Sales and Marketing as a Tool in your Hunt For a Job
Let’s file this under “Necessary Reminders If You Wanna Get Hired“…
Enthusiasm is great. Skills and knowledge are how schtuff gets done, however.
I tell rookies to never, ever assume anything about anything. Ever. Especially about your target audience, the employer.
Your resume and cover letter is your sales pitch. It’s long (2 or 3 pages IS OK!), because great sales pitches are long… just as long as they need to be You’re asking someone to hire you… and they can’t see you… in fact, they have to take your word for everything.
Or rather, your words…
And your words must convince, persuade, influence and close the deal…
- or you don’t make the sale.
So… how are those poorly crafted letters and resumes working out for you then?
That line is a favorite of folksy therapists. Someone explains how they’re sleeping with their brother’s wife, cooking up crank in the bathroom for extra cash, and getting in bar fights as a hobby. And the therapist sighs and says: “So, how’s that working out for you?”
Humans are a stubborn bunch. All of us. We all have huge blind spots about certain things we do. In job hunting sales and marketing, it’s pretty simple, though, to know when your belligerence to fact and self-aggrandizement is unjustified: Look at your results.
If your job hunting bottom line isn’t what you know it should be… then you’re doing something wrong. It ain’t working so hot for you. You cannot argue or brag your way to a job in the employment marketplace. You gotta’ make your case, and do a good sales job. Everything else is just pissing in the wind.
Do what works. Get hip, to get that job you’ve always wanted, armed with all the persuasive power of good old-fashioned salesmanship.
Getting Hired
That’s great for resume writing, but…
What are you gonna do once you have a terrific resume couched in understandable, ordinary civilian language – without “jargon” that’s not understood by everyone?
The whole job of your resume and cover letter is to create enough curiosity in the HR person, enough to make them want to talk to YOU! Both of these documents must sell them on you and what you can do for them (to make them look good in the eyes of their boss for being so smart because they hired you), the company, and make them really want to call you in for that interview.
Simply: Create an itch they WILL want to scratch!
As I see it, and from my own experience since retiring from the navy 25 years ago, is your resume MUST BE tailored to the job in question (speaking as an employer here – as I have done a fair bit of hiring too). They want to know what’s in it for them (WIIFM!). Include some of the main general stuff, but address the company’s needs directly with examples of WHAT & HOW (and how well done, if applicable) you did related things, and WHAT they may mean to the company’s bottom line if you come on board.
For your cover letter, it MUST BE tailored to the job and what you have found out about the company through your in-depth research of all available public information. (Keep it brief though.)Your cover letter is, essentially, a sales letter where you are selling yourself to the human being that will be reading it and your resume, if they even get that far.
The first sentence, and the first paragraph are critical. They need to generate enough curiosity to make them want to continue reading. Break your letter into short sentences and short paragraphs, and separate with subheads or dynamic one line single sentences if you can. In the body, hard hitting bullets are very effective and a great way to highlight important points.
Your sole job at this point is to get the interview, and at that interview, sell yourself… plain and simple. You are a salesman for you.
Employers are ONLY interested in what you CAN DO for them (and I’ve been one!), almost to the exclusion of everything else. Leave all of that “extra stuff” for the interview, if you see that they even want to hear about it. You’ll know by the nature of the questions they’ll be asking.
So… The one skill you need to learn and sharpen is sales… selling yourself to be specific… because that is your new job – until someone starts paying you to do something else.
Comments, additions, and/or whatever? Feel free to speak here, or contact me directly for a whole lot more, including sales skills development and sales letter writing. (Which I’ll do free for any vet. Period.)
[Mid-point comment from a reader: Looks like you hit it all right on the head! "They" said chances of landing a $50k+ job was slim. They said limit your focus. YOU said just the opposite & you were right! Sales means believing in your product (you) and knowing what your product is worth.]
If I were to say a few more things about resume’s and cover letters… It would be just this:
Be specific – and present yourself in the most emotionally appealing way possible. Follow-up with logical reasons WHY (their WIIFM) they should hire you.
Cite (briefly) what you did, and the results you got… and HOW it benefited whomever you were working for. The idea is to create interest and curiosity in the reader so his natural tendency of wanting to know more about what interests him is aroused, but not fully satisfied with what he’s read. –Take them about 80-90% of the way home.– Great sales letters always leaving you wanting to know more… and in fact, are the specific tools used by the top professional copywriters.
Next time you read a good sales letter that has aroused your own curiosity, step back, take a breathe and calmly re-read the letter – see exactly where your EMOTIONAL connection came from. You see, the plain facts are: People buy on emotion, and justify that purchase with logic. Use this as a model for writing your own prose…
So here’s the process… your cover letter and resume are the vehicle for creating the emotional desire in your prospect to want to know more. Their ONLY job is to get you an interview, and that’s an emotion-based decision on the part of the reader. (Just like reading a good sales page on the web. You want to know more or experience the benefits, so you buy into whatever they are promoting.)
Then… If your correspondence has done it’s job, and got you an interview, this is where logic comes into play, in that once they’ve decided to hire you, they have enough logical basis to justify that “buying decision” to themselves. This prevents what’s known as “buyers remorse” and regret for the decision made.
Here’s where your statements of “benefits to being employed by the company” come strongly into play… and they must be tangible, believable and factual. So, think of the 5 to 7 best things you can do for the company’s benefit, and strongly stress these points in the interview. And don’t be all that subtle about it, but don’t be obnoxious either. Also do not overwhelm them with details, just enough to do the job at hand.
You might consider doing some of this in a short story form, if you can tell a good story. The “big rule” in copywriting is, stories sell… and more often than not, are the best way to sell stuff… including people. Master copywriters are master story-tellers. Period.
Think of when your grandfather told you about that big fish he caught oh so many years ago… didn’t that make you want to have him teach how he did it? Your “buying experiences” may differ a little, but the point is, you were sold on something by hearing a story.
Heck, I joined the navy because of all the sea-stories I heard and read as a kid… C.S. Forester did his job well telling me the tales of Admiral Horatio Hornblower and how he came to be, starting as a cabin boy on a wooden ship, manned by iron men. And so did my uncle George with his long tall stories about being in the battle of Midway as a Chief Bosun’s Mate.
This is how stuff gets sold… and old retired sailors like me get hired. Just apply what you already know in new ways. And tell it with honesty, sincerity and in an interesting way.
Good luck!
