Looking for a new position? Showcase your skillset with these simple steps
Simplify Your CV
Don’t be clever with formatting. Use a basic, fundamental CV. List hard skills including all digital apps you’ve worked with, then provide balance with an executive summary that briefly tells your story. Use language to convey softer skills like communication and empathetic leadership. Skip personal pronouns and use “we” instead.
Moving Up or Moving Out?
Leveling out at the same title for multiple years with numerous companies is a red flag. Maybe personal reasons kept you in place or you just love the job, but recruiters want to see your track record. Be prepared with data to prove you’ve still got the goods.
Personal Social Media Branding
Create a personal brand on social media that can sell you to an employer. Recruiters use social media as a first-look at job candidates. Make sure your branding is authentic and represents who you are, but remains professional.
Brush Up on Zoom
Not every candidate has the perfect lighting for a virtual interview, but putting some thought into background, camera angles, volume levels and personal appearance goes a long way in showing HR that your basic tech skills are current and effective digital communication is within your wheelhouse.
Put Value Front and Center
An interview is not the time to be humble. Be really clear on what value you add to an organization and present evidence to back it up. Give your teams credit where credit is due to illustrate your contributions equally.
Empathetic Leadership
Conveying softer skills like this often comes down to relationship building and conveying everyday, conversational examples of how those relationships with a team, a company or even the industry live on. Do you still get together for dinner? Are you godparent to one of their kids? Tell them, because this is where integrity and character come in. Lasting relationships are the byproduct of empathetic leadership.
Do You Have Any Questions?
Grab that interview moment and make it your own. Script questions for the interviewer that allow you to convey pieces of your experience and skill set that reinforce your fit for the organization. It takes forethought and planning to create “impromptu” situations like this, but they provide opportunity for deeper conversation that could land you the job.
The Remote Work Elephant in the Room
The willingness to contribute more than is expected shows initiative and is a given at the executive level. But remote work is a new kind of flexibility to consider in a job search. Some companies take a hard line on full-time, in-office workers. Others sit solidly in the work-from-home camp. And then there are the hybrids: three days in office and two days remote; one week in the office and three weeks remote. There’s no standard and little agreement. Research. Set priorities. And apply accordingly.
Remote Work Downside
Take into account that present and visible employees have an advantage to moving up and being promoted within many companies. Combat that with innovation, intentional actions and strong communication to engage your team, build a community where one might not exist, and increase the mindshare with the CEO or other executives who could determine advancement within an organization.
Be the Best Fit
Executive recruiters work with HR departments to search for the best job candidates. Through written responses and less formal interviews, recruiters glean information from potential candidates and dig for characteristics, leadership styles and experiences that can make all the difference in a new hire “fit.”
From the January/February 2023 issue of Direct Selling News magazine.
