“When I find myself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause & reflect.” -Mark Twain
This quote is powerful and every time I’m job hunting, I think back to Mr. Twain’s quote. What are the common tools the majority use when on zi hunt? 2 devices come to mind:
- Big company career pages-Microsoft, Google, Amazon, Facebook
- Huge job portals-Indeed, Monster, Glassdoor
Hence, I’ll go out on a limb and say these 2 are pretty weak.
They’re like the safety scissors and stapler of tools. Commonly used but not very powerful. Not that they don’t work…when used in mass to apply to hundreds of jobs, I’m sure they do. But time is valuable and most don’t have time to meticulously tweak 100 resumes & cover letters, to the tune of hearing back from only 10.
Don’t believe me? Do you still stand by these tools as your bread n butter?
I once watched a recruiter sift through resumes and was blown away at how quick they were to judge and move on. She spent no more than 10 seconds per resume and then hit the NEXT button, drilling through 109 (not an exaggeration, I counted) in an hour. She even had time to stop and talk through what she’s looking for (key words related to the position) and how she couldn’t help but linger when her and the applicant shared some things in common (they went to University of Florida, played soccer in college, spoke Croatian, etc.). Simply put, big companies career pages and mass job portals are all not an effective use of your time.
Don’t bank on them. Instead, find better tools.
But what are they? What are the “hammers & screw drivers of job hunting?” There are 3 tools that can give you serious edge and impact in your search:
- LinkedIn-Jobs & Find Alumni
- Canva-resume & letterhead designs
- Moo-business cards
You don’t know how powerful of a tool LinkedIn is until you play around with the Jobs tab or discover Find Alumni. The Jobs tab comes under the radar and on-the-surface looks like a Monster or Indeed. But as they say, “the devil is in the details”…per job posted, it tells you 1) any connections that work there, or 2) if anyone who previously worked at your current job is there now. Then, if you have the chutzpah (and finesse), reach out to these people and ask for a connection. Too easy.
As for Find Alumni, this page takes you to an all-powerful pivot table of alumni who went to your university. Here you can find alumni who work in any area of expertise, something very powerful if once again you have the gall to reach out and ask for a connection. For example, I could apply to the pivots of “Greater Seattle Area,” “Marketing” as what they do, “Strategy” as what they’re skilled at, and I get 5 1st connections and 304 2nd connections that share these details. Not bad.
You could then skim those connections, target companies you’re excited about, and reach out. Boom, you’re in.
Canva is the world’s most user-friendly graphic design tool. From a huge collection of quality, modern resume & letterhead (cover letter) templates, you’re able to pick your style and simply paste in your content. After that, you can tweak small things and easily change colors, font sizes, text positions, and other details that are hard to have control over in Word. Although it leans towards appealing to professionals applying to marketing roles, I argue it has clout and worth for a position in any field. If someone laid out 30 resumes on a table and had to pick 3, why not have yours stand out with it’s unique but subtle aesthetic appeal?
Business cards are a mark of someone who’s ambitious and 1) goes that extra step to think ahead and 2) knows to forever build their network. Moo is more than a business card website, it’s a personal brand portal. Like Canva, you get to choose from 500+ well-designed templates and then tailor the details to your liking. For $20, you get to pick the style, colors, font, images, even card thickness that best represent you and then press it into 50 beauitful cards. Instead of being a flimsy card that gets tattered & forgotten in your wallet, Moo is giving business cards a more bad ass reputation.
But how are you suppose to leverage these tools? What’s the best strategy? Delve into this post to find out.
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Assignment for this week was to apply to 3 jobs. I’ve applied to 2 jobs and will apply to another this weekend: a Presenter role at Prowess Consulting and a Customer Service Lead role at Glowforge. Yes both slightly off from the typical roles I’ve sought out but both intrigued me. The Presenter role was all about public speaking (i.e. storytelling) and Glowforge is the 1st American company to sell an affordable, 3D printer.
~JK