The Shift In Your Marketing Message #JobSearch

The Shift In Your Marketing Message #JobSearch As a hiring manager I look for two very important things. It is your job to communicate the right message for both of these, but not necessarily at the same time. The first thing I need to know is that you are technically competent for the job. Whether you are a mechanic or a programmer or a teacher or a whatever, I need to know that you can do the job. I need to know you have a minimum breadth and depth of experience and skills. You can communicate that with stats and stories. This is done on a resume and LinkedIn Profile and anywhere else. A super powerful tool is a blog (or Medium articles, or even LinkedIn articles), or perhaps a portfolio. You use the right language (jargon) and can talk about things at a technical level. There comes a point in my evaluation of candidates (aka, job seekers) that I assume that everyone Ive whittled it down to has the right abilities to do the job. This next thing is the deal breaker. By this point Im not wondering about whether you can the job or not I have something more important to decide: will you fit into my team? Understanding that I have three or four or ten or more candidates in front of me, all of which can actually do the job I need to fill, the most important thing becomes which one will be the best hire? Which will fit into my team and culture without disrupting it (I dont want jerks, and I dont want a bull in the china closet)? Which hire will make me look good with my colleagues and bosses? Im not saying that I disregard technical abilities at this point but Im keenly sensitive to picking someone that Im going to want to be around for 8+ hours a day for the next few years. How in the world do you communicate that? Its not all about enthusiasm. And extroverts dont necessarily have the upper hand. Communicating that you will fit in well can be done through stories, of course. Share, for example, a time when you had a very challenging task or project that could have exploded/imploded and how the team pulled together (and your role in that). Show you will fit in by your choice  of language, and the way you treat people (interview at a restaurant? Be cool and kind to the servers!). Recognize that every single thing you do, that I or my team can observe, is part of the interview: how you walk in, how you treat people at the front desk, what you do in the waiting area, etc. So there you go you have two important things to communicate: one is that you can do the job, the other is that I will want you to be on my team!   Work on your communication so I can know that you are the right person to hire! The Shift In Your Marketing Message #JobSearch As a hiring manager I look for two very important things. It is your job to communicate the right message for both of these, but not necessarily at the same time. The first thing I need to know is that you are technically competent for the job. Whether you are a mechanic or a programmer or a teacher or a whatever, I need to know that you can do the job. I need to know you have a minimum breadth and depth of experience and skills. You can communicate that with stats and stories. This is done on a resume and LinkedIn Profile and anywhere else. A super powerful tool is a blog (or Medium articles, or even LinkedIn articles), or perhaps a portfolio. You use the right language (jargon) and can talk about things at a technical level. There comes a point in my evaluation of candidates (aka, job seekers) that I assume that everyone Ive whittled it down to has the right abilities to do the job. This next thing is the deal breaker. By this point Im not wondering about whether you can the job or not I have something more important to decide: will you fit into my team? Understanding that I have three or four or ten or more candidates in front of me, all of which can actually do the job I need to fill, the most important thing becomes which one will be the best hire? Which will fit into my team and culture without disrupting it (I dont want jerks, and I dont want a bull in the china closet)? Which hire will make me look good with my colleagues and bosses? Im not saying that I disregard technical abilities at this point but Im keenly sensitive to picking someone that Im going to want to be around for 8+ hours a day for the next few years. How in the world do you communicate that? Its not all about enthusiasm. And extroverts dont necessarily have the upper hand. Communicating that you will fit in well can be done through stories, of course. Share, for example, a time when you had a very challenging task or project that could have exploded/imploded and how the team pulled together (and your role in that). Show you will fit in by your choice  of language, and the way you treat people (interview at a restaurant? Be cool and kind to the servers!). Recognize that every single thing you do, that I or my team can observe, is part of the interview: how you walk in, how you treat people at the front desk, what you do in the waiting area, etc. So there you go you have two important things to communicate: one is that you can do the job, the other is that I will want you to be on my team!   Work on your communication so I can know that you are the right person to hire!