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What's your strategy? Winning moves that land jobs

By Jerry Ackerman, Globe Correspondent, 7/4/04

We've all heard the advice and read all the tips about how to go after a job: Read the want ads. Tap into Internet job boards. Sit up straight and smile during the interview. Always network to sniff out those positions that never get advertised.

Career counselor Kerry Santry says she tells clients to try every approach that comes to mind when it comes to winning a job.

''It is almost like a piñata, where people are swinging at it blindfolded. You need to go at it from different directions because the first direction may not work,'' said Santry, who is also associate director at the Center for Work and Service at Wellesley College.

But in practice, what are some strategies that actually have worked? To get real-life answers, we asked some readers to tell us how they landed their jobs.

The answers ran a wide gamut, but each offered a lesson that could help others in the hunt. Here are their stories.

Follow your passion

Rebekah Kaufman's path to a new job could fit nicely into the classic career book, ''Do What You Love, the Money Will Follow.'' She turned a passion for Teddy bears into paying work. Or, as the former director of business development for an advertising agency put it, ''I play for a living.''

Kaufman, 38, of Cambridge, has collected Teddy bears since childhood. Last fall a chance to snuggle up even closer to her hobby jumped out when she was scanning newspaper help-wanted ads.

Steiff USA, based in Raynham, and part of the famed German maker of Teddy bears and other plush toys, was looking for someone to manage the Steiff Club, an online marketing program. Kaufman says the club ''is responsible for the happiness'' of some 8,000 Steiff collectors and enthusiasts throughout North America.

''I really, really wanted this job,'' she said. She researched the company and talked with managers at stores that sell Steiff bears. ''I wrote [Steiff] a letter about my collection. I said, 'This is where I'm coming from. This is in my DNA.'''

Globe Staff Photo/Pat Greenhouse Steiff USA's Rebekah Kaufman, who has collected Teddy bears her whole life, turned her passion into paying work when she became manager of the Steiff Club, an online marketing program.

And when she went for an interview, ''I brought my giant Teddy with me,'' a Steiff bear her grandmother gave her when she was an infant. ''It was an icebreaker.''

Kaufman got the job. Her first assignment was to travel to Germany and learn all about Steiff bears.

Along with taking care of other bear lovers, Kaufman also helps name new additions to the Steiff line. Her latest christening was a panda she named ''Foo.'' The name means happiness in Chinese, she said, and honors a friend adopting a baby from China.

Persistence pays off

Gina Baldassare knew what she wanted. Even while Brooksby Village was still under construction, she knew she wanted to work at the Peabody retirement community. ''Working with people is my thing,'' she said.

Baldassare, 58, heard about Brooksby's upcoming job opportunities right after she was laid off from her last job.

Globe Staff Photo/Tom Landers Gina Baldassare persisted, and after three tries, landed at Brooksby Village, the Peabody retirement community. "Working with people is my thing," she says. Baldassare looks over dining room carpet with her supervisor Kathy Vetree.

She applied for and was offered a customer service job but backed out because she felt it didn't pay enough. Brooksby invited her back to interview for an accounting opening. This time, though, she was rejected.

''They were looking for someone with more experience,'' she said.

Undeterred, Baldassare applied again for two more positions -- one in human resources, the other in purchasing -- only to be turned down both times.

Others might have given up. Not Baldassare. She took one more shot, this time at a facilities coordinator opening. It became clear that she was becoming a waiting room fixture when she showed up for the interview.

''Every time I came in and was sitting in the lobby,'' she said, ''the general services manager and her assistant would happen to come by, and the last time when they saw me one of them said, 'Oh, my God, here she is again.'''

But this time she got the job. Baldassare has now been at Brooksby for 3 1/2 years. She was promoted to housekeeping manager in 2003. She said she plans to stay.

Power of networking

He'd been out of work almost a year and a half, laid off from a tech support job in 2001 by a company that ran out of money after the dot-com collapse.

