Though he never went into the field, he's made good use of those techniques in the workforce training field, including the last five as placement services manager at the Buffalo Employment & Training Center, one of two one-stop centers operated by the Buffalo & Erie County Workforce Investment Board.

"People say you don't see a lot job openings out there. There is tons of information, but you really have to put your Sherlock Holmes hat on and see any kind of information, any news information, as a potential lead. You really need a sales mentality."

Sullivan's bulletin board is packed, three sheets deep, with letters of thanks from former clients who have gone on to find jobs in and outside of the region. Many entered new industries or found work at companies they have never even known existed, thanks to Sullivan's guidance and suggestion and the help of others at the BETC.

Sullivan is a no-nonsense type of guy. He seems like the kind of guy who has very little patience for self-pity and people who don't want to help themselves. His goal is to help individuals identify their skills in a range of areas, highlight those skills on a well-written resume, then identify all the places where those skills are in demand.

Many of those he works with are displaced workers, older types who are not content to sit and collect an unemployment check for any longer than necessary. Or they're people who are unhappy with their place in life, looking for something more, something better.

Identifying jobs

Sullivan worked at the Buffalo & Erie County Private Industry Council in the 1980s when the agency was one of the first in the country to receive funding to work with displaced workers, including the thousands who were laid off when the steel plants closed. It was a big change from the past, when federal workforce training dollars concentrated on the chronically unemployed.

"Traditionally, we were geared to working with the unemployed coming off public assistance or coming out of incarceration with specific issues and barriers," he said. "In 1982, with the plant closings and downsizing when we really first started to put together what we see today in terms of an outplacement program."

In his first five to six years at the Private Industry Council, Sullivan was in the field, knocking on the doors of employers, marketing the services the PIC could offer them and at the same time, uncovering job opportunities for job-seeking clients.

"That's where I really got my education of what areas comprised our job economy," he said. "I always thought we had these few, very large, very well-known employers, but when I would drive to Akron or Springville or Walden Avenue and see these other pockets of business and industry. I was amazed at how diverse the area's employer community was. That's really helped me a lot as I moved into career counseling."

After starting as a job developer, Sullivan rose to senior account executive, then moved in the late 1980s to working with employers and the economic development community.

During those years, when a company was considering moving to the area, he sat at the negotiating table along with representatives from the Erie County Industrial Development Agency and chambers of commerce and utility companies to tell companies what they could expect and what type of workforce the region had to offer.

Finding a niche

Later, Sullivan helped create the PIC's first career center, the early template of today's outplacement and career counseling centers. That's when he found his niche: working with job-seekers.

"Up until then, I was working with employers and what really gave me a tremendous advantage was I could sit down with a dislocated worker who had been at a place for 10 or 15 years and was now coming into the marketplace," he said. "He would look at the Sunday paper help wanted and say "I only see three job openings I'm qualified for' and that's when I was able to share with them.

"You really need to become not only an educated jobseeker, you need to become an expert on the Buffalo job community," Sullivan said.

"There are lot of jobs out there, all different types of businesses, tucked away in these office parks and industrial parks. They seem to like to keep a low profile. It's what you need to do to tap into that hidden job market, that unadvertised market."

First, the job seeker needs to learn who the companies are that are out there, and then which companies are in areas that match their background. Also, what companies look like they're heading in a direction where it might be looking for new employees.

"It was a real opportunity for me to be able to share that knowledge I had gained when I was a job developer for the first years of my career," Sullivan said.

But finding those companies isn't easy. Sullivan advises all his clients to read Business First cover to cover -- not just the big stories on page one, but the little blurbs about a company getting a contract or earning its ISO 9000 certification.

Read the small print

"Those are the types of blurbettes that really speak to someone who is job hunting," he said. "If they're doing the research, and know 'I have to find something I have of value that an employer might need'. But you can't just go out willy-nilly knocking on doors. You need to research and target firms whose businesses match up with what you have to offer."

After identifying the company, Sullivan helps his clients learn how to ferret out who the decision-makers are and put networking into play.

"Buffalo is a community where everyone knows someone in common. You've heard of six degrees of separation? Buffalo is about 2," he said. "Networking is a very effective tool here, but you have to do your homework."

That means using Business First or another newspaper to find out who is getting promoted or receiving an award for something, then sending a letter of congratulations.

"What is more related to what you're trying to do than someone getting a new job or promotion? Someone once told me whenever they saw an individual who got a new job or promotion that sounded like the job they do or did, they sent that person a letter of congratulations with their resume. It was amazing how many interviews they got," he said.

Making yourself stand out is essential in today's job market, where employers get 75 to 100 resumes for each job opening. The job market, especially the last four years, is about as difficult a market as Sullivan remembers in his 25-year career.

"If you're company-hunting and doing research, you start to become a little more innovative and creative. When you're doing things in the job search that others are not doing, it gives people a competitive edge. These are the kinds of things we try to instill with our job-seeking clients."