Finding Your Champion: How to Master the “Art of the Referral”

Introduction:

How many times have you seen an opening on a job board and worked tirelessly to submit the application only to hear nothing back? This article walks through how to leverage an existing network to get internal referrals into some of the world’s most prestigious law and management consulting firms, and demonstrates how the “art of the referral” can help land the job of your dreams no matter the academic nor professional experience required.

How I learned the "Art of the Referral":

It had always been my dream to work for a “Big 4” management consulting firm, but the dream always seemed unattainable given my background and professional experience. For years, I applied to openings on job boards at the top consulting firms only to fall short of a first round interview. After landing a job with a small government contractor and rising to become one of its youngest program managers, I quickly became faced with the reality of losing my contract and my job. My first instinct was to reach out to every recruiter in town and hope that a new opportunity would arise. Once again, an opportunity with the “Big 4” came, and the excitement drove me to quickly throw myself into consideration only to realize that the position wasn’t with the firm itself, but with one its’ sub-contractors. This news posed the question “would it be more advantageous to be a sub-contractor for the company or be a direct part of it,” and that answer lead to the challenge of getting a job with the same firm on my own devices instead of through a recruiter.

Learning to Generate Your Own Demand:

In Malcolm Gladwell’s world renown book “The Tipping Point,” he writes about the concept of “connectors” on how we often see the greatest impact, not from people on the inside of our social and professional circles, but from the outside. After a few unsuccessful attempts at leveraging my own network to get opportunities, “small wins” were necessary to regain my confidence and it was time to leverage Gladwell’s advice.

The first step was to define those desired industries that matched my previous experience and then research the top firms in those industries because “to be the best, one must work with the best.” My next step was to sign up for a LinkedIn premium account and identify those second and third connections to whom my I could send invites to for each firm. After identifying myself in a small 200 character note that became the basis for my “elevator pitch” to each connection, I would monitor LinkedIn frequently for acceptances and query them on their industry experience to learn about each business.

Doing this established a “mentor-mentee relationship” that made these individuals more comfortable with providing referrals because the career knowledge exchanged showed more than just need, and I found that the more referrals that showed up in a HR professional’s inbox, the more likely they were willing to extend me an interview for a position. Therefore, it’s so important to build a community of “champions” that can promote you within an organization to help generate demand for your services.

The Key to Success -- Following-Up:

Networking is all about building professional relationships and finding ways to be available as much as possible will help to maintain those relationships. For every successful LinkedIn connection notification that landed in my inbox, I added their contact information to a spreadsheet and used a direct mail marketing technique to send each contact a personalized message with my resume and a short description of my experience to easily forward to a hiring manager or use for a company referral. Every communication also included an offer to grab coffee or chat briefly on the phone to maintain the relationship.

For most large companies, referrals can mean big bonuses and perks, so leveraging internal referrals quickly became the easiest way to reduce the risk of getting lost in the HR shuffle. My follow-up approach not only streamlined my champion’s referral process, but also got my name off their social media feeds and into their inboxes where they could more easily respond.

People will often take only a few seconds to read an email message, so including the “bottom line up front” in the first sentence of every email and getting the information to my champion as early as possible became key to developing the strongest of professional relationships. Following-up after interviews and providing either a written or electronic thank you note no matter the outcome also helped to maintain those relationships even if an opportunity didn’t work out, and utilizing the help of a friend to prepare for consulting case interviews helped build a professional grit that carried me through intense mornings of back-to-back interviews.

Take Away:

In the end, I contacted nearly 1200 people and connected with 750 of them by phone, email, social media, and in-person which yielded a 60% response rate and lead to offers from two of the world's most prestigious consulting firms. Being open and available became key to my success because I found that opportunities often come when you least expect them. My search experience gave me the unique opportunity to chat with people I would have never had exposure to from my cubicle and gave me insight into vacancies that would have never been revealed otherwise. As Gladwell states “if you work hard enough and assert yourself, and use your mind and imagination, you can shape the world to your desires.” One can land their dream job, it just requires dedication, resilience, and champions along the way to truly master the “art of the referral.”