Croné Van Straten shares his ideas about being thoughtful in the interview process with us:
Whenever you’re on the job hunt, one of your main problems is having to cut through all the noise.
After all, your average job opening gets dozens and dozens, sometimes hundreds of applicants.
If it feels annoying to you that you have to compete with so many other applications, think about the hiring manager for a second.
They have to browse through stacks and stacks of thirteen-a-dozen applications, and they have to make a selection for the interview process.
But a selection, based on what?
All these applications look the same!
Hiring managers are dying to find somebody in that stack that did a little extra to differentiate themselves.
And no, that doesn’t mean excellent choice of colors, fonts, words or other resume polishing techniques. It means doing something different, entirely.
Be thoughtful.
It means personalizing your pitch, showing some of your work, some of your personality, and something to indicate that you understand them, their business, and that you want to work for them, specifically.
Something to show that you’re not just looking for a paycheck, like all the other applicants.
Show that you know what you’re doing.
Something unique.
Be thoughtful, like a gift
And like with any thoughtful gift, this is not something you can just Google how to do.
To be thoughtful is that it actually required some thought, and a good understanding of what the recipient would like.
That’s what makes it personal and that’s what makes it memorable.
So the bad news is that this is hard, takes time, and can’t be mass-produced.
But that’s also the good news, because it means that nobody is doing it. In other words: the bar is really, really low. It’s pretty easy to stand out.
So if you want to stand out on the job hunt, don’t waste your time polishing your resume or even spend money on a professional resume writer.
Instead, focus on one particular opportunity.
One application.
And put some thought into it.
