How To Get A Job
PREFACE
PREFACE
Many people are losing their jobs right now.
Many people still need income and might be starting out in a new industry or field.
The following is an accumulation of emails and messages I’ve been sending to colleagues over the last few weeks. I just assembled them in an essay that is hopefully helpful.
Please tag someone who needs to read it or who is a super-connector and can put it in front of those who need it.
I could use more help and perspective, so if you are an HR or Hiring Manager, please consider scrolling to the bottom where I’ve included a link to the working Google Doc and adding your comments to it.
I would love to add you as an author.
Start Here If You Were Laid Off
What an important lesson you just learned.
There is no such thing as loyalty in business. I know that sucks. I know that hurts. I know that’s going to take some time to accept and move past.
Until then, let’s burn this feeling in your brain because no one can promise that it won’t happen again.
The first action you’re going to want to take is registering for unemployment. You likely qualify and you may need some specific information from your employer, so make sure you have someone in the HR department who will remain behind so you can reach out to them when needed.
Here’s a link to your starting point:
https://www.usa.gov/unemployment
Once you’ve initiated this, you can move on to the next section, here.
Start Here If You Were Fired
Typically, there are two types of people who get fired.
There are people who knew it was coming, their performance wasn’t good, they had gotten feedback, and either nothing improved or nothing improved enough.
And there are people who had no idea, the reckoning is a total shock to the system, and they are left shaking their heads and looking back to figure out what went wrong. They feel like there was no writing on the wall.
Which one are you?
If you saw it coming, the first thing you’re going to have to do is retrospect deeply. If you don’t know what else you could have done to improve, consider asking your employer for a shortlist. Most people are happy to give feedback that they think might be used.
If you still can’t see what else you could have done better, consider reaching out to an old employer or colleague and ask what your biggest strengths and weaknesses are. If you think these folks might sugar coat it or won’t “give it to you straight,” consider creating a Google Form where they can submit these responses anonymously.
Don’t cheat. Cheating is asking your mom or your neighbor. You’re cheating if you are asking anyone who is biased or who hasn’t actually worked alongside you to experience your shortcomings day-in and day-out.
It’ll be up to you to come to terms with the responses.
If you are the second person in this example, we need to evaluate if feedback was ever given. To be brutally honest with you, chances are it was. Chances are, the feedback was given multiple times but you just missed it.
If you don’t have any emails, voicemails, text messages, slack messages, or ANY other documentation of feedback on performance, then you need to look at your contract. If you’re an “at-will” employee, or if the contract says you can be fired for any reason or no reason, you’re out of luck. They just didn’t give you a fair chance. If not, they actually might be liable. Most W2 relationships require documentation of repeated poor performance before termination.
If you weren’t terminated but your position/role/job function was terminated, please see the section above about being laid off.
Start Here If You Just Want A New Job
It doesn’t matter why — you just know you would rather be doing something else.
I want to make a really important point about looking for a new job, immediately.
You are not entitled to the job you want because you want it or because you think you are qualified. You are also not entitled to the salary you want even if you’re qualified or have earned that salary before.
I’m sure this is pretty upsetting to hear so let me explain.
You’re going to need to find a job that:
Pays for your life(style).
Allows you to develop professionally.
Is fun or aligned with your mission.
Yes, I know that number 3 could be split up further, but that’s not important. Right now we’re just focused on these 3 as they’re grouped.
Before you can do anything you want, you need to do what you have to do to survive. Once you do that, you’ll have the bandwidth and resources to figure out how to find the next thing that will benefit you, your career and your personal life.
There’s this weird belief out in the workplace that if you work hard, stick out the hard times, take a lower salary now because you’ll get paid more later, and stay with the company long enough, someone will notice and reward you.
This is going to hurt. Hold onto the lap bar for this.
When it comes down to it, no one cares. Employers may tell you they do, and they might actually believe they do! The only trouble is that when we face an economic crisis or a dramatic disruption in the market, they will have no choice but to save themselves. Sorry. No 20-year recognition speech. No 10-year gold watch. No 5-year trophy. It’s you or them.
