Acknowledgments xii About the Authors xiv Break Away from the Herd 3 Chapter 1: The Job Market Is Tight: It''s Time to Take Back Control of Your Career 4 Chapter 2: Don''t Trust the Official "System": It''s Not Working in Your Favor 12 Step 1: Make Five Mindset Fixes to Get Your Search on Track 21 Chapter 3: Stay Home or Stay in Control: Beliefs That Can Kill Your Job Search 22 Chapter 4: The HJM Search Is a Different Kind of Numbers Game 30 Chapter 5: You Don''t Have to Have a Job to Get a Job 36 Chapter 6: Make Your Passion Your Most Competitive Asset 42 Chapter 7: Think Like a Hiring Manager 50 Step 2: Connect Your Hottest Skills to What Hiring Managers Really Care About 57 Chapter 8: Ability, Motivation, Fit: The Top Three Factors for the Ideal Job 58 Chapter 9: Maybe You Were Fired for Fit, Not Failure: Recovery from a Job Disaster 66 Chapter 10: Don''t Have the Exact Experience? No Problem! 74 Step 3: Upgrade Your Networking to Get Better Results 85 Chapter 11: How to Make Networking Really Work, Really 86 Chapter 12: How to Network Without Sounding Phony, Lame, or Desperate 94 Chapter 13: Make Your Networking Strictly Business 102 Chapter 14: Seven Essential Signs That Your Networking Is Working 108 Step 4: Power Up Your Job Search 115 Chapter 15: Opening Day: How to Organize Your HJM Search Campaign 116 Chapter 16: Backdoor Research to Uncover HJM Targets 122 Chapter 17: Your Resumé Is Not Your Friend 130 Chapter 18: Your Power Tool: The Targeted Opportunity Profile 136 Chapter 19: Find the Hot Issues to Uncover the Hot Jobs 142 Step 5: Get the Interviews That Count and Run Them Like a Pro 149 Chapter 20: It''s Not Rude to Intrude 150 Chapter 21: Get Past the Gatekeepers 154 Chapter 22: What to Say After "Hello" 160 Chapter 23: Disrupt HJM Targets'' Delay Tactics and Rejections 168 Chapter 24: Own the Agenda to Make Every Minute Count 174 Chapter 25: Get Their Attention: Tell Your Story in Two Minutes Flat 180 Chapter 26: Flipping the HJM Meeting into a Job Interview 188 Step 6: Negotiate Everything 199 Chapter 27: How to Nudge a Dud 200 Chapter 28: Collaborate on Creating Your Job Description 206 Chapter 29: Negotiating Your New Job 212 Conclusion: You Have What It Takes to Get the Right Job 218 Afterword: Why We Wrote This Book 222 Index 226