Even though we are in tough economic times, there is still opportunities that can be taken advantage of. Particularly the value you bring to the labour market. If you are applying for jobs and going through the recruitment process at the moment, some ideas below could help. The main thing is gaining enough attention from the individuals involved from the hiring organisation. Such that they recognise your value and give you an initial interview. This necessitates that you package and sell yourself right from the very beginning. This begins with you resume, your cover letter. But those two things are not the end. Interview strategies and follow up in between recruitment milestones is something you can leverage to stand out and keep you at the top of mind for your hiring stakeholders. There are more tools available at your fingertips today to help you achieve this, now more than ever.

Typically the main recruitment milestones are as follows:

1. Preparing resume and applying to the position
   
   
2. Initial HR call
   
   
3. First Interview
   
   
4. Second Interview
   
   
5. Third Interview
   
   
6. Offer/Rejection
   
   Note: In between each milestone, there could be online or in person, behavioural or competency-based tests the organisation requires you to complete here. Each organisation is different. Some may require you to have one or two rounds of interviews only. Others may require more. This is just a rough guide only.

So what should you do if you are at the first milestone and preparing to apply for a position?

Firstly, to give you peace of mind that your resume and cover letter is in line with industry standards, google: Harvard masters resume template.
Follow the link and download Harvard University’s resume template and cover letter template. Pay attention to their conventions, formatting, and layout. If you stick to this, you will be in good stead.

Once you have a word document that has a skeleton structure based on the Harvard style, go through, and input your education, relevant work experience and relevant leadership experience. Normally have a maximum of five dot points under each experience.

Now that you have your basic resume filled out, you can now take into account the position description and position requirements of the job you are applying for. You should study the position description very carefully. You should also research the organisation. Go to their website. Find out what their values and mission are. Download their annual report or companies house report and look for what their strategy is for the future. What problems or issues have they experienced in the last few years? Look for relevant manager names. Look up these individuals on linkedin. Also, the company’s linked in profile. What have they been posting or commenting on recently?

This gives you a picture of the context that the organisation is operating in and will help you better answer any of their interview questions.

Once you have your education and experiences filled out. Look at the adjectives, verbs – essentially the explaining words that were used in the position description. Try to incorporate these into the descriptions of your experiences.
 
Don’t be hesitant to include volunteer experiences. As every volunteer experience has transferable skills that help you in the workplace. Same can be said for paid work experiences that may be part-time or in different industries. You should encourage yourself and use these transferable skills to make your candidacy unique in the eyes of the hiring organisation. No one else has your story or your experiences. Make sure you leverage this to help you stand out against other candidates.

You also need to make sure that your experiences are a fit for the role your are applying for.
But assuming they do, your next hurdle is to make yourself stand out and unique. How can you differentiate yourself from the talent pool? You do this through your transferrable skills and life experiences. So don’t overly discount yourself or your experiences just because they were volunteer or in different industries. Instead, frame and present it in a way that is a strength to your story and that helps you stand out.

Once you submit these documents and apply, your next obstacle is how do you get their attention?
Well, hopefully as you were going through the annual reports, companies house documents, website, linkedin and other social media research. In your journey through this, hopefully you took notice of their social media accounts, any emails or phone numbers. Another hack is to search in LinkedIn, verbatim, the position title followed by the company name. Then look at the people that come up in that result. This gives you a list of people at the company that are already in your position. One strategy could be to reach out to these people and ask about their experience?
 
Also in the linkedin sometimes in the position description will include the HR person that posted the description at the top of the linkedin ad, or it will be within the position description down the bottom, in contact information.

Don’t be afraid to follow these people, DM them or email them initially. Don’t ask them explicitly for the job straight away in the email.

That’s not how you would normally start a acquaintance or friendship in real life, when you first meet someone.

What you would want to reach out with is:
“Thanks for the opportunity to apply for the <position title>, <their first name>.
Looking forward to exploring this opportunity further with you and the team.”

What you have done now, is created familiarity with the organisation. So when your name comes up as they go through applications, they will remember you.

To be the most well known candidate is not a bad thing.
 
In an upcoming blog we will show you how you can use video follow up to help you stand out from the competition as well.