For this reason, you must be disloyal in the market. You must put your own best interests first and consider the actual risk you’re taking when you sign on.
Going back to the prioritized list of 3, above.
You have 2 options in priority number 1. You can either make more money or spend less money. That’s it. What are you willing to do?
Even if you’re willing to take a lower-paying salary, will you be living paycheck to paycheck? Will this allow you to have an emergency fund to protect you and your family if everything goes sideways?
Is that a risk you’re willing to take?
You might say “yes” until you’re actually faced with the reality of a situation like the outbreak of Covid-19. Many people were happy to make personal sacrifices because an emergency state seemed so unlikely.
I want to make an important distinction here.
Just because the risk is low, doesn’t mean the stakes are also low.
Many people would agree that the risk of a pandemic seemed low — but that has nothing to do with what’s at stake. You must separate these two ideas and scrutinize each when making career decisions.
Once you have a job that pays you to exist safely, you can carve out time to find a job that affords you the same safety but also provides more opportunity to develop core, transferable, professional skills that are applicable across industries and will help you build a diverse and strong skill base.
We’ll talk more about transferable skills later.
Once you have a job that pays you to exist safely and also affords you the opportunity to develop professionally, you’ll then have the bandwidth and work experience to go after a job that is also fun or is aligned with what kind of work you want to do.
It’s in this order that you’ll get where you want to go.
Skipping a step is possible but unlikely.
Next, let’s talk about the mechanics of actually getting a job.
How To Get A Job
Where To Focus
“Not having a job is a full-time job.”
— Martin Yate, Knock ’em Dead
You will need to monitor your time and energy carefully to get where you’re going in a timely way. There are all kinds of hurdles you don’t know about, either. Like the saturation of the employment market, the market value of your skills and experience, and how long it’s going to take to move through your professional network.
You can apply online, email people you want to work with and work for hours on your resume — but none of those things will likely matter much in the end.
Usually, people find a job via a referral in their network. This is why having a robust network is so important.
So, step 1 is not updating LinkedIn or your resume.
Step 1 is writing a short blurb about what you do and what you’re looking for, sending it to folks in your network, and asking them to forward it to 3 people in their universe.
Get the ball rolling immediately.
Stop reading right now and do that.
Then come back and finish reading this.
Understand The Hiring Manager
The person reading your cover letter and resume has their own life experiences, beliefs, and skills that they value. They are flawed and so are you. It’s impossible to read a cover letter without having biases based on these experiences and worldviews, so I suggest you do your best to consider who your reader is and do your best to empathize.
If you’re applying for a new role and you really have no idea what your candidate employer is looking for (and they’ve somehow left this critical information out of the job description), I suggest you call their HR team immediately and ask for an “informational interview.”
This is your opportunity to say “Hi, I’m new to the industry and fell in love with your company. I would love to learn more about what kind of person succeeds in a role and in an organization like yours. Do you have a minute to talk?”
This is what an HR person gets paid to do. They will say yes and give you amazing intel on the characteristics and traits you’re seeking if you ask good questions.
If they say “no,” then they are either too foolish to realize what a badass you are or they are legitimately experiencing an emergency where they must triage their tasks carefully. Either way, you should be glad you didn’t talk to them — it would have been a waste of time.
Once you understand what the hiring manager is looking for, you can evaluate if you are a good fit and you can begin to prove why you are the employee they’ve been looking for.
And they’ve probably been looking.
I’ve been on the side of the desk with 200 resumes. It’s not fun. You’re looking at every single boring resume identical to the last, reading as each candidate spills their guts and presents their best cases for choosing them. Meanwhile, every single time I pick up a new resume I think to myself “Oh, please, Lord Jesus, let this be the one.” I’m reading each cover letter, projecting my hopes and dreams onto each candidate, trying to see the future that might be.
The point here is two-fold. You need to stand out in a way that your hiring manager finds valuable and the bar is usually very low for standing out.
Read the sections below on writing a cover letter and resume and find out how to stand out from the pack and resonate with your hiring manager.
