Job seeking advice from Ramit Sethi (and fans)
I recently dived deep into a Twitter thread from Ramit Sethi. He asked a question I find to be extremely relevant now that the US economy is starting to get lean and millions of people are losing their job:
If you’ve ever had a friend who struggled to find a job, what do you think they were doing WRONG? What would you tell them to do differently?
— Ramit Sethi (@ramit) May 21, 2020
In an effort to condense and organize all of the information his fans provided, here’s a list of the top pieces of advice you should leverage when looking for a new job. Whether you just got laid off or you’re simply looking for a new opportunity, all of these nuggets of wisdom will help you tremendously.
- Instead of sending a resume and cover letter, send a presentation deck instead. If you combine this with a 2-minute video going over each slide, you’re more likely to start a conversation with the hiring manager. [KS NOTE: There are a ton of the free presentation templates on SlidesGo that you can use to make these decks look as professional as possible.]
- Leverage your network, even if you have to ask your parents for a referral or introduction. Don’t just rely on LinkedIn and other job boards.
- Your past salary doesn’t guarantee an increase or equal amount in the next job. Focus on future growth and optimize for learning new skills.
- Take the freelancer’s approach: don’t pitch your skills, showcase your knowledge of the company, and try to highlight unknown problems and novel solutions.
- Create a public portfolio.
- Practice with people in your network (specifically in the field you want to get into) and do mock interviews with them. It will help you prepare for the real interviews, as the real ones seldom provide feedback afterward. You can also film yourself doing a mock interview if you’re too shy to ask your network for help.
- Leverage forums like Reddit and Twitter, don’t only rely on job boards.
- Target 10-15 jobs at a time and create tailored resumes for each application. Look at their keywords, use resume scanning tools (that are free online) to compare the application with the tailored resume.
- You don’t need to meet all of the qualifications to apply.
- Find people on LinkedIn with the position you want and ask for advice. [KS NOTE: only ask for advice in the chat, don’t ask for time to “hop on a quick call” as that will lead to no response. Try to reach out to 50 people before giving up.]
There are entire books dedicated to network and optimizing your job search. However, some of us don’t have the time to read these books. I hope this list can be of some help—I certainly gather some new tips compiling this list!
Good luck.
Image Credit: Unsplash
