In addition to my online efforts, I tried to call at least several people every day—and my shopping bag full of contact information I had collected over the years was a great resource. It usually took a bit longer than planned to find anything specific for which I was looking, but after sifting though a stack of old emails or a rubber-banded pile of business cards, I could usually locate the sought after name and telephone number.
More often than not, I would just sift through the organized chaos, pulling out the names and numbers of people whom I thought it might be worth calling.
In retrospect, I wish I had been more disciplined about organizing and recording my collection of contact information.
To supplement my own online and calling initiatives, I also networked regularly over the telephone. My family, especially my mother, supplied me with new leads on an almost daily basis—and those leads often started with a friendly call which was a lot more pleasant than making a cold call.
When I made cold calls, I usually ended up hearing a recorded message, and when I did get to speak with the person I was trying to reach—or more often than not, with their assistant—they would invariably tell me to email my resume. I would actually feel great hearing that, as if they were telling me they would give me some consideration—but I did not get any better results from the resumes I forwarded after cold calls, than from the resumes I launched coldly into cyberspace.
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