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How to get a job in this market

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Happy April and start of Q2. I often consider Q2 the real start of the year once plans, budgets, and people’s acts are finally together. Wishing you well this week!

I just completed the hiring process to bring a marketing campaigns lead onto my team (yay!).

It’s an unreal job market. You likely don’t need me to tell you that 🫠

Today, I wanted to share a few tips & thoughts having completed both sides of it in the last four months. I applied to dozens of jobs myself and had 2,200+ people apply for the job I was hiring.

Here are my top five areas to bring into your job search.

You are amazing

This is the first and most important thought. No doubt, it’s a rough market. It’s easy to get discouraged after applying all over. If you get rejected it’s not because you’re a bad person or a crummy professional. The hiring team is probably looking for a specific person with a specific background. It’s unlikely you’ll ever know exactly what that is. I spoke to amazing candidates who were great marketers but were missing a core piece of specific experience. Keep your head up. You are great! The right role is out there.

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Get your foot in the door

It’s easier to hire somebody you know and trust rather than taking a chance on an unknown. Do what you can to get into the circle of the company and hiring manager.

• Network - Even if you’re not actively looking, tend to your network. You’ll need them.
• Find connections - LinkedIn makes it easy to see people you know or can know through degrees of separation. Ask a contact to intro you to somebody at the company. See if a past company or university alumni who works at your target company.
• Seek out the hiring manager - I received dozens of shoot-your-shot LinkedIn messages and emails over the last month. While I couldn’t respond to each one, I made it a point to look at every LinkedIn profile of people who reached out. I also flagged a few for my recruiting partner to screen because they stood out. It won't work every time but it’s a way to stand out when the stack of resumes is 2,000 high.

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Make your resume stand out

There’s no shortage of resume tips out there. Here are a few of the top resume opportunity areas I observed:

• KPIs - The success metrics you are responsible for driving in your role should be apparent.
• Successes - Related, did you achieve the metrics? Surpass them? By what percentage? This is the stuff hiring teams care about.
• What did you work on – specifically - The people I interviewed all had more or less the same job responsibilities. I assume you can do most of them if you’ve reached a certain level. What I can’t assume is the specific projects and results you drove. Specific examples > Conceptual responsibilities.

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Win the early rounds

• Nail your story - The first interview question will almost always ask you to share about yourself. Spend time crafting this narrative specific to the role. How has your past experience set you up for this role? What headlines should the interviewer know about you? What are you interested in the role/company? Resist the urge to paraphrase your resume.

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Close the deal

• Tell a complete story - Think about what you haven’t shared in the early rounds that would complete your story. The hiring team is going to identify gaps about you through early rounds. (This doesn’t mean you’re not a good candidate. It means they want to hire the best person.) Try and predict what those might be and shape examples around those.

It’s tough out there. Have patience. Give yourself grace. Focus on applying to a handful of places really well vs. applying to every place that pops into your recommended jobs on LinkedIn. Good luck ♥️
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Grant Gurewitz Full-time corporate type and School of Logging Off Founder

Good vibes only ✌️

Working hard or hardly working? Doesn't matter. Step into nature for a brief moment of awe to escape the crazy at work 😵‍💫