Four Little Ways Job Seekers Can Set Themselves Apart ~ By Christina
It’s no secret that its a tight job market right now and there are a significant number of applicants for each and every job. As a job seeker you have to find ways to set yourself apart from the others.
Here are a few tips:
#1: Read the posting carefully and follow the instructions. If a posting asks you to title the subject of your email in a certain way: Do it. If the posting asks that you submit a covering letter: Do it. If the posting asks that you apply for the job by emailing a recruiter: Do it (aka: don’t email the company directly because you think it sets you apart; it sets you apart in the wrong way as we’re left wondering if this applicant is capable of following instructions.) Make it easy on the hiring team by following the postings requests. They’ve asked because it helps in their process, so help them out by following along.
#2: Your resume: Name it, Combine it and PDF it. Firstly, please, please think about the file name of your resume. If we have 50 applicants for one Account Manager role and all the resumes are called “Account Manager” it’s incredibly difficult to keep them organized. Including your own personal name within the file name helps us make a stronger association between the resume and the person. Secondly, please put your Resume and Covering Letter in one document. There are exactly zero reasons to keep them separate and it looks much cleaner from an administrative perspective. Lastly, converting your application documents into a PDF file is strongly recommended. It helps to ensure they don’t get modified in any way and that the formatting you’ve worked so hard to craft stays looking beautiful.
#3: Do your research. If you take zero minutes to poke around the website, I can tell. If you take any number of minutes to poke around the website of the company, I can tell. The interest you have in a job truly shows and if you actually want the job you are applying for take a couple of minutes to review the organization and then work that into your resume or covering letter. See a similar project? Be sure to mention it. Have similar values? Let us know. Does accepting the role require a move? Tell us why you’d like to live and work there. The energy you put in a resume is evident and reflective of the energy you might put into the job itself.
#4: Say Thank you. I recently interviewed 22 people for a role and received exactly one thank you email. When I started in this business 20+ years ago it was standard practice to receive a handwritten thank you card in the mail, that was slowly replaced by emails (and so it should… save the trees and all…) but now we just don’t hear from a candidate at all. Crafting a two minute thank you email that reiterates your interest in the role and thanks the interviewer for their time buys you serious brownie points. Emailing a thank you shows character and who doesn’t want to work with someone who is polite and thoughtful? I certainly do!
I know that job hunting is tough – probably one of the toughest jobs out there. These few small things don’t take much energy or effort but they certainly help you to rise above your competition. Because at the end of the day, employers want to hire people that they actually want to work with. It isn’t just about the experience you’ve had – it’s also about the person you are.