How To Write A Cover Letter
A good hiring manager knows exactly what they’re looking for. If you try to stretch the truth, it will come out in the interview. I promise.
Think about the cover letter as the first chance you have at really getting your hiring manager’s focused attention. They’re not looking at emails, they’re not distracted in a meeting, they are probably reading a stack of cover letters and resumes and are focused completely on you.
Pressure’s on!
The first thing you should do is outline a framework for your story. This is your chance to captivate and win someone’s heart. You cannot afford to have your best foot forward be “proficient in Microsoft Office Suite” or “10 years of experience” or “well-respected in the field.”
You will win someone’s heart with honesty, clarity, and PROOF.
Use The AIDA Framework
Here’s a writing framework I use called AIDA. It’s common in sales and marketing, which is what a cover letter is.
AIDA stands for:
Attention
Interest
Desire
Action
Here is a link to my “Swipe” file.
Any good copywriter will have a “Swipe” file, where they keep snippets of sales letters, full-blown ad copy, or any other writings they found useful over their career. Use this directory freely. Steal what you want. It’s for you.
This framework is just an outline for a story that walks the reader through a few specific emotions I want them to have.
First, it’s hard to get someone’s attention so a big statement is helpful in the first 5 seconds of the letter. A good way to think about your first paragraph is “the point of the first line is to get them to read the second line. The point of the second line is to get them to read the second line. The point of the third line . . .” ad infinitum. This helps you build the next bullet in the list, reader interest.
One way to do this quickly and clearly is by using a Unique Positioning Statement. A UPS is a framework that consultants use to quickly communicate who they are, what they do, and what you can expect if you hire them. It’s a loud and crowded market so being concise and clear is mandatory for success.
In sales, this same idea is called a Unique Selling Proposition. It tells customers why they should buy that product or service over all the others competing with it in an equally loud and crowded market.
Unique Positioning Statement
“I’m a ____ who helps ___ to ____ . Unlike most ___, I use ___ to make it happen.”
Please take this idea and modify it for your use. You may be a consultant, you may not. Whoever you are, you need to communicate who you are, what you do, who you help, and how you get results.
The second part, Interest, is to create a general sense that I am not only capable of doing the job but that I share and exhibit the values of the company. This might be the reader’s interest in the candidate but it also means the reader’s interest in continuing to read. Telling stories or highlighting pain points are usually the best ways to do this.
If you don’t know what I mean, you’re not paying attention. You’ve seen this already. Remember those late-night infomercials? You know the part where they say “do you have bad breath?” “Do you wish you could talk to people freely without worrying about how others perceive you?” “Do you want to live a confident life, free of self-doubt?”
That’s “interest.” That’s the hook!
See? You know this framework already! You’ve seen it a thousand times!
The third part, Desire, is to galvanize your story in facts or statements. Your job here is to paint the picture of the promised land. Point out where you can fit into the organization and the kinds of changes you’ll be able to make based on the body of evidence you’ve presented. This is where you make assertions and draw connections between their needs and what you can provide.
The last part, Action, is an inarguably clear statement of what needs to happen next. This is often one line that says “call now” or “email me at . . .”
This is a pretty quick step compared to the others, but it’s important. Make sure you’re not only including a clear call to action in the cover letter but also in the email.
Example of a BAD call to action: “Let me know what you think.”
Example of a GOOD call to action: “Please call me at xxxxx this week so I can answer any further questions about my candidacy.”
Your cover letter needs to be as long or as short as it needs to be.
“If I’d had more time, I’d have written a shorter letter.”
- Twain? Churchill? Someone.
If your letter is good enough and aligned enough, they will read it.
It’s An Interview For Them AND For You
This is an opportunity for the employer to “drop out.” If they don’t like you, it’s better that they say “no” now, instead of later when you’ve schlepped all the way there for an interview. The point of the letter is to weed out people who are not the right fit and to validate those who are the right fit.
I need to remind you, here, that the story you write must be aligned with the values and worldview of the candidate employer and hiring manager.
It doesn’t matter how tenacious you are and how you don’t take no for an answer if my organization prizes vulnerability and respect.
