15/09/2019
HOW TO GET THE JOB YOU REALLY WANT!!
- I ran a computer games company for more than ten years. I read thousands of CVs and did hundreds of interviews. Now, I’m writer-in-chief at a technology marketing company, Articulate Marketing. Every time we advertise for a new role, we see hundreds of applications.
This article is based on that first-hand experience as a recruiter and as a company owner. I hope it will help readers maximise their chances of getting a good job in these difficult times. Good luck!
1. Find the right employer
Do your homework. Use the internet and trade magazines to make a list of companies you would like to work for. You can get anonymous feedback from existing employees on Best Companies Guide.
Talk to your network. Facebook, LinkedIn and other social networking sites are a good way to find people who already work in your target companies. Reach out and ask for information, advice and help.
Don’t wait for vacancies. The job pages of newspapers and trade magazines may be a good source of vacancies or candidates for your short list, but the best jobs and the best leads come from personal contact. I placed an advert in the Guardian in 1991 and got over 500 replies. For one job. I’m far more likely to pay attention to an existing employee’s recommendation.
What do you want? Write your own job description and your own specification of your ideal employer. What are you going to do? What kind of company is it? How big is it?
Think rifle not shotgun. Better to focus on a handful of good matches than shotgun hundreds of badly copied CVs through an agency.
Agencies. Recruitment agencies can be very effective at getting you in front of lots of employers. Back in the day, online recruiters like Monster.com didn’t exist. Most agencies fax-spammed CVs to every company on their books. I suspect that online agencies are just more efficient at doing the same thing. Not good.
Be committed. My view of agencies is that it’s okay to use them but it’s your job and you need to be fully engaged with the process. Don’t let someone else decide what’s best for you. Especially when their only motivation is a commission.
2. Write an excellent cover letter
Write a personal letter. A cover letter is your chance to personalise your application. Be brief but be specific. For me, a cover letter was a good chance to see if the candidate knew anything about my company and to gauge their enthusiasm. It was a rare treat to find someone mention one of our games or having looked at our website.
Don’t make mistakes. Spelling mistakes alienate 77 per cent of business people, according to research by Hertfordshire University. Use a spell checker. Get someone you trust to proofread it. Hire a proofreader on Elance.com to check it for you.
Don’t be a bozo. Occasionally, I would get real howlers that damned a candidate’s chances. Several named the wrong company. Mis-spelling my name was very common. One included the immortal phrase “I’m looking for a job in the insurance industry.” (Applying for a job in computer games!) Many were flippant or weird, for instance “This job is right up my street. Hell, no! It’s right next door,” or my favourite: “I’m not as fit as my dog although I work well in a team and alone.”
Professional presentation. Don’t go crazy with the design. Look professional and conservative. A good cover letter is short – about half a page – neatly typed, grammatical, and properly spelt. It is polite to write the salutation (“Dear Mr. Manager,”) and the sign-off (“Yours sincerely”) by hand. Double-check who you are applying to – telephone if you have to – and put their name, title and address correctly at the top of the page. Debrett’s A-Z of Modern Manners has helpful advice about writing proper letters and other old-fashioned virtues.
Prepare an email version. Emails must be shorter and more focused than letters. Use short, declaratory sentences. Don’t waffle. But do still include the recipient’s name and something that personalises it.
Apply direct. Remember that agencies don’t include cover letters and generally fax CVs, so a direct application with a good cover letter can make you look like a better candidate simply through better presentation. Even if you think you are certain to get any job you apply for, it is worth using every opportunity to make a good impression, as it will help your case when negotiating a salary and people’s perceptions of you once you start.
3. Write a compelling resumé/CV
Get good advice. Ask your friends. Ask your current employer’s HR department (but only if they already know you’re leaving!). Find mentors. Read advice online.
Professional presentation. Programmers used to apply with CVs that were riddled with typos. Not a good sign in a profession that rewards attention to detail. Graphic designers’ CVs used to look like they were DTP’d by a five-year old. Crazy. As with the cover letter, CVs should be neat, grammatical and properly spelled.
Be brief. Unless you have had a very illustrious career, there is no need to use more than one page for a CV – second pages are rarely read.
Get a second opinion. It is well worth getting an honest friend to review your CV so that you can avoid saying something that does not say what you meant it to say. A classic example of this was one candidate who claimed “I have a close and loving relationship with my two sisters.”
Don’t be glib or scary. People don’t always share the same tastes or humour so keep it straight – don’t include a picture of yourself in Star Trek costume, for example. In one case, I read: “I am interested in the triumph of justice.” I’ve seen a few candidates who claimed to have worked for Mossad, MI5 or MI6. Trust me, the applicants in question definitely did not work for these agencies. In general, try not to amuse, scare or bu****it your prospective employers.
Don’t exaggerate. Some of the more extreme claims I have seen include “top secret research work for NASA,” “testing elasticity on incontinence knickers,” and one candidate who claimed to have written an entire hit game for a well-known developer on their own in a two month summer internship. Another claimed that “I am a world class Rubics Cube champion as well as winning the world mathematics championship in Hungary 1993.”
Don’t job-hop. I was always very, very wary of candidates who seemed to be ‘job-hopping’. More than a couple of jobs of less than 12-18 months looks pretty bad. It indicates some serious problem with their work or their attitude. The worst example I have seen was eight jobs in less than seven years. Needless to say, we didn’t hire him. If you have a lot of jobs on your CV, have a very convincing reason.
Use references wisely. Opinion on naming referees is divided. Generally, we didn’t take up references until after we make an offer but before someone started – mainly, we wanted to make sure that the candidate was who they said they were. If an employer wants a reference, they can always ask. The games industry is a very small one and quite often if we are uncertain about making a candidate an offer we will talk to someone at a previous employer informally. Occasionally, I got a call from other people warning me off certain candidates – a bad reputation can follow you. If you do give references, it is better if they are people who can claim some sort of independent judgement – for example, previous employers, tutors, lawyers – and not “my mother” as one hapless candidate offered.
Get yourself referred. There’s a big difference between a reference on a CV and someone who actively champions your cause. If you can find a mentor, rabbi or champion who can get you in front of the right people, do it. And be very grateful.
Clarify your name. If, like me, you are blessed with a memorable but unpronounceable name, it is a good idea to say how you pronounce it somewhere in your CV or cover letter. Also, if it isn’t clear which is your first name and which is your surname, it is helpful to underline the latter.
Don’t make stuff up that we can check. I’ve seen extraordinary claims of Olympic victory, Rubik’s Cube championships, hit games written in a weekend, implausible job titles at friends’ companies. In the immortal words of Sir Humphrey Appleby from Yes, Minister, “never conceal something that the press can discover for themselves.”
CHECK YOUR APPLICATION BEFORE YOU SEND IT.
- I saw many applications with the names of competitors in the covering letter. Mailmerge failure is a sign that you lack attention to detail.
If you want a reference, don’t punch your boss. Luckily this didn’t happen to me. In general, however, threats of litigation, sabotage and violence by departing employees are likely to result in a less than favourable reference.
"Written by Matthew Stibbe | 9 April 2009"
