How to Make Sure You’re Super Easy to Hire
Being a smart, capable person with plenty of experience puts you in a position to land your dream job. It doesn’t seal the deal, however. To do that, you must be an attractive candidate who can dazzle interviewers and stand out to hiring managers. In essence, you want to make it very hard for a potential employer to turn you down. Here’s how to make yourself easy to hire.
Don’t Look Like an Idiot Online
You can do everything right but still get tripped up by some bad internet optics. You need to engage in some ego surfing, which involves searching your name on various online platforms to see what pops up — that’s what employers will see. In fact, 93 percent of employers are checking your social media accounts during the hiring process. It’s good to have some sort of a social media presence, but you need to make sure it’s mostly private and that the public aspects are squeaky clean. Doing this to your Facebook page, for instance, is very easy.
Learn How to Craft a Solid Cover Letter
Sure, having a solid resume is the most important part of the pre-interview hiring process, but resumes have limitations. For one, they don’t allow for a lot of specifics. They don’t let you sell yourself — a resume must speak for itself. This is why a carefully crafted and job-specific cover letter can help you stand out. Introduce yourself, be specific about your accomplishments, and tell your potential employer exactly why you are the best candidate for the job.
Know How to Ace Any Interview, No Matter Its Style
Job interviews come in all shapes and sizes. There are phone and in-person interviews. There are group and one-on-one interviews. There are interviews where the interviewer asks typical questions and wants a classic response. There are interviews that are more casual, or ones that are wacky with curveball questions. The point is you can’t really plan for the interviewer or their style — what you have to plan for is how you’ll comport yourself regardless.
The key is extensive preparation. You must practice with a friend. You must study standard questions and have as many responses rehearsed as possible. You must dress to impress. You must know a lot about the company and exactly what you want to achieve in your hypothetical position there. The more you prepare, the less stressed-out you’ll be during the interview, and that will come off as impressive and confident.
Have Something Extra to Offer
You may be applying for a specific type of job and think that the fact that you have years of stellar work in the exact same field means you are a shoo-in. What you fail to realize is that one-to-one translation from job A at company A and job A at company B doesn’t always work — and you won’t be alone in having a nice A-to-A job translation. You should be able to offer something extra if you want to stand out. There are a lot of options here, but you may have to dedicate yourself to learning/honing one of them right away:
- Technical/computer experience (coding, programming, graphic design, etc.)
- Speaking another language
- Continued learning (you’re currently furthering your education)
- Creative outlets
- You blog about your field
- Cross-professionalism (you also studied/worked in law before applying for your finance position)
Don’t forget to include your soft skills as well.
Very few people have a unique dream job, so chances are the dream job you’re applying for is someone else’s dream job too. Being a talented, experienced candidate isn’t enough. You have to sweat the small stuff because the small stuff is where you inch ahead of other applicants. Think about how a hiring manager sees you. Are you easy to forget or are you easy to hire?
About the author Eva Benoit;
Eva created evabenoit.com to help professionals navigate the stress and anxiety that tend to accompany work. Her goal is to help others find balance, peace and overall well-being.