7 Tricks to Score the Job You Want

It’s tough out there. Unemployment is high, and people are worried about their jobs. But some people are rocking along in growing companies and wondering “What’s this I hear about a recession?” If you’re looking for work, it can be found. Good companies always need good people.

To land that new gig, heed the seven tips below and you may look back on this recession as the best thing that ever happened to your career. At the very least, the story of my personal journey to employment will provide you a laugh as you marvel at my incredible naivete.

My Foolish Journey

How did I go from English PhD candidate with no practical business skills to happily employed in a job I can’t wait to begin every morning? The short version: With lots of mistakes along the way. Lots of failure.

My new career began on a note of failure. I interviewed for a writing job at a local technology company … and didn’t get it. But I was persistent and just knew this was the place I wanted to be. When they told me about an internship opening up in the Summer, I was all over it. I became a paid intern with them and even worked for the guy who got the writing job instead of me. That was a tough pill to swallow, but I got over it because I was learning so much.

Trying to stand out. (cc) Flickr user lucianvenutian

Then, as luck would have it, most members of the marketing department loaded up into an escape pod and set out to start their own marketing company (with the technology company as anchor client). They said the new company couldn’t pay me yet, but I wasn’t going to let this amazing opportunity slip away. I joined them, worked my tail off to help get this startup off the ground, and was soon promoted from unpaid intern to paid account manager.

I liked the work and learned more in 15 months than I had in 5 years of grad school, but the pace was wearing me out. I began looking around for somewhere else I could put my writing, planning, researching, and new-found marketing skills to work. There were no such jobs posted on Monster or in the Help Wanted section, but I remembered my buddy Kris had started a book company and contacted him to find out how BookFool.com was doing.

Once I learned what BookFool.com was up to, I told him right away that I was interested in joining the Fool’s mission and gave him a long list of practical things I could do for the company if I joined. Turns out Kris was considering another hire and I came along at just right time. We struck up a long email conversation about how I might fit the Fool’s culture and 2 months later, I was a full-time Fool. (Which amounted to a raise, a promotion, and a radical improvement in work-life balance at the same time.) It was the longest, most thorough informal interview I will ever go through.

I wish I could say I was plucked from obscurity by an eagle-eyed headhunter who saw my natural talents from a mile away, but my path to employment bliss was a little more rocky. I had no “practical” business skills, but I’m smart, confident, and hardworking. Like Fievel in An American Tail, I knew the perfect gig was “somewhere out there” for me. And if it wasn’t, I was going to create it from scratch!

The tips below I learned from experience, some of it quite painful. But they worked for me, and I believe they will work for you if you keep your wits about you and never give up.

Let’s Get You Hired

(cc) Flickr user fireflythegreat

1) Prepare to Fail.

And fail a lot. If you’re not failing, you’re not trying. Nothing ventured, nothing gained. And so on.

As David Kelley of IDEO is purported to have said, if you want to succeed sooner, fail faster. So gird up your loins and start failin’ as fast as you can.

The best kind of failure is the result of over-reaching. Bluffing your way into an interview for CEO when you’re only 2 years out of college. Scheduling so many interviews in one day that you can’t possibly make them all. These are the failures from which legends are born.

Smaller failures are not the end of the world, either. When you show up late for the interview, shake it off. When you call the interviewer Jason instead of Justin and don’t realize it until you’ve left the office, there’s always the next interview. You’re going to make mistakes; that’s normal.

I was not quite qualified for the writing position that started it all, but that didn’t stop me from going after it like I was the best man for the job. I was nervous and stammering in the interview and even ended up implying that I liked a musician that I clearly had never heard of (I could tell they knew I had no clue who he was), but I kept after it.

In the end, failure can be a crucial step toward success because coming back from failure shows you have guts, which takes us to #2.

2) Be gutsy.

Guts. (cc) Flickr user _gee_

This is easier once you’ve made peace with failure. The gig you really want is probably desirable to others. How do you stand out? Demonstrate that you have the guts to take on the interview and, by extension, anything else the job can throw at you.

It takes guts to follow-up on the interview with a phone call (#5) or to apply for a job that’s clearly above your station, but without guts you won’t get anywhere. If you feel it would help your case, I’ve known people who have been successful with a very gutsy bit of honesty. For instance: “I’ll be frank. I’ve never negotiated a million-dollar business contract, but I have sold Hondas in West Tennessee. If you can get a farmer to part with his hard-earned cash for a Japanese car, I think you can negotiate anything.”

3) Be open to the workings of serendipity.

Or perhaps you call it Providence. This one may be the most important. When I was still in grad school, I had no idea where I would end up. I didn’t even know what I wanted to do with my life. But I was open to trying some things.

I went three rounds of interviews and ended up rejecting a job offer from a HUGE corporation that wanted me to write for them. The pay was amazing, but the interview convinced me that I wouldn’t be happy there. I had an inkling I wasn’t a good fit for this company after the first interview, but I wanted to see where it went. After interview #3, I was sure I belonged in a more intimate culture. By going three rounds with them, I learned something important about myself that helped me narrow down my future job prospects.