If you don’t empathize with the reviewer and don’t parallel the values of the company, it won’t matter how amazing your cover letter is.
Make sense?
How To Write A Resume
This is not your story, that’s your cover letter. This is your highlight reel.
Every bullet has to show someone why you’re amazing, not just promise that you are.
Here’s a framework you can use to test if you have a good bullet:
“I did ___ which created ___ value for the company.”
Obviously, it won’t look or sound exactly like that, but you get the point. You want each bullet to be as specific and measurable as possible. Not everything will be like this, but you NEED to try using numbers to make your point. If you worked in customer service, dig up your ratings or Net Promoter Score.
Also, remember that nothing gets the attention of management like dollars. Use dollar values wherever possible.
I don’t care if you’ve used some software tools for 4 years. That says nothing about whether you’re good at it or not. Tell me that you used it to increase ROI by 25% and you have my attention. I’ll ask about the details of how you did it in the interview. That will be our chance to dive deeper into how you did it. Right now, I just want quick proof that you did it at all.
As an interviewer, I’ve used the resume as an outline for conversation in an interview. If these are the things you’re bragging about, these are the things I want to ask questions about.
At the top of your resume, you will want to put your best foot forward. Usually, this means highlighting the most important skills and experiences for the position.
This could also mean a short sentence that describes who you are and why you’re special. In consulting, this is called a Unique Positioning Statement. In sales, it’s called a Unique Selling Proposition.
See the section above about how to write a UPS.
Please, oh please, do NOT put a statement goal at the top of your resume like “Acquiring a job as XYZ at ABC company.” I know why you’re here. By writing that obvious statement, all you told me was that you like wasting valuable space on your 1-page resume.
Quick Time-Out & Reminder:
These are my opinions and they definitely don’t apply to all companies, cultures, and jobs. You are going to need to take this advice, along with all the other advice you’ve been given, and create what you think is best for the work you want to do and the company/culture for whom you want to work.
A Weird Trick To Networking In A New Place
Don’t worry about meeting all the right people first. That’s unlikely.
Meet with the people you know and work your way through their networks to the folks you want to know. This just takes time. 6 degrees from Kevin Bacon and all that.
Here’s an approach I’ve used with success.
Set up a meeting with a company or person who you want to work with.
This could be an informational interview about their company or it could also be a “hey, I’m new, can you help me connect to the right people?”
Many people are open to a 15-minute conversation to help!
Once you’ve got your meeting, tell your story, who you are, and what you do. Finally, ask the following question: “what is a smelly, ugly, nasty problem in your company that no one wants to deal with? Can I work on it for a day? Two days? A week? I’d like to first provide some value to you before I ask you for a favor.”
Most people can get behind this idea. While they might not have a low-risk project for you to start with, many people like this approach and are willing to help anyway.
You must be in a financial position where you can afford this, of course. So, it might mean picking up some hours driving for Uber if you don’t have some cash buffer to hold you over.
This approach is supercharged when paired with a super-connector.
A super-connector is that person who knows everyone.
Crush this opportunity and ask for a letter of recommendation. This will be a huge step in building trust in your new community. If a huge, well-known player in the space gives you a seal of approval, you can now bring that to your next meeting and say “look what I did.”
How To Interview
Let’s be honest, it’s impossible to actually know how good someone will perform on the job by only holding an interview.
My personal policy is one I stole from author and serial entrepreneur Seth Godin: “You can’t work for me until you’ve worked for me.”
This just means, before I hire you as a full-time W2, I will hire you as a 1099 contractor and give you a small, low-risk project. With a fixed scope, deadline, and budget, this is your chance to crush it. If you can’t do the work I thought you could (or that you said you could) then we can let the contract expire without renewal and we can both go our separate ways. No harm, no foul. Just move on.
Some people don’t interview well and would still crush the job on file.
Some people interview really well, but when you get them in the trenches, they run away from fires instead of toward them.
