Love this Lauren! Especially the template you use. If you already have a website @fighto (Paul Shapiro) did a nice post on hacking the job search, applying for a job is a full time job these days :D.
You’ve sent 82,493,943 resumes, which you had reviewed by 34,989,358 experts, and yet crickets - not so much as even an automated rejection letter.
SERIOUSLY, WTF!?
Yes, I know that’s what you’re thinking because I receive the emails from depleted and confused job seekers all day, every day; not to mention, I was one not too long ago.
Bookmark this post, and visit it before you click apply and send in that next application.
Follow my advice, and I promise you will get a reply back, at the very least, and at the very most, a new job you enjoy.
Here’s how to correctly apply to a job.
The first question I get from job seekers is: Can you review my resume?
And my answer is always: Can you send me a couple links to jobs you want to apply to?
Your resume should be tailored to every specific job you apply for - only, of course, if you actually care about hearing back from the job in question.
For example, let’s say I want this job: “Digital Marketing Manager” at GeekHive (screenshot below).
First, I would copy and paste the entire job description into a Google Doc, and utilize the Rich Text Editor (RTF) like it’s my job.
Click on the above hyperlink to see how I marked it up, read my comments and mirror my approach for your own dream job.
So after I marked up my job description, I’d upload my current resume to Google Docs.
Assuming your resume is pretty decent, quantifies “results” and drops recognizable names, then I’d begin copying and pasting bullet points from my resume to any and all of the highlighted and/or bold text in the comments section of the marked-up job description.
There are two types of resumes: Functional resumes and chronological resumes.
I prefer functional resumes, which are organized by skill, because I’ve been a contractor for a long time, and it’s the easiest way to highlight my experience.
Since GeekHive consistently mentions that they want someone with “social media,” “content creation” and “brand management” experience, I would choose those three skills to focus on in my one-page resume or, what I prefer to call a “one-pager” on me.
Next, I’d go to LinkedIn, and search for “GeekHive” since I already used Email Hunter and had no luck finding any email addresses.
I’d do some research on LinkedIn, and try to make an educated guess of the best person to reach out to or address in my email message via the application.
To be honest, this case is a rarity, meaning it’s posing really difficult to find the right person to target so therefore, I’d just start my application cover letter with something like:
Hola!
or
Hey there!
or
Hola! Happy to have your attention if only for a brief moment.
or
Any attention-getting lede.
(Remember, they want someone who's witty and fun and who has proven experience)
How can I present myself as all these things in the shortest amount of words, I’d ask myself.
Here’s what I came up with.
Hola!
Happy to have your attention if only for a brief moment.
Read all the job requirements. It seems like you really need someone, who has tangible results with inbound marketing - from ideation to creation and execution.
Here’s some numbers from my last blog post [insert link], which cost me ~2 days to create. My CAC was $0. Here’s how I broke this down.
In one week, this one blog post resulted in 104k organic views, 425 new sign-ups for XYZ company, 9 new blog subscribers, 16 paying customers, 22 contact us forms completed and 617 survey completions.
Yes, those are real results, and I’ve got the Analytics to prove it. Oh, and did I mention, I’m pretty funny - even when I don’t try to be?
Can you say #Winning?!
Either way, good or bad, I’d love to hear back from you.
Lauren =)[insert link 1]
[insert link 2]
[insert link 3]
That, my friends, is how you apply to a job like you want it. Ready, set, apply (of course, only after you do steps 1-4).
Ed Fry
Inbound.org original
Copying what @highonseo (Matt Antonino) said the other day in a post... This is water! Essential reading for anyone applying for anything. Hope this can be helpful for people on the jobs board!
Awesome Post!
I loved that thing where you highlighted all the points they mentioned. It is nice to read what they actually requires & you can be prepared to answer that stuff if you are not funny :)
Researching the companies efforts which fall under the responsibilities of the future job, gave me mostly a kickstart in compare to competition.
For example if it is a content marketing related position you can always check the top grossing content of the company on Ahrefs, or check buzzsumo for the companies website and see what comes out. In most cases you can propose 1 or 2 things which can be done better in the future, since this is the reason you will get this job - You can do it better :)
Loved this. A perfect way to sell ourselves. Yes of course I will keep in mind all the things you have mentioned here before applying for a job. And now I could guess how difficult it is for an employer to screen the resumes, if they are not represented perfectly.
This is very very helpful. I'm going to bookmark this for future reference.
Thanks alot :)
I don't generally apply for jobs, but I use the same approach to apply to publications. I track down the person. I stalk the person on social media to gauge whether they have a sense of humor. Then I send them an email that looks very much like yours. Each one is different and personal, but one I sent recently included:
[name], I'm a well published author with a lot of marketing/SMB articles under my belt, and I'm dying (well, not literally) to write for [blog].
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