metrics that matter
the journal of Michael Werneburg
twenty-seven years and one million words
The article I placed on LinkedIn about losing my job has now been read well over 1,000 times. Is that a job-search metric that matters? Here are some others that puts that 1,000 into context.
55. Thumbs up. Yay! 5% of the readers like it.
17. Comments on the article. All positive, so far.
10. New followers.
5. Requests to connect.
1. Readers who might have a lead for me.
0. Offers by readers to connect me with a third party – that have actually come to pass.
0. Agencies that have contacted me.
0. Employers that have contacted me.
0. Everything else.
By comparison, I've written directly to 56 people so far, and have another dozen or so queued in the worksheet where I recording all of this. Those have led to two other leads. Of these, one has led to an interview being arranged. The hit rate on the direct emails is of course far higher: 2/56 vs 1/1000.
So why post? My intentions were two:
a. Remind people that I exist. We all forget about each other over time. I'm rapidly building a spreadsheet with all of my contacts, and I'm now also using nudge.ai to better keep track of who I should be communicating with.
b. Start spreading the word. According to LinkedIn, the overwhelming majority of readers are outside my direct circle of contacts. That's good, because job leads can and do come from outside your immediate circle of contacts.
c. Getting advice. I've been collecting some solid pieces of advice over the past week and a half. Build a target list of companies with the right sort of work. Build a profile of the job(s) that can utilize my skills and that I'd enjoy doing.
d. Speaking my mind. A fair bit of what I had to say in my "I've lost my job" post was a retrospective of 6 1/2 years of my life. It's been a time of growth for me, when I "pivoted" into a new career. I was also a substantial piece of the puzzle at that company. I had lots to say.