Making a Match

Curtis Ludlow used all the tools at his disposal, including the Internet, local trade organizations and contacts, to land a job at Heatherwood Construction this past fall.

It was a grueling, three-month process of building on existing relationships and initiating contact with potential employers at commercial construction companies.

Although he didn’t scour national job Web sites, Ludlow used the Internet to research companies and find contact information for executives he was seeking to impress. "It doesn’t take long to find an e-mail address," he says. "I really tried to put myself in front of or communicate to the top person in the company."

Ludlow found that, as a result of the housing-market downturn, few companies were seeking his business development and marketing skills.

The situation was much different than as little as two years ago, when he moved from Boston to Southwest Florida. "You could basically call anybody and get a job at any time," he says. Now, he adds, "You have to really set yourself apart."

His e-mail to Walter Crawford, CEO and president of Bonita Springs-based Heatherwood Construction Co., resulted in a meeting. The company hadn’t advertised the manager of pre-construction services position, but within a month, Ludlow had the job. "It just happened to be the right correspondence at the right time," he says.

This is an employers’ market for most industries, and job seekers are discovering that it takes strategy and timing to receive an offer. With online job boards, company Web sites, newspaper advertising and cash bonuses for employees who help with recruiting, employers are embracing a myriad of ways to find quality job candidates.

Instead of waiting until a position opens and placing a newspaper ad, more businesses are recruiting year-round through the Internet, and some local companies have application processes on their own Web sites.