Straight up confession: this blog post is overdue.
It’s also Part 2 of 2, and Part 1 has turned into such a mammoth task I keep putting it down. I’ve been doing a fair bit of hiring my last couple of jobs, and I went to talk to a bunch of smart people about how to get it right (or at least better). I wanted to write all of this down in a post so other people could save themselves the effort and use the good practices I’d found and tested. I wanted to call that “What I know about hiring” and I knew there was also a spin off about applying for them. The spin off is the ugly cousin, it’s not had as much research and testing, but I’ve got some jobs live now, so I felt I really had to post some of these thoughts quickly.
The good news is “What I know about hiring” will appear in some form, because @jukesie and I are speaking about Better Hiring in Government at the Service Design in Government conference in March. So if you’d like to hear the long version, please join us!
https://govservicedesign.net/2019/programme
So, what do I think about applying for jobs? This is written partly from personal experience on the recruiting side, partly from coaching friends and partly having applied for a lot of jobs myself over the years.
[It’s not a guarantee, and I can’t promise it always works or this gets you a job with me, but it’s worth a go!]
1. First up, include yourself.
A lot of us spend a lot of time thinking we’re not good enough to apply for things we’d quite like to do. There’s the well worn example of a woman seeing a job advert and thinking “oh but I can only do 7/10 of those things, I wont apply” and the man thinking “I can do 7/10 of those things, hurrah! I am excellent! I shall apply” — but it’s not quite that simple. It’s a broad generalisation after all and everyone is different. But, what I will say on this is, include yourself. Please put yourself forward. My Dad has a rather blunt view of the world and his answer on this is — “well if you don’t apply they definitely cant give you the job”!
And look, as a recruiter, I would *much* rather you applied, because then I get to decide if you fit the job, and honestly, I probably have much more information than what’s in the job description to base that decision on. So, please opt yourself in and trust me (in the nicest possible way), I wont appoint you if I don’t think you’d be able to do it.
2. Decide you’re good enough, then convince me.
Do the thinking in your head/ with your support gang first, then you can sit down to write a sales pitch on yourself.
3. Make it really easy for the recruiter to find the things they’ve asked for in the advert in your application.
A recent exercise I ran got 144 applications. I *want* to spend half an hour reading through each one but… that’s just not going to happen. I’m really sorry. I haven’t got 72 hours for this. So, make it really easy for the recruiter to find what they’ve asked for — if that’s essential skills or certain behaviours. Spell it out for me so I can quickly put you through to the next stage and move on to the next 143…
And as a close cousin to the two previous points:
4. Spell out why you’d be brilliant, don’t expect me to make the leap
Toot your own trumpet — “You want this cool thing? I’ve got it in spades!”. Don’t expect your recruiter to read between the lines; tell them what your special skills are and why you’re fab.
My friend has a top tip; sit down with a nice beverage of your choice and think “if my best friend was writing this about my best possible self, what would they say?”
5. Do your research
In the last round of interviews I did, lots of people mentioned reading our blog; great! Talk to people around the place to get a feel for whether you’d like to work there. It’s really important.
6. Check your application with a friend
I sound like your mum, but do get someone else to read the application through for daft mistakes. Typos sneak through so easily so give yourself the best possible chance of success by having a friend proofread it.
And then if you get through to interviews…
7. Do a practice interview with someone who will put you straight
Honestly, I always meant to but never did, and then I did one with a friend who had worked in a really tough job with me. He was able to call me out when I was talking waffle, and to tell me when I was under-selling myself. (And yes, I got the job. I don’t think I’ve ever done a better interview!)
8. Remember: it’s a two way process!
Work out what you need and want in a role/employer too and use the application process to test the job and the people to see if they have it.
Think of some questions for the panel. How do they respond to challenges? What is the biggest thing they are facing at the moment? In a year’s time how will they know they have been successful?
9. I don’t want to see your perfect examples, I want to see your thinking
It’s ok to talk about the same example from different angles. It’s also VERY ok to talk about what you learned and an example that didn’t go so well. I honestly don’t believe that the perfect human is sat in front of me each time, telling me about how they led the project to perfection. I’d actually much rather see how you handle it when things don’t go to plan.
10. Relax. Be you
Don’t buy a new suit, wear the smart version of your normal clothes. Don’t worry that you need to be something different. You want them to hire you for your authentic self, because you’ll be happier in your job. Bring your whole self to the process. Maybe the person across the desk also likes something you like? We like humans, because we are humans too.
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BEST OF LUCK!
How’s that as a starter? I’d love to hear your tips too. Comment below or tweet me, and I’ll add them here.
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