Page 164 - Marky Stein - Fearless Career Change_ The Fast Track to Success in a New Field (2004)

Fearless Career Change

Compose Your Own Q Letter
The way to write a Q letter is to first determine the requirements
of the job. You can do this by looking at a job description, looking
at a general description in the O*NET, or by asking a person
already in that profession what the typical requirements are.
Then, pick four or five requirements and write them on the
left half of your page (see sample). On the right side of your page,
for every requirement find a qualification you possess that is equal
to or better than the requirement.

How to Make Direct Contact with a
Decision Maker

Once you’ve sent your résumé and Q letter, it’s time to make direct
contact. So, just what does direct contact mean? Direct contact
means placing a “warm” or “cold” telephone call to a key decision
maker in a company for which you want to work. On the phone,
you convince him or her to set up a face-to-face meeting with you.
By warm call I mean a call that is preceded by some sort of writ-
ten communication—a letter, a résumé, or note of some kind. See
the earlier samples of an approach letter and Q letter and the fol-
lowing warm-call pitch:

Hello, Dr. Thomas. My name is Alice Livermore. I’m a midwife
assistant graduate of West Denver Institute of Midwifery and an
intern from the Gentle Birth Center. You may have noticed from the
FedEx I sent you that I have excellent references and a good grasp
of the birthing process. When can I come in for an interview?
A cold call is made directly to your contact, without any written
introduction, such as the following example:

Hello, Dr. Thomas. My name is Alice Livermore. I’m a midwife
assistant graduate of West Denver Institute of Midwifery and an
intern from the Gentle Birth Center. I have excellent references
and a good grasp of the birthing process. When can I come in
for an interview?
Both cold and warm calls work (although a cold call has the ele-
ment of a “surprise attack” that can be quite effective). A cold call,
we have found, can actually be more effective when placing a call to
executives, upper managers, and business owners because the very

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