Yesterday I made a few suggestions as to how to respond should a headhunter call to sound out your interest in jumping ship to work for another company. (Or making an “unsolicited offer of employment”, as an email correspondent put it!)

I also mentioned in yesterday’s discussion that I actually ended up being headhunted into a web design role, despite having little commercial design experience, and having searched - and applied - without luck for a number of positions prior to that.

The prospect of being “headhunted” into a job began to intrigue me after hearing that is what happened to someone else I knew, who was also making a career transition into web design.

A local design studio had found her personal website, and the creative director was so impressed with what he saw, that he contacted her and almost immediately offered her a design job.

I quickly realised that there was little difference in the way she was “pitching” herself, to the way I was.

We both had a reasonably prominent online presence by way of our personal websites, we were both networking with other professional (or established) web designers, and we both also promoting ourselves by way of our involvement in various “sideline” web projects.

In my case this included being a then founder of The Australian INfront, a community that I was involved in establishing, whose aims where to raise the visibility and perception of Australian web designers globally.

While I know not everyone reading this article is looking for web design work, there are still a number of things that anyone can do to raise their visibility and profile, and put themselves on a headhunter’s radar.

Get yourself noticed (somehow, anyhow)
A great way to do this is to start a blog, something I explored in another article recently, which outlined how blogging can be an effective self-promotional tool in the career change, or job search, process.

In fact the article attracted a number of comments from people who mentioned that a blog had boosted their profile and even resulted in job offers.

I also recently read an article at manzkie dot com about recruitment managers who search through the blogosphere looking for potential employees.

Do I need to push this particular point any further?!

Develop a specialist knowledge
Build on your passion for what you want to do. Focus on an aspect of the job that is not as widely recognised as others, become an expert on it, and then make sure you advertise the fact!

In my case this was an interest in web standards. Put briefly web standards are a uniform set of rules web designers should adhere to when developing websites. For various reasons few designers were, ten or so years ago using standards, so by learning to work with them natively from day one, I was able to stand out from other web designers.

Ironically, despite the fact I no longer work as a web designer, I still receive occasional freelance work offers, because one former colleague or another’s clients have stipulated that the design work be standards compliant!

Network!
This goes without saying, and is just about the best way to achieve anything. As always it is a case of who you know, followed closely by what you know.

Look around for networking forums in the industry you are interested in, whether on or off line, and make yourself known!

MeetUp is an increasingly popular way of bringing all sorts of people, with all sorts of interests - both personal and professional - together, and you are bound to find an interest group near where you live.

Even if you don’t, members of the various Meetup groups often place their blog, or website, addresses on their Meetup profiles, so even if a like minded person is at some distance, you can still make contact and network with them.

And you never know, even though someone is in another city, or even country, they may know a former colleague, or associate, who is in your area and looking for staff.

Get involved
Can’t find a networking forum, or association, relevant to your industry or work interests, locally? Then start one! Taking some sort of initiative is exactly the sort of activity headhunters are on the look out for.

And once more thanks to ideas such as Meetup, this can be achieved relatively quickly and at not too great a cost.

Conclusion
While I’m not suggesting that you sit around waiting to be headhunted, you certainly have nothing to lose by boosting your profile, and self promotional activities, to the point that an employer may just spot you, and subsequently make contact.

And if you are making a career change, being headhunted into a job that you really want could be the lucky break you are looking for, as it was for me.