Spotting the job of your dreams is a pretty exciting moment. Actually securing it is rather more challenging.
Still, in conversation this week on The Capital B business podcast, there was some cold, hard advice from Maximum Media‘s Niall McGarry – the founder of the likes of JOE, HerFamily, and Her (that’s us!).
Here are his top three tips…
1) A cover letter is non-negotiable:
“In this day and age, it’s incredibly important. I see people put a lot of work into a university degree… and then they just get careless applying for the actual job
“A cover letter is also a great opportunity to distinguish yourself from other people.
“Not everyone will include a cover letter – but if you get a good one where an individual has researched your business that’s massive.
“If someone has written a really good cover letter; I’m excited. I want to be excited about meeting someone if I’m interviewing them.”
2) Get creative:
“It disappoints me now when I see a Word document for a CV. Really, I’m expecting to see a graphically-designed CV; a PDF.
“I’m expecting to see creativity and a strongly-worded cover letter that excites me about potentially meeting this individual.
“Because if you put a job spec out there and you get 100 applications – a lot of the CVs look very similar. So visuals are great.
“And really, why would you want to hire someone who has laid-out their CV in the exact same way as everyone has?”
3) And finally…
“Passionate is a horrific word – but you hear it everywhere. Please don’t tell me you’re passionate about the role. Please!
“You’re passionate about getting paid… that’s what you’re passionate about!”
The Capital B is available free of charge every Monday morning from 7am; listeners can tune in on Soundcloud and can also download and subscribe to the podcast on iTunes and other podcast providers.
