I Read 2,216 Resumes. Here's How You Stand Out 🚀 (3)
the next tip is to really understand the vibe of the people who are hiring you, and passthe vibe check.
So this is the wrong way to do it for us anyway: "Dear hiring manager, in my search for a new challenge where I can leverage my writing and editing experience, I was pleased to an opening for writer researcher, intern at Ali Abdaal limited, eager to learn more about this exciting opportunity. I have enclosed my CV for your review. As my career profile illustrates, I'm well prepared to meet and exceed your expectations. Having served at..."
There's a few things wrong with this number one it's addressed to the hiring manager. No one wants to be referred to as dear hiring manager. It's just not really a nice thing.
Secondly, they've used really, really, really formal language. Having closed my CV for review, and very formulaic language, I want to meet and exceed your expectations. This makes it sound like a very, very, very dry, boring as hell corporate gig. And if this person has any semblance of the sort of vibe of the company that we're trying to create here, it is the opposite of corporate.
We don't do corporate. If you watch any of the content, any of the vlogs, any of the podcasts, hopefully it creates a vibe of friendly. I say, hey friend in videos, I don't say hello there, or dear sir, or we all sincerely. That's not the vibe.
And so seeing something like that, even if the person has a lot of experience, it kind of makes you think a bit, they don't really get it. They don't really get the vibe.
And I think people make this sort of mistake when going from the corporate world, where it's very stuffy, and formulaic, and big, long writing to applying for startups that tend to be younger, fresher, more of a sort of casual chill kind of vibe.
Here's another example of it done badly. "To whom it may concern." Red flag there. That's way too formal. It's not that hard to find out who's going to be reading your application, dear Ali and team or Hey Ali and team would've been way better. "Bilingual, and in my second year of studies, I'd like to [inaudible]."
Okay. This person knows how to write in a complicated way, probably in a university essay or in a school essay. But that's not the way that you want to write if you're trying to get a job at our company, because again, our vibe is a lot more casual and chill than that.
Now, if you pass the vibe check, that brings us onto our next piece of advice, which is please don't bullshit.
I want to show you some examples of what bullshit looks like.
"While at university, I've spent time building teamwork and time management skills. I'm focused on diligent when managing workloads and prioritised to meet deadlines. I thrive environments where I'm able to make a direct impact around me. I love solving call me, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah."
So this is a bunch of buzzwords, and bullshit that is not substantiated by anything at all.
I would much have preferred if this was just a bullet point of, here are the things I'm good at, and here is evidence as to why I'm good at them.
But they've tried to craft a sort of flowery narrative that's not backed up by anything at all.
And that when you're a hiring manager, or when you're someone in a team, or when you're me reading applications, and reading dozens and dozens and dozens of applications, it's just like, this person is just spewing out a lot of hot air and not actually giving any substance.
Here's another one, "Dear Sir or Madam." Which is again, bad sign because we're not a sir Madam kind of vibe. Maybe other companies might be one of the things here is, "I enjoy innovation and love to experiment with different ideas. I'm known for inspiring, and devising original thought provoking concepts."
There is no evidence that this person is known for inspiring and devising original thought provoking concepts.
If you're going to say something like that, then you need to substantiate it with, for example, when I did X, Y, Z I blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And this was thought provoking an original because of blah, blah, blah. No one is going to take your word for it.
Unless you're a famous philosopher, unless you're Plato, then you can get away with saying, "I am known for inspiring thought provoking concepts." But if you're writing a job application for an internship, or a job, I don't know. It just screams of a little bit of BS.
So overall message is that if you are going to make a claim, try and substantiate it to some degree with actual details of the reason why you're making that claim.
And if you're not, then don't try and bullshit your way in.
Don't try and pretend that you're something that you're not.
I would much prefer if I saw a cover letter that was like, "Hey Ali, I'm going to be honest, I don't have the experience needed for the role, but here are the reasons why I think you should hire me anyway. Bang, bang, bang, bang." Sick.
This is perfect. I'd be like, "Oh my God, this person is honest. This is refreshing. One of our values is keeping it real, this person understands." Even though they don't have the experience, they're not trying to their way through it. They're being honest upfront, they're leading with value. They're telling me why I should hire them.
And then I'd be much more likely to consider that person, rather than the person who's flowered formulated this hot hair balloon of stuff that's not substantiated with actual evidence.
Now this is the thing that all writing advice on the internet says, when we are in school, or when we're doing essays at university, generally you write in a way that's not very clear. You use big words rather than short words, because big words make you sound more intelligent. You use utilise rather than use, you use, I don't know, however, rather than but.
Basically we are taught and encouraged to use big words to sound intelligent.
When you're trying to apply for a job, people can see through that. No one wants to read big words.
George Orwell has this like interesting document about like advice on writing. What he says in this is never use a big word when a shorter word would suffice. There's absolutely no need for it.
This role would allow me to utilise my skills is bad. This role would let me use my skills is a lot better. It's a lot simpler. A kid could understand it.
You are not trying to be fancy or flowery, or whatever in your language, if you don't know how to write like this, if you have only been taught in school and a university and essays and staff to write like an absolute prick, then what you want to do, is you want to follow people like David Perell, or Dickie Bush, or read books like On Writing Well.
Those books will, and those resources will teach you basically how to create, make your writing sound more