Still, Kevin Gibbons, 32, of Lowell, managed to eke out a living doing part-time consulting and helping friends wire home computer networks. He also joined three other Boston-area musicians to form a blues band, One Red Cent. ''It helped keep me sane, because being unemployed can be very depressing,'' Gibbons said.

The musicians played a few gigs around Boston before going their separate ways. But it was through the band's lead singer that Gibbons landed a full-time job at Course Technology, a computer education provider in South Boston and part of the global publishing company Thomson Corp. The singer worked at Course and heard through the office grapevine about a tech support opening.

''She sent me the job description and it was right up my alley,'' Gibbons said. ''I sent my résumé and got the job, right away, because it was a referral from an in-house person that they knew.''

Gibbons is now a believer in the power of networking and regularly tries to pass on the favor to others out of work, letting them know about new openings at Course.

''I know what it was like to beat the streets,'' he said.

Strut your stuff

Competition in Jonathan Myerov's industry sector is so intense that he said he can't name his employer, a Fortune 500 company with offices ''in the middle of the state.''

Globe Staff Photo/Jim Davis Proposal writer Jonathan Myerov's presentations are sometimes so detailed they end up being bound like books. "I wanted to show myself as somebody who could do a lot and knew a lot about what was required. So I wrote a booklet about myself."

But he doesn't mind boasting about how he got the position.

Myerov is a proposal writer who prepares presentations used to bid for contracts. The proposals are sometimes so detailed they end up being bound like books.

''I wanted to show myself as somebody who could do a lot and knew a lot about what was required,'' Myerov, 32, of Bedford, said. ''So I wrote a booklet about myself.''

What he submitted matched in style the proposals he prepares, filled with pictures and graphics and printed on good paper.

In five sections, each marked with a color tab page, he detailed his work history, presented samples from proposals he'd written, and displayed marketing materials he produced.

Myerov said that along with demonstrating his skills, the booklet provided him with ''a nice way to talk about the job -- rather than be put in a powerless position, looking like I was just groveling for a job.''

He says others probably could adapt his approach to different lines of work. ''Any kind of presentation that would tie the product that the employer wants with the person who did it can help,'' he said.

Take a chance

Elizabeth Dinsmore likes telling people how she went from an office job where she was ''bored stiff'' to ''president of a company with 15 employees.'' She did it on a dare, she says, from her boyfriend, John McQuillan.

The two were passing through North Conway, N.H., when they saw an amusement park, Banana Village Golf and Waterslides. A sign said it was being sold at auction.

Globe Staff Photo/Tom Landers Elizabeth Dinsmore was "bored stiff" with her office job when she, on a dare, bought Conway, N.H., amusement park Banana Village Golf and Waterslides, at auction. "It's all mine," she says.

''Wouldn't that be funny?'' Dinsmore, 26, of Boston, remembers them saying to each other. ''I thought it was a joke, but he got the information on the auction and dared me to crunch some numbers.''

With McQuillan lending her the money for a down payment, they won the auction and closed on the deal in May 2003 -- opening a month later for the summer season. Dinsmore says she was ill-equipped to run a business. Her last job was as a compliance department assistant at an investment bank. McQuillan, however, brought business savvy from experience working for the Small Business Administration.

''He is my mentor,'' Dinsmore said. ''But in terms of operating the business and owning it, it's all mine.''

So far it's been a success, although, ''in hindsight I can see I did certain things that were mistakes,'' she said. One was paying vendors the first price quoted. McQuillan set her straight: ''I learned negotiation skills very quickly,'' Dinsmore said.

Then there was the night she failed to check out the entire 18-hole miniature golf course before closing down for the night.

''I cut the lights, set the security alarm, and as I was driving away, I saw people still playing golf,'' she said.

After last year's season ended, Dinsmore worked as a marketer for a Boston law firm. She hopes business this year is good enough so she can spend next winter doing volunteer work.

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