One Of These Is Not Like The Others

by | Nov 20, 2021 | Daily Job Hunt

This post originally appeared as a 11-20 Weekend Issue of the Daily Job Hunt email. Sign up for kick-butt career hype in your inbox each morning.

Mindset for Success

Be Aggressive.
Assume companies are disorganized and busy. Keep showing how much you want the job by not letting up until you get a response back.

So if you didn’t hear back within 48h, keep following up every couple of days.
Even if it takes 4, 8, or 10 follow ups, spread over different channels. Be aggressive!

Be Your Own Credential
Let’s face it: your resume is one boring pdf. A generic list of your previous experience, credentials, and achievements. Yawn. No wonder it’s not opening any doors for you.

So how do you show your skills and value?

By being your own credential. By creating a digital body of work that showcases who you are and what you can do.

The formula is super simple: “I want to do X for you. Here’s a few examples of me doing X in the past. Let’s talk!”

Works every time.
Check out the member’s only page to get started.

Quote of the Week

“Don’t be afraid to fail. Be afraid not to try.”
— Michael Jordan

One Of These Is Not Like The Others.

“Stop comparing yourself to others!”

Chances are somebody has given you this advice at some point in your life.

“Flowers are pretty and so are sunsets, yet they look nothing alike.”

They’re nice sentiments, for sure.
Liberating even.

But how are you supposed to stop comparing yourself to others when you’re on the job hunt?

Isn’t that exactly what all these companies are doing? Comparing you to the other applicants to see who’s the best?

Well, yes and no.

Let me ask you this: what’s better, a sheet of paper or a pine wood plank?

Dumb question huh?

The only sensible answer to this question would be something along the lines of: that depends.

I guess you could write an essay on boards of wood and build a fence out of sheets of paper, but it would probably work better if you used each of those items for their intended purposes instead.

So it’s not about which item is better in general.
It’s about who fits what job better.

A crucial difference.

It’s the exact same on your job hunt.
You don’t need to compare yourself to others, you need to find out what kind of “item” you are, so you can find a job that fits you better than anyone else.

What are your skills? What do you love to do? What makes you come alive? And so what kind of work are you uniquely suited for?

Pro tip: as a subscriber to DJH, you have free access to The Crash Course, which has exercises to help you find out what kind of work fits you.

So do that first.

Okay, but let’s say you already found out what kind of work you’re uniquely suited for, can you start comparing then?

Still no.

Think about it. What are you comparing, anyway?

You’re comparing yourself, who you’ve known intimately for years, to a hypothetical set of others, whom you’ve never met, you know nothing about, and who might not even exist in real life, for all you know.

Look, it’s easy to imagine a hypothetical person that might exist somewhere out there in the ether, that’s better than flawed little you at every possible angle and vertical you can think of.

That does not make it a valid comparison.

You can’t dismiss the actual for the hypothetical. Anything real will never be flawless and therefore neither will you.

So just stop it.

Stop comparing yourself to hypothetical man/woman. Just do the work to find out what kind of value creation you would be perfectly suited for, and focus on becoming the best damn pine wood plank you can be.

That’s all.

Corné
and the DJH team