Also, consider that an employer does take on some liability when hiring you, so look out for variations of this “policy.” It’s actually a pretty good idea for you too, in most cases, since you get a chance to see the work culture and pace actually are and if they are for you. Just make sure they’re not using this as an excuse to underpay you. Your pay should be equivalent to what your compensation package would be (not just your salary).
It seems like most employers don’t do this, so you’ll likely be feeling the pressure of having to perform your total best in this interview.
Fine. Let’s get to it.
Even the best interviewer has biases. You can’t control them. You can’t avoid them. We’re going to just focus on what you can control.
Things Employers Are Looking For
Aptitude
This isn’t about what you’ve done, this is about the capacity you have to learn and run with your role. Aptitude just asks “are you capable of doing the work at the quality required?”
Attitude
Attitude asks, when faced with a challenge, does this candidate complain, sink into a hole, and do their job reluctantly? Or does this candidate see the challenge as an opportunity to grow, develop a new skill, or survive a new experience?
In its most basic sense, attitude asks “does this person add or subtract energy from the team?”
This can also be an early sign or correlate of leadership.
Cultural Fit
This is a hard one. For some reason, people think that culture is the ping-pong table, the Keurig, the snacks in the office kitchen, the 401(k) with employer match, or the nerf guns.
These are perks, not culture.
Culture asks “how will you treat each other when the work gets hard?”
Culture is about treating others with respect, treating your office environment with respect, and thinking about the greater good of the company.
Skillset
This is different from aptitude. This is literally “does this candidate know what to do when we hire them?” For many jobs, this might not be relevant. For some, it might be absolutely critical.
If you’re hiring a neurosurgeon, you’re going to hire someone who knows what the hell they’re doing–not someone who can learn on the job. If you’re hiring a general labor construction worker, they just need to be trainable.
There are two subsections of Skillset. They are specialized skills and core-transferable skills.
Specialized Skills
Specialized skills are the ones that apply only to your industry or maybe even your role. These are skills like using specific software or knowing a specific continuous improvement framework. Sometimes a company already knows they need to hire a Lean SixSigma Blackbelt. Sometimes they just need a project manager.
Core-Transferable Skills
Core-transferable skills are the ones you will use in most jobs regardless of industry. These are skills like Leadership, Communication, Technical, Problem-Solving, Decision-Making, Time Management, Receiving and Providing Feedback, and Work-Ethic.
What To Do In An Interview
Okay, let’s zoom back out again.
If you have a competent interviewer, they’re going to be evaluating characteristics like Aptitude, Attitude, Cultural Fit, and Skillset.
Your job in an interview is to answer questions about your resume in detail, discuss the story you outlined in your cover letter in greater detail, and ask good questions about the position you’re about to fill.
Many candidates forget this last step.
It’s an interview for you but it’s also an interview for them.
Interview Questions You Can Ask Them
Here are some important questions to consider asking in your interview when they say: “Do you have any questions for us?”
What happened to the last person who held this position? Were they removed or were they promoted?
What are the top things I’ll have done in the first 3, 6, and 9 months to completely blow you away?
What are your top worries about my ability to fill this role?
Do you see any weaknesses in my candidacy that I can address?
What are the traits and characteristics of someone who would succeed in this organization and role?
Is there a path upward from this position or would I be expected to create my own path?
What ways are you measuring employee performance? How will I be graded?
The Most Important Thing You Can Do In An Interview
This is going to sound so dumb and so cheesy but I don’t care, I believe it’s true.
The most important thing is to be yourself.
I don’t mean you should show up in pajamas. What I mean is that you should express your actual values and your authentic opinions and your genuine personality.
If who you are doesn’t resonate with your interviewer, it’s probably not a great fit and you can take solace in moving on. You’ll still feel the hurt of not being picked, but that will go away shortly because you’re going to get right back on the horse.
This post is a working document built to help those who may have been laid off or fired during the Covid-19 outbreak.
It’s a public document, so anyone can view and comment using this link:
PUBLIC GOOGLE DOC: “HOW TO GET A JOB.”
Constructive feedback and additions are welcome!
It’s everyone’s responsibility to help lift each other up.