suited to speak to you.

Dale: The CEO’s passing you along to someone else may be a disappointment, but it still could be a huge advantage. One of my first jobs came just this way: I happened to sit next to a corporate president at a charity function, and the next day I sent him a letter and included my resume. I never heard from the president, but I got a call from someone in the human-resources department inviting me to come in. The HR guy was candid: I did not fit their normal hiring profile, but he called me anyway because he could not ignore a connection via the president.

J.T.: Nice. However, don’t focus only on the CEO connection. There also is a chance that your husband’s friend knows other people at the company, as do other contacts of yours. Although connecting with an executive can be good, it usually is peer recommendations that get people hired.