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THE
CAREER DOCTOR
MAKE
THEM SIT UP AND NOTICE
THAT
YOU ARE THE GOOD HIRE
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To
successfully promote yourself in today's marketplace,
you must learn to step outside of your immediate viewpoint
and think like the person who will be evaluating you.
Trying
to define yourself is like trying to bite your
own teeth.
Alan
Watts
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The
vast majority of job-hunters assemble some sort of written
representation of themselves (Curriculum Vitae,
letter, application form or a combination of the three),
lick the stamp, pop it in the post box and really have
little or no idea what happens next. I regularly meet
clients who could wallpaper their entire house with rejection
letters but dont realise why they arent getting
past this difficult first hurdle.
The
most successful job-hunters, the ones who make the whole
process seem enviably easy, have learnt one vital skill.
They dont think like job-hunters - they think like
recruiters. They recognise the process of hiring people
for what it is: a time-consuming, enormously expensive
purchasing decision; and they go about the task of selling
themselves with that thought constantly in mind.
Two
adages from the advertising geniuses on Madison Avenue
for you to consider as you approach the market:
Always
remember that you are unique, just like everyone
else.
If
I can see the world through John Smiths
eyes, I can sell John Smith what John Smith
buys.
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To successfully promote yourself in todays marketplace,
you must learn to step outside of your immediate viewpoint
and think like the person who will be evaluating you.
OK, so what are that persons primary concerns?
The
attributes exhibited by these near-mythical Good Hires
are actually fairly basic stuff. Good Hires:
It
doesnt sound like a lot to ask, does it? But Good
Hires are very elusive and tricky beasts, as any interviewer
will tell you. Before applying for any job, you need to
look at yourself in the cold light of day and ask, Am
I a Good Hire for this position?
If
you are not, dont apply. Full stop. Save yourself
time, effort and heartache and DONT APPLY. Clients
frequently take exception to my saying this and ask, Oh
come on! Whats the worst thing that could happen?
Well,
the worst thing that could happen is that they could HIRE
YOU! They could hire you to do a job that you
wont enjoy, arent suited to and wont
be any good at. You could be looking over your shoulder
for the (probably short) duration of your stay with this
organisation wondering when they are going to realise
their mistake
If
however, you believe that you are a Good Hire for a job
that genuinely excites you, you need to enter the Twilight
Zone and put yourself in the recruiters shoes for
a moment and understand what they are thinking when they
see your CV for the first time. (Cue cheesy special effects
)
A
position needs to be filled in your organisation. Whether
the position is newly-created or filling a vacancy due
to promotion, retirement or departure, it is your task
to find the best person for the job. You assemble a job
description and discuss specific experiential or educational
requirements with the line manager. You then compose a
recruitment advertisement, place it in an august publication
such as this and wait to see what sort of response comes
back.
Typically,
the response consists of a big (sometimes huge) pile of
Curricula Vitae, most of which assure you that
the applicant is the perfect person for
the job. This pile can be ten, fifty, a hundred or five
hundred résumés high and it is your job
to find the golden needle in this haystack of paper.
Recruiters
use a filtering process to beat the pile of paper down
to more manageable proportions and sift through all of
the applications once. Very quickly. Skilful recruiters
will give each application a maximum of thirty seconds
of their time on this first pass.
As
they whiz through the pile, they are comparing each document
against the check-list of requirements for the ideal candidate
- education, training, personal attributes and professional
experience. Applicants who do not score highly against
this check-list are immediately binned, the rest are divided
into the 'Possible' pile and the 'Likely' pile. The Likely
pile consists of the applications which are a very close
match to the requirement list and this pile usually forms
the basis of the all-important 'Short List.'
On
the second pass, the recruiter will whittle down the Possible
pile, critically evaluating each applicant against the
standards set by the Likely pile and their own mental
check-list. What is left is the Short List, which may
or may not require further trimming. (Special effects
abruptly end.)
Thirty
seconds for the first pass? I hear you sputtering.
Thats outrageous! How can you possibly evaluate
someones entire professional existence in thirty
seconds?
Harsh,
isnt it? But excellent candidates can and do make
their pitch on paper in that sort of time-frame. Advertisers
do it with products ranging from ice cream to cars every
day. All of those clever little vignettes that clutter
up our television screens four times an hour are thirty
seconds long. We are living in the era of the sound bite
and faced with the information overload, we have all developed
these filtering processes.
A
media study traced the average length of airtime assigned
to presidential candidates on American television news.
In 1960, when Kennedy went up against Nixon, each candidate
was given a little over two minutes to make their point.
By the time Clinton was up against Bush in 1992, the candidates
averaged just six seconds on screen during the main evening
news bulletin. Six seconds! About enough time for one
juicy sound bite. Just look at the minuscule amount of
television news time granted to Bush and Gore to discuss
issues last time around.
If
the most powerful nation on Earth thinks it can choose
its leader on the basis of that sort of brevity, count
yourself lucky that you are getting thirty seconds and
think very carefully about every word you decide to include
or omit in your CV. The best guideline on this is to read
each sentence in your CV from a potential employers
perspective and apply the rule of, SO WHAT?
If you cannot adequately answer the so what?
for any item that appears on your CV, delete it.
If
you cant explain it simply, you dont
understand it well enough.
Albert
Einstein
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Rowan
Manahan is Managing Director of Fortify
Services, a Dublin-based outplacement and career management
firm.
Original
article here.