How to doorknock
A sales approach that might get you employed
Doorknocking is an old-school sales approach you may well have experienced, such as when a young person with a clipboard rings your doorbell and asks you to change electricity provider.
My wife even bought from exactly this scenario.
But while it’s not uncommon in a business-to-consumer situation, it can also work business-to-business… if you can get past security.
Although technology has moved on, the principle is the same, whether in person, by phone, email, letter or LinkedIn:
You approach someone cold and create your own opportunity.
This isn’t an approach for everyone, and certainly requires a modicum of chutzpah, but if you are used to a high failure rate in applying through job boards and agencies - what do you have to lose by not gaining a job through being proactive?
And more than that - look at all the advice on LinkedIn on how to improve your odds in a job search.
It’s all transactional and applicable, available to everyone - if you all follow it, everyone takes the same step forward.
While taking steps others are less prepared to do means the approach alone may stand out.
Of course, if you encounter the equivalent of a sign which says ‘Tresspassers will be shot’, that’s something to consider if the rules are important.
I’ve never applied through traditional means to a job. Here’s my successful application history -
Walked into the Cinema and asked for a job
Walked into Office World and asked for a job
Worked for Dad
Talked to one of my ex-colleagues and gained some by-the-call phone research work
Temped through an agency
Walked into the Pickerel Inn and asked for a job
Referred to Workplace Law
In managing their (small-scale) recruitment, I got to know the MD of Whitehill Pelham as a supplier. I went to work there.
Tapped up to return to a more senior role at Workplace Law
Started my business upon being given the boot
It’s true I did apply through job boards and agencies, but it’s mainly through my own means I’ve secured my employment.
Doorknocking has one key advantage and one key disadvantage as a route to a job.
The key advantage is that you approach companies by category, not because they are recruiting. These categories can be:
All the employers in your local business park you can walk around
Top 100 employers in your particular domain, whether industry or tech
Companies that have recently had funding and are about to scale
Or however you choose to categorise a list.
The point is to make contact and make a case for yourself, on the principle of
the right person, right time, right place, right message, right offer, and right price.
So of course, there’s an element of luck involved, for these elements to all come together.
We’ll dig into this in the next section.
The key disadvantage is that they may not be recruiting, or ever have a need to employ you, and even if they do have a vacancy, you still have to establish the right fit.
That means a logically low hit rate.
But again, let’s go back to job board applications - how many hours have you spent applying for jobs where you never even heard back?
The difference is the anonymous rejection of a volume based application versus the personal rejection from your direct approach.
Your threshold for an acceptable failure rate will inform whether this is the right approach for you.
Right person, right time, right place, right message, right offer, right price.
This is a principle of any marketing activity, including other means of looking for work.
Let’s reorder the list and see how we can make them work for us:
Right Place
Those Categories above. The place is the Company, and how you contact them. You can go in blind, if you are a bold prospector by nature, or you can research them in advance.
Right Person
Typically this will be the ‘next one up’, Head of department, Director, CxO or Owner.
Who would be the budget holder at work? Those are a good target. Research, as usual, can help - look them up on LinkedIn, PR, news, video platforms. What can you find out?
Right Time
In most situations, if you categorise by anything not time-related, this will be pot luck.
What if, instead, you categorise by timed factors? What might be a hiring trigger?
Perhaps you could contact a list of companies who have just announced funding, or a big win - events that can trigger investment in the business through hiring.
Or maybe you hear through the grapevine that Janine is about to go off on maternity leave.
If their process isn’t time-related, can you make it time-related?
“We aren’t hiring right now” might mean they’ve run out of headcount in H1 (Jan to June), and may have a new budget in July. What can you find out that helps you both?
And if you have radio silence, why not try again in a month or three months?
Think about how you buy - if you don’t need something it doesn’t matter so much about how good the message is.
If you do need something, someone who keeps in regular touch might sell you what you need.
Right Offer
You have more opportunity for career creativity, in being unemployed, than someone entrenched in a 9 to 5 permanent job.
What problems can you fix for a company, in a non-traditionally employed capacity?
Let’s say an employer has a problem that needs fixing. They don’t have capacity to do it right now, it isn’t burning enough to seek professional help, and there isn’t sufficient work in view to make it a job.
What if you caught them at the right time?
An out-of-work TA Manager who offered to revamp an onboarding process.
A web designer who notes lots of issues with their website.
A strategic operational issue that is their unknown unknown, but your expertise identifies.
A swamped team who could benefit from their admin burden being reduced.
An orchard that needs pickers at harvest - no shame in that.
Who knows what that might be?
What starts out as a short-term / project / part-time piece of work can become proof of concept. The FD of one company I’ve recently recruited for created his own job, contacting them a couple of years ago because he loved their products.
Right message
This is both nuanced and vulgar.
It’s nuanced because nailing the message CAN create an opportunity a poorly written message can miss.
But it’s vulgar because sometimes you can just catch people at the right time, no matter how cruddy your message is.
This is very much the case in recruitment - I’ve picked up several senior appointments by happenstance.
“I’m glad you called Greg, I’m just starting to think about my maternity cover in June.”
Had I not called, that HR Director may well have gone to the specialist HR recruiters she is also in touch with.
If you have a strong hook in your message -such a key area of rare expertise, or a clear issue you’ve identified which companies may have - great, go in with that.
But if you don’t - done is better than procrastinating:
“Hi Greg, I live locally to Bircham Wyatt Recruitment. Love what you do. I wondered if you might be recruiting for an apple picker at any point? If you can’t help, could you point me in the right direction?”
Right price
I’ve left this til the end because much of this is variable and subjective. What are your needs? What can they afford? What does the market say? How flexible can you be?
Research will help, if you can get a sense of what they generally pay through indeed, glassdoor or others. Or maybe what comparable companies who are advertising will pay.
One approach might be simply to pro-rate your salary over the period you’ll work there.
As a related aside, door-knocking can sometimes inadvertently give you access to jobs that are being actively recruited. Consider it a happy byproduct of your work, if you find yourself in this situation.
Like any activity in a job search, it’s worth persevering. Otherwise it’s too easy to think, after 10/20/100 unsuccessful efforts that the approach itself is at fault.
There is always an element of good fortune in any marketing activity.
This may be out of your comfort zone, in which case it’s an opportunity to grow.
Or it may be out of your capacity, which is understandable.
You may even find other approaches are more effective than you.
But the only certain thing is that if you don’t try you definitely won’t benefit from it.
Thanks for reading.
Regards,
Greg
p.s. if you found this article helpful, may I ask that you share it with fellow job seekers? This will always be a free publication, and I have no intent to monetise career coaching, which I hope allows it to be as accessible and objective as possible.
I’ve no idea if ‘liking’, commenting or reposting helps. What about ‘commenting for coverage’ 😂?
Why not share it in a LinkedIn post? You may start some interesting conversations, and help others you don’t yet know.