The very first position I found and applied for after I was laid off was for a Training Specialist at a company called Odysseyware which provides online curriculum and e-learning tools for 3rd-12th grade students, and is based in Chandler, AZ. Here's what struck me straight off the bat about the company and the position:
- It's an education-based company. Winning!
- They focus heavily on the tools and methods to teach digital natives (people who've been raised with technology) and students who have difficulty with traditional classroom instruction (the way I did). Winning!
- They have a great looking website www.odysseyware.com. This may sound funny but their presentation is sharp and something you'd expect from a company that is in the business of using technology to educate. Winning!
- The training specialist position works directly with educators and trains them how to use and implement the company's programs. This was one of my primary roles in my previous position, and it's the part of that job I loved doing the very most! In my professional career I've worked with small business owners, financial planners, working moms, and educators. By far, educators have been my favorite people to work with (next to working moms). They have such a dedication to helping people become better. Winning!
So when I found this position I researched the company and quickly applied. That was on Feb 17th, the day I was formally laid off.
On March 1st, I had not heard back. I did some further research and found that the recruiter at Odysseyware was a connection of a connection of my mother-in-law's on LinkedIn. Since the recruiter was not part of my "primary" network on LinkedIn, I sent her a message using the "get introduced through a connection" tool. This sent my personalized message to my mother-in-law, asking her to forward my personalized message to the connection to forward on to their connection, the recruiter.
That same day, I Googled the recruiter's name, position, and company and buried in the 2nd page of search results I found her direct email address. Winning! I then emailed her a personal cover letter, including my resume.
Fast forward to yesterday, Friday, March 11th. I had not heard from Odysseyware and was beginning to think I probably wouldn't. On the networking front, I had not met or learned of anyone I knew who had any connection to they company. I couldn't find the job posting on any of the job sites where I had found it before so I feared the position had been filled. It was still posted on the company's careers page so that gave me a glimmer of hope.
I thought, "Well, I have an updated resume and nothing to lose" so I decided to email the recruiter again. In my research I noticed that one of Odysseyware's clients was a school district that I had worked with in my previous position so I name-dropped them in the email. I also included my updated and enhanced resume and then clicked send, marking my 4th official contact. In case you're curious, you can read that email here. There are a few simple tactics I used including the name dropping I mentioned previously and the use of the powerful PS so check those out.
Within 10 minutes, the recruiter called me back. She told me she'd been meaning to call and that she had my resume in front of her. We had a GREAT chat for the next 25-30 minutes. At the end, she said she would get my resume over to the hiring manager and that she'd be in contact soon. Winning!
I am highly optimistic about this position and hope the fit is right. Whether it ends up being so or not, I have learned that persistence is EFFECTIVE! My guess is that had I simply applied and waited . . . . . . . . . . . . I'd probably still be waiting.
Keep Moving Forward!
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