I also interviewed for a University job that had already been promised to the Chancellor’s wife’s sorority sister. (Don’t ask me how I knew that.) Even though I knew it would be a sham interview, I went anyway and did my best. In that interview I began to realize that job wasn’t the best fit either. So when I didn’t get the job, it didn’t sting as much as if I had skipped the sham interview and stewed over the quasi-nepotism.

And then I went from a paid internship to an unpaid one with an unproven startup. Talk about being open!

You know that phenomenon where the universe doesn’t make it rain until the ONE DAY you forget your umbrella? Well, that’s at work in job hunting too. But sometimes it works in your favor.

You have no idea where these interviews will take you, so take any interview you can get and do your best. You may make a good impression on a member of the hiring committee who may recommend you speak with his brother who needs someone to help paint a new mansion, which may be occupied by a wealthy industrialist who needs a hard worker to oversee his cherry orchard while his usual manager is on vacation. And who knows where that will go?

Hey, it happens!

4) Be a little Foolish.

(cc) Flickr user redjar

Everybody is a weird in their own way. Think about how weird your co-workers are. Then imagine what those weirdos must think of you! But it’s ok; we’re all weird.

Because the most desirable jobs are often won or lost on how well you fit with the company’s culture, you should consider demonstrating your individuality through a Foolish gesture.

I read somewhere about an applicant who mailed a diaper filled with spare change to a hiring committee. The enclosed note said, “Hire me if you’re ready for a change.” Sure, that was weird, gutsy and could have failed, but it got their attention.

You could create an old ransom-style note with letters cut from magazines that says, “If you don’t hire me, your bottom line will be sorry.” If you’re not feeling that bold, you can bake some of your grandma’s special recipe cookies for the interview. Just do something to get noticed.

5) Follow-up!!!

After the interview, gather your guts about you and pick up the phone to say, “Thank you for speaking with me today. I would love to meet again to talk more about maximizing ROI” (or whatever subject came up in the interview).

After the interview for the writing gig, I sent hand-written thank you cards, made at least 3 follow-up calls, and generally won them over with my persistence. In fact, my soon-to-be-boss said for a year afterward that I was the most persistent person they saw.

When BookFool.com was hiring our Operations Leader, we received over a hundred serious applicants and met with 15-20 in person. Only a handful bothered to follow-up with a call or note. We even rejected one of our top five candidates because we simply never heard from her after the interview.

Persistence pays.

6) Put your accomplishments on your resume…

Resume on a T-shirt (cc) Flickr user SOCIALisBETTER

…Not your past duties. Nobody else does this, even though it’s standard resume advice. Chances are you’re thinking, “Whatever. Resumes are supposed to be dry. My resume’s fine.” But trust me, it helps!

If your resume says, “Increased shipping efficiency by 45% over 2 years without going over budget,” you’re going to get the interview over the guy who says, “Oversaw shipping operations.” Your numbers will make you stand out.

Now, it’s important not to fudge your numbers or results because the truth has a way of coming to light, but be as specific as you can with the ways you saved your former company money, improved a process, fixed a broken product design, or whatever you did to stand out.

7) Be worth it.

Once you’ve Fooled your way into a job, make it work. Volunteer for the toughest tasks because there you can find ways to improve the company (and add another accomplishment to your resume).

However, most of being worth it starts while you’re in your old job. Until you have something real to offer a future employer, you shouldn’t be harassing them for work anyway. But you can start a blog or article series on the industry you’re hoping to join. You can start taking on hard tasks to build your resume. Just do what it takes to make yourself valuable to your future employer.

Someone from church once told me, “Sharpen your tools and the Lord will find work for you to do.” It’s the same with your career. You never know what will make you stand out to a particular interviewer. Maybe they need someone who can answer phone AND paint portraits. Maybe they need an accountant who blogs about cycling.

I was never able to do only one thing, so during grad school my wife and I started a videography studio to bring in some extra cash on weekends. This was invaluable entrepreneurial experience, but it also made me more appealing to the marketing company. I could shoot and edit video, record quality podcasts, and take amazing pictures. If you can do useful stuff like that, I can guarantee your company will find a way to put you to work.

BONUS TIP: Go out and get the job you want.

"You're a lion. Take what's yours." 30 Rock. Photo: (cc) Flickr user Tambako the Jaguar

This is the real, #1 secret to finding the job you want. If you wait until it hits Craigslist or the classifieds, it’s too late. You’ve got to find the job before it hits the classifieds. You may even have to convince them that they should create a job just for you. How to do so could be another 2000-word article, but if you’re not willing to try, you might as well resign yourself to the job you’re in.

The truth is, the headhunters aren’t beating down your door with offers. The best jobs are not coming to you. You’ve got to swallow your pride and go to them by whatever means necessary.

Work your friend network, Facebook connections, church connections, or LinkedIn. Pester your favorite company until they let you sweep the floors at night. Then work your way up. Audit some classes on entrepreneurship at your local college and take the professor out to lunch to pick his brain. Be a little annoying if necessary. Stand outside the headquarters with a guitar and sing your resume to anyone who will listen.

Just make it happen.

Get Out There!

I’ll leave it up to you decide what kind of work to pursue. Are you ready for a lean, lively startup, or is a huge corporate structure more your speed? I believe the tips and tricks above will work in any context.

But don’t wait a month to kick off your new life. Get out there and do something Foolish today.

[I have written a Follow-up post here. Don't worry, it's not as long!]