Once you’ve gathered all this information, you should feel steeped in it, like a marinated chicken before he jumps on the barbie. A useful way of using this information is to stick it on a spidergram: (you can download a pdf version here at mrsmotivator)
Here’s an example of the start of one of these from someone researching an e-publishing business.
Put the enterprise you wish to join smack bang in the centre and then plot around it in informed guess of key influences on its fortunes over the next year. This is a snapshot of course, which isn’t real life. In real life, sales, funding, market, personnel are growing, shrinking and in a constant state of flux.
Take a dispassionate look then at the enterprises and people you’ve plotted around your potential employer and choose three who could be most influential. Do you have any sense of whether they are growing or shrinking?If these are readily identifiable, then congratulate yourself, you’re armed with some ace intelligence.
Where they are not easily identifiable, you may need to do further intelligence-gathering. Is there anyone you know who has a vague connection with this sector? Would it be worth buying then a sandwich and coffee to pick their brains for half-an-hour? Or ask them for ten minutes on the phone. Many people enjoy talking helpfully about the sectors they work in – and get little opportunity to do so.
Finally in this section, we need to consider the pay-off for you in doing this research. When Intee asks you questions like ‘What do you consider the biggest threats to this sector?’ then you have a ready answer. You can put your answers into the fullest context, where if you share your views with Intee, rather than lecturing them, you will cause delight. Who knows, you may even have some insights for their future direction.
For the other plus of using this approach is that putting answers into a broad context demonstrates strategic thinking, or in other worlds, leadership potential.
Who’d have thought, when you consider how much puff is talked about leadership, that you can get it down to something quite simple, thought-wise…
And certainly a spider mentality supports job search. For what do spiders do when their webs get destroyed?
Yes: you got it. They start spinning with alacrity again.