An unconventional approach to get a more interesting role, at a cooler company, with nicer people, with a lot less stress.
I wrote it originally for my brother-in-law who just finished his PhD and wanted to get his first real job. His challenge, like so many, is that a lot of his experience, as great as it is, doesn’t count for that much when he switches industries. Also, he doesn’t know anybody in the industry, or the best companies, or even what the roles typically do.
He’s likely to spend a ton of time applying, become frustrated, and have to accept a low level job at not a great company just to get in the door. Then build his way up over several years. Only then might he get the job he could perhaps get today if he used a different job search strategy.
So I’m going to lay out a few techniques that will work a lot better than the default way. You don’t need to follow all of them, but each part increases your odds.
Why do I think it’ll work? First, I’ve gotten an impossible job before. I had finished studying in Holland but was living across the world in Canada. I wanted to return to Holland to work but I didn’t have a work permit and would need a sponsor. Basically it’s a ton of extra work if they want to hire me as opposed to any of the 500M people with European passports. Plus I was 8h timezone away. I ended up applying for 172 jobs over 6 months and received two offers. I wrote custom cover letters for every role, had countless 6am interviews. I know the struggle but I got a great job. I’ve also written this based on my experience interviewing and hiring >100 people in Skype, Wise, and Salv across all kinds of roles. I know what impresses me and increases the odds of saying “yes”, and it’s not obvious to most who I meet in the interviews.
So let’s jump into the problem you’re facing, especially if you want a very different role than you have today.
Roles are so specialised nowadays. It’s a needle in a haystack. There often aren’t that many job posts that seem suitable. The companies might not be interesting. Or the product/industry sounds boring. Many roles are misnamed. For instance, most “data scientists” are glorified analysts. If you’re a hardcore (Maths PhD) data scientist, you wouldn’t enjoy this work. Not only that, you wouldn’t be the one chosen anyway since you’re both over- and under-qualified.
Not only do you not find exactly the right role, when you do apply you’re one of 50-200 applicants. With that many applicants, no matter what you write on your CV or cover letter, the robot or HR person reading it is very unlikely to move you to the right pile. It’s just a numbers game.
If you’re switching career tracks, you don’t have “real” work experience (according to your resume/CV). As a result you have a higher than average chance of just being cut before they know anything about you.
Oh, and you’re also stereotyped
Unfairly, I might add, but it doesn’t matter. Stereotypes are used to reject you before they get a chance to meet you and get to know you. For my brother in law, his stereotypes as recent PhD graduate are:
People will assume he’s not a practical person - He’ll only care only about theory and not about how things get implemented in the “real world” with imperfect data and boring business problems.
People will assume he’s not a people person. They will be concerned that he’s a reclusive nerd who’s not a good team player. Anybody who knows him knows there’s nobody more charismatic and outgoing, but that’s the point. He has no way of conveying this in his resume/CV. He needs to meet people in person so they can see this for themselves.
If you’re coming from a different field, you’ll have different stereotypes about people like you. Don’t hide from these stereotypes. You’ll have 5-8 people evaluating you during the hiring process and it’s healthy to assume at least some of them will think some of these. So address them.
So, you’re stereotyped, up against 50+ other faceless resumes/CVs, and only have a handful of really promising roles you want. Doesn’t sound too promising.
But there’s another approach that will help you find the right role for you with a lot less stress.
There are just three steps. They’re all simple to do. Literally anyone can do them. But they’re not easy; they take real courage to execute.
Don’t start by searching for a job. Start by learning about people in jobs that you want. It’s easier than you’d think to do this. Simply reach out to people on linkedin who have the jobs you think you might want and ask to meet them for a 15 min video call. Linkedin search is pretty good! It’ll take you 10-15 mins a day to reach out to 10-15 people (linkedin has a daily limit of cold connection requests).
Here’s a couple of messages my colleague Mallory used (for a different research purpose) that you can adapt:
Hi Robin! We haven't met, but I see we both know Khalid. I'm doing research on the pains (and joys!) of working in AML. I see you're an AML analyst, so I'd love to pick your brain if you're up for it. Would you be up for a 15 minute call sometime soon? - Mallory (friendly, curious human)
Hi Dainius! We don't know one another, but I'm doing research into the pains (and joys!) of working in AML and compliance. I see you're doing that not only right now, but you've been in AML for awhile even with WU & SEB. I'd love to hear your thoughts. Would you be up for a 15m call? -Mallory
1-3 people (10-20% of those you reach out to) from your daily batch of 10-15 reachouts will say yes. You’ll have no problem using up 15 mins, but the most useful things to ask are about:
What do they really like about their role? [So you can find out if whether you’d even like their role]
What are their biggest challenges day to day? [so you can be sure you know how to answer questions about those]
What’s expected that you should know about that you don’t know about? [So you can prepare good responses in interviews]
Aim for 10-20 of these conversations and take good notes. You’ll be phenomenally more knowledgable with an investment of 20-30h over the next two weeks.
Also, you might have such a good connection with a couple of people that they’d be willing to meet you for coffee to continue the conversation. Many people want to mentor, and you can tap into that if you have a good match.
You’ll get connections on linkedin in the industry. I’m not sure this is true everywhere, but in Europe, Linkedin is king. It’s the first place you look if you’re considering someone for a role. As a candidate, you need to have at least a few hundred connections to seem like a normal human being (think stereotypes again). These connections can be a superpower too once you get to steps 2 and 3 (see below). When you have common connections with the people who you’re interviewing. It seriously helps if your interviewer says, “so I noticed you know my friend Mike” and you can be completely honest that you don’t really know Mike but last week you interviewed him to ask him all about his role.
It’s the fastest way to find out what different roles/companies/industries are actually like. Find out what people in those roles you’re considering actually do day-to-day and whether you’d like it. Find out if perhaps a particular company is amazing or terrible. Interviews are usually too high pressure for you to really absorb and reflect.
It’s motivating. These conversations will be the highlight of your day. Job searching can be frustrating and lonely and filled with rejection. But these won’t be. You’ll enjoy talking to smart people who are excited to talk to you. Nobody does this so this will be the highlight of your interviewee’s day too.
You’ll become an industry insider, overnight. Every industry and company has its own lingo. You’ll find out the specific words they use to describe their work. It’s subtle, but you’ll be much better perceived by future hiring managers because you speak their language, at least a little. You’ll also be able to prepare better for the interviews because you’ll understand the main problems they face in that industry and/or company.
After you’ve researched the roles with a series of 15 min conversations, you’re ready for the next step.
You need to start reaching out to leaders/managers who might be hiring for a role you would like. If you can find their emails, use email; otherwise use Linkedin connection requests.
If you just ask, “are you hiring?”, 95% of the time the answer will be no. And the other 5% will be “yes, go to this website”. This won’t get you anywhere.
So what should you write? Your ultimate ask in the first email should be rather soft. Build trust with them first. Something like:
Direct angle: I’m fascinated by your team/this article you wrote and I’m thinking of applying for XYZ role. Would you be willing to tell me more about XYZ role over a short call?
Research angle: I’m fascinated by what you do at XYZ. Would you be willing to meet me to tell me more about what your team does?
Newbie angle: I’ve just finished my PhD and starting to search around. I noticed you transitioned similar to how I’m hoping to do 10 years ago / You’ve done XYZ for a long time at ABC. Would you be able to recommend how I go about a job search?
Basically, try to tap into their mentoring instincts first before asking about specific job opportunities. And tap into what you learned in your research from people in the same industry, or similar role, or same company.
It should be a short email (2-3x 1-2 sentence paragraphs). Assume they’re busy people: most hiring managers I know have 4-6+ hrs of meetings everyday, receive 100+ slack messages and 20+ emails. Every. Single. Day. Write something just for them, get to the point and have just one clear ask.
Aim for an in-person coffee meeting if possible. Why? It takes way more effort to truck yourself across the city, but that’s the point. It’s effortful. They will feel more obliged to either tell you stuff or introduce you to others. Plus, if you’re charming and a normal human being, you’ll build much more trust and empathy.
If meeting physically isn’t possible (e.g. you’re in different cities) or they’re not up for it, virtual will have to do.
When you meet them, use everything that you’ve learned in your research. Position yourself as someone eager to learn, and work, and problem solve. Share what you know about them (based on some googling). Try to guess what the challenges might be for their company and their team. Be genuinely curious and learn all you can about how they came to be in the role, in the company, in the industry they’re in. They’ll be delighted to tell you their story.
If one of them is actually hiring or they know someone who is, you can be sure that they’ll tell you. You can follow their instructions on how to apply. You probably won’t get any formal advantage skipping hiring steps (the process is usually fixed), but that’s ok; you’re way, way ahead.
In fact, you’ve probably increased your odds by at least 10-20x (from perhaps 1-in-50 to 1-in-5). It’s that much of a difference.
You have at least three huge advantages with will transform your odds.
You can write a killer cover letter talking about their problems and how you could solve them. 99% of candidates cover letters only talk about themselves…because the candidates don’t know anything about the company’s problems. But you do. So talk about those problems - the company is hiring you to solve their problems. You can say things like “Mike from team XYZ suggested I apply. He thought that my experience in ABC might be a good fit in solving problem DEF.”
You will talk like an insider in the interviews. You’ll know the products, and problems, and if you’re lucky, some people’s names.
You have a champion in the house. After the interview (step 3, below), you can reach back to whoever you met for coffee and say “thanks, Alice, for encouraging me to apply for XYZ. I just met Bob and Claire. They were awesome and I got even more excited to join!” At the very least that makes Alice feel good. And if Alice knows Bob or Claire, there’s a very good chance they will reach out to them and put in a good word about you.
These three things will 10x your odds. They completely set you apart from other candidates. All this from a few coffees with interesting people a couple of steps ahead of you in their career. The next step is to smash the interviews.
The first step to interview well is to prepare well. Research the individual people who will be interviewing you. If it’s not clear from the invite, it shows courage to ask the HR person setting up the meeting who you will be meeting. Don’t skip this step and go in blind.
Search at least: (1) google, (2) linkedin, (3) youtube (for conference presentations). Try to understand: What’s their role? For how long have they been in that role? How long have they been at that company? Do they have a similar background or a completely different one than you? If you’re technical, are they really technical or not at all technical? You may need to speak in a really different way to ensure you’re understood.
You’ll be interviewed by your (senior) peers, your direct manager and their manager (and maybe others). Each interviewer will all have their own background and things that they care about testing you on. Be especially mindful of overcoming the default stereotypes with people who have a totally different background from you. For instance the boss’ boss might have a business background and might come in thinking you won’t be practical or good with people (eg stereotypes).
If you have mental cycles available, try to figure out what the question behind the question is: what are they trying to validate about you with that question? For instance, the simple softball question, “why do you want to work for ABC Corp?” might really be asking, “Do you even know what ABC Corp does?” or “how well did you prepare for this interview?” or “do you care about ABC Corp’s mission?” You won’t always know in the moment, but trust your gut on what aspect to emphasize and, if you’re really confused, ask them to clarify: “interesting question! Just to clarify, are you interested to know more about X or Y?”
Great interview questions from the candidate are often more impressive than great interview answers. Get the interviewers to think that it’s really you who’s interviewing them. Be confident but not arrogant.
Here are some question areas that will help you to both understand the role/company but also show off that you’re curious, ambitious and a good team player they want to hire.
Truly understand their problem
What’s the biggest challenge in this role/in this team/in the company? [be ready to share how you’ve tackled similar problems before]
Understand what the hiring managers care about
Tell me about your vision / mission / longer term goals?
Shows that you care about that which is what they’re supposed to care about, doesn’t matter whether they do or not
Shows that you’re imagining yourself there and contributing for a long time.
Allows them to talk and give you juicy details you can use to craft your other answers
What are the team’s OKRs (or KPIs)? [shows you care about the team and delivering]
Understand what you need to do to be successful
If I was really successful in 6 months (or 12 months if it has more that 1000 employees), what would that look like? [shows you’re aiming to be ambitious, helps you understand if their expectations are too high or too low]
Understand the team dynamics
Why are you hiring for this role? [“we’re growing the team” is the best answer because it means the team is trusted/useful; if they’re replacing someone, ask why the person left (shows you have guts to ask and you might learn something pleasant/unpleasant)]
Who will I be working most closely with? Which teams does this team work most closely with in the rest of the organisation? [shows you really want to understand the details and how you can be useful]
Wrap up questions
What are your thoughts on me / main concerns after this interview?
Shows you have courage (only 5% of people have the guts to ask this)
Shows you want feedback and can handle it (many people can’t)
Shows’ you’re straightforward / easy to work with (dispelling potential stereotypes)
Allows you to immediately address their main concerns (this can save your chances if you’re on the borderline)
Ask what the hiring process is and when you’ll hear back [gives you an excuse to send a friendly follow up when they don’t get back to you in time, which they usually won’t. And keeps you from waiting around if they’re not interested]
After the interview
When the interview is done, you have one more opportunity to impact your chances. Usually the decision on whether you pass/fail the interview round is made within the first 5 minutes of the interview. But not always. So don’t assume the decision has been made. Keep working.
Try really hard to give yourself an excuse to send them something useful as a follow up after the interview(s). “Here’s that article I mentioned” is perfect. It can be an article, blog post, YT video, podcast episode or book. It should be relevant, but it doesn’t actually matter as they probably won’t take time to look at it. You want to come across as genuinely outgoing and helpful. Like you’re already a part of the team. Almost nobody does this (like 1%, so you’ll stand out so much if you just find a way to do this).
Also, if there’s an assignment, put in effort to make it pretty & professional. Seriously. This counts for a lot more than you would expect. It shows business sense and addresses a stereotypical weakness for many people. If possible, use the company’s colours and their logo. Show you’d fit right in and level up the team’s professionalism, making them all look good.
The rest is up to you! Enjoy your new job.
I’d be delighted if more people looking for a career at Salv followed this advice. Do ask my colleagues what their job is actually like. Do google the amazing things the people interviewing you have done and be curious about them in the interviews.
These steps are all easy to follow but almost nobody does them. It takes guts to reach out to a random person on the internet and ask them for a virtual coffee. It takes real work to prepare well for interviews.
If you’re taking these steps it means you have discipline, you have courage, you work systematically and learn fast. These are phenomenal attributes for any candidate for Salv or anywhere else you choose to work.
You deserve a fantastic role at a phenomenal company. And you’ll get it. Good luck!
Let me know if any of this worked for you: mcclelland (dot) jeff (at) gmail (dot) com.
Photo credit: carolynchristine on unsplash