Illinois Tech Career Services · Career Resources
Organize Your Job Search
The complete system for a targeted job search — built on Steve Dalton’s LAMP method, run on a weekly cadence, and tracked in the tools you already have.
Mass-applying feels productive. It is not. Recruiters have a name for it — spray and pray — and when you send the same resume to a hundred postings, you enter every pipeline as a stranger: one PDF among hundreds, read by software before any human. The students who land the offers they actually want run a different play: a short list of target employers, a real advocate inside each one, and a weekly rhythm that compounds. That is a strategy — and a strategy is not found, it is formulated. The six phases below are the formulation.
40
Employers on Your LAMP List
70 min
To Build the Whole List
<75
Words Per Outreach Email
80/20
People vs. Paperwork
LAMP and the 5-point email: Steve Dalton, The 2-Hour Job Search (2nd ed.) · The 80/20 cadence: Illinois Tech Career Services coaching framework
Never spray and pray. Ten targeted conversations will outrun a hundred anonymous applications — every single time.
Six phases, in order — select a row to open it
IDefine the Target Before You Aim
One decision, in writing — what role, what industry, what constraints▾
A strategy starts with a decision, not a search bar: what role, in what industry, under what constraints — geography, work authorization, salary floor. If you cannot finish the sentence “I am looking for a ___ role in ___,” do this first.
Find Your Direction
- Self-assessments on Elevate — free, research-backed; look for the theme that repeats across three tests
- Designing Your Life — the Stanford method: sketch three five-year versions of your career rather than agonizing over one
- Then browse the Career Community pages in this hub for the employers and skills that define your field
Pressure-Test the Market
- BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook — real pay, real growth, real openings, straight from the federal government
- O*NET OnLine — the skills, tools, and tasks each occupation actually requires
- CareerOneStop Job Search Guide — the Department of Labor’s free end-to-end walkthrough
One decision, in writing, before Phase II. Vague targets produce vague searches.
IIBuild Your LAMP List — 70 Minutes, Once
List, Advocacy, Motivation, Posting — the method that replaces “where should I apply?” forever▾
The centerpiece of this page comes from Steve Dalton’s The 2-Hour Job Search, and we champion it because it works: a ranked list of 40 target employers, built in about 70 minutes. Four columns — List, Advocacy, Motivation, Posting:
L — List · 40 MIN
Brainstorm 40 employers, fast, from four prompts: dream companies, companies where Illinois Tech alumni work, companies with live postings, and companies riding a trend you believe in. No research yet — volume over polish.
A — Advocacy · 10 MIN
Mark Y or N: do you have a potential advocate there? Run each name through the Illinois Tech alumni tool on LinkedIn — alumni are the fastest yes.
M — Motivation · 5 MIN
Gut-score your interest in each employer — first instincts, no research allowed. Five minutes for all 40. Your enthusiasm is data: motivated outreach converts, forced outreach fizzles.
P — Posting · 15 MIN
Score each employer on whether a relevant role is posted right now — check Handshake and the big boards. A posting means hiring is happening this quarter.
Then sort: Motivation first (high to low), Posting second, Advocacy third. The five names at the top are your targets this week — not the hundred below them. Ask your coach for our LAMP tracker template, or build the four columns in any spreadsheet in two minutes.
IIITurn Targets Into Advocates
The 5-point email, the 3B7 follow-up routine, and the TIARA conversation▾
A stranger at a target company becomes an advocate through one short email and one good conversation.
The 5-Point Email
Dalton’s outreach standard, and the one we coach: under 75 words, ask for insight — never a job lead — lead with your connection point, spend more than half the words on them, and end with a question mark.
The 3B7 Routine
So follow-up never depends on mood: if a contact has not replied after 3 business days, email a second contact at the same employer; on day 7, send your first contact one polite follow-up. Two touches, then move on — persistence without pestering.
When someone says yes, that conversation is an informational interview — run it with the question bank and the two rules in our Informational Interviews guide in this hub, structured around Dalton’s TIARA arc: Trends, Insights, Advice, Resources, Assignments.
IVApply With Intent — and Only With Intent
Applications are the last step, not the first▾
Applications still matter — as the last step. Apply to postings on your LAMP list, ideally after an advocate knows your name, with a resume tailored to that specific role. Tools like Simplify can autofill the repetitive form fields free — automate the paperwork, never the strategy.
Ten tailored, advocated applications beat a hundred anonymous ones — and they take less time. If an application is not on your LAMP list, ask yourself why you are sending it.
VThe Weekly Cadence — About Four Focused Hours
The part that compounds — Monday through Friday, in order▾
A search fails from inconsistency, not lack of effort. This rhythm — roughly four hours a week — outperforms forty hours of spraying, because every touch lands on a chosen target:
- Monday · 30 min — command check. Review Handshake and LinkedIn alerts against your LAMP list; re-rank your top ten if anything changed.
- Tuesday · 45 min — outreach. Two new 5-point emails to your top targets, plus every 3B7 follow-up that comes due. Log each send.
- Wednesday · 1 hr — the conversation. Hold one informational interview (aim for five to seven a month). Thank-you note the same day.
- Thursday · 30 min — research. Deep-dive next week’s target with Galvin Library’s company databases — free, and better than anything a paywall sells.
- Friday · 45 min — apply with intent. Tailored applications for LAMP-list postings only. Update your tracker; close the week with zero untracked activity.
- Weekly, your choice — one live event. A meetup, employer session, or career fair (five to seven a month). Faces convert faster than emails.
Monthly: re-sort the full LAMP list, prune dead targets, add discoveries. Quarterly: bring the whole system to your coach and recalibrate. The cadence is the strategy — everything else is parts.
VIWhat Gets Tracked Gets Landed
LinkedIn, Handshake, Teal, Simplify — run the search like a pipeline▾
Modern Tracking, In Tools You Already Have
Your memory is not a system. Run the search like a pipeline — every target, touch, and follow-up date written down:
LinkedIn as Command Center
- Save every LAMP posting — My Jobs keeps saved and applied roles in one tracker
- Set a job alert for each top-ten employer so new postings come to you
- Follow your 40 companies and hit the notification bell — their news becomes your outreach openers
Handshake as Vetted Pipeline
- Save your searches and let alerts surface roles the moment they post
- Follow your LAMP employers to catch their events and on-campus visits
- Every posting is vetted for Illinois Tech students — zero scam risk while you build the P column
+Go Deeper: The World-Class Shelf
Dalton, Terry, Burnett & Evans, and the free archive that answers everything else▾
The System & the Support
- The 2-Hour Job Search, Steve Dalton — the book behind this page; LAMP, 5-point emails, 3B7, and TIARA in full
- Never Search Alone, Phyl Terry — join a free peer Job Search Council; nobody should run a search solo
The Direction & the Details
- Designing Your Life, Burnett & Evans — the Stanford method for choosing a direction when the target is unclear
- Ask a Manager — Alison Green’s free archive; the sanest answers anywhere to every awkward search question
- The #Handshake section of our LinkedIn Index — platform tactics from real coaching conversations
Build your LAMP list this week — it takes 70 minutes — then bring it to a coach. We will pressure-test your top ten and help you draft your first 5-point emails.
More in Career Resources
Informational Interviews · Portfolio · LinkedIn · Remote Work · Salary Negotiation · Interview Prep · Resumes
Frameworks credited to their authors; all external resources independently verified by Career Services, July 2026.
