“My Team Reviews 1,000,000 Resumes A Year, And These Are The People Who Stand Out” said Sjoerd Gehring, VP of Talent Acquisition at Johnson & Johnson.
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Do: Show Off Your Work In A Portfolio
- Even before the interview stage, a portfolio can help you get noticed. For example, you can create a personal website that showcases your work (more on exactly how to do that here). You can send the link to networking contacts and even include it your email signature.
- For example: Gehring recently interviewed a digital marketer who walked him through her three most recent influencer-marketing projects. She had created a simple PowerPoint presentation with three case studies outlining what she had done and the results for each initiative. She made it easy to see how she could add tangible value to our business by highlighting how she approached these influencers and how she measured her projects’ success.
- Even before the interview stage, a portfolio can help you get noticed. For example, you can create a personal website that showcases your work (more on exactly how to do that here). You can send the link to networking contacts and even include it your email signature.
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Don’t: Go For Quantity Over Quality
- Gehring says he receives at least 10 LinkedIn messages a day from candidates throwing their resume over the digital fence and hoping it lands. These generic messages expect him to do the work to match them to his open jobs.
- Instead, take a more thoughtful approach. Utilize your professional network. Do you know anyone at the company you’d like to work at? If so, find out whether the company has an employee referral program and send this note. If you reach out to someone cold, use a customized template.
- Gehring says he receives at least 10 LinkedIn messages a day from candidates throwing their resume over the digital fence and hoping it lands. These generic messages expect him to do the work to match them to his open jobs.
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Do: Solve A Company Problem
- Demonstrate how much you want to work at the company by arriving at the interview equipped with fresh ideas and solutions. Knock their socks off with your insight and give the recruiter a sneak preview of what they’ll be getting.
- For example: Gehring recently interviewed a social media manager who came to the interview with a complete scan of his company’s social media properties and a set of recommendations that left him wondering what his company had been doing the last year. He not only demonstrated that he had the skills needed to be successful in the job but also he cared enough about the opportunity to put in the work before we gave him the job (which his team did).
- Demonstrate how much you want to work at the company by arriving at the interview equipped with fresh ideas and solutions. Knock their socks off with your insight and give the recruiter a sneak preview of what they’ll be getting.
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Don’t: Propose Something That Shows You’re Out Of Touch
- Caveat: It’s not enough for your solution to be innovative. It only works if it still fits with the overall goals, vision and values of the organization.
- For example: Just last week, Gehring’s team interviewed a candidate who suggested a sales method that was so far removed from the values of the J&J Credo that Gehring had to wonder if he’d even heard of it. A matter of minutes spent researching the company would have revealed that it’s the underpinning to everything his team does.
- Caveat: It’s not enough for your solution to be innovative. It only works if it still fits with the overall goals, vision and values of the organization.
Learn more on: forbes.com
