This post originally appeared as issue 176 of the Daily Job Hunt email. Sign up for kick-butt career hype in your inbox each morning.
Are You Choosing to Suffer?
Most people would rather suffer than be different.
We’ve talked with 1000’s of job seekers and the most common pattern is this: they scan jobs boards, click apply, attach the same resume, click submit and wait for nothing to happen.
They do this 100’s of times over several months and get no job offers, feel totally disempowered, and don’t have momentum in their career or life.
We suggest they do something different. Don’t spam resumes.
Find 5-10 companies you truly love and directly email a pitch to the hiring manager. We show them how well it works. They believe us.
But they do nothing. Back to the thing that hasn’t been working all this time.
Why?
Because the thing that isn’t working is the ‘normal’ thing. Everyone else does it. They’re not alone. If they are miserable following the script, no one blames them.
They say, “yeah the economy is tough!” or “yeah the job app process sucks”.
They would rather keep failing along with the crowd than succeeding outside it.
That pressure is real for all of us, with job hunting and many other aspects of life.
You have to decide: do you want to make progress towards your goals, even if it means being different or weird, or do you want to snugly fit in with everyone else and treat success as something outside of your control?
Only you can choose.
Pitch a 30-Day Plan
Go the extra mile by sending an action plan for what you’ll do the first 30 days on the job. This could happen when you first email the company, or later on, when you’re in the interview process.
Examples of what to include in your plan:
Customer Service role: “I’ll create a weekly email to all existing clients to build engagement.”
Sales role: “I’ll record a cold call practice session each morning and send to my AE for feedback.”
Dev. role: “I’ll audit your marketing tech – make sure events are firing everywhere they should.”
Marketing role: “I’ll audit analytics and build out A/B tests on for all pages on website.”
Any role: “I’ll do those annoying spreadsheet tasks you’re sick of doing.”
It doesn’t need to be perfect. Just do something that signals you put extra work in!
Quote of the Day
“When you’re just like everybody else, you’ve nothing to offer other than your conformity.”
— Wayne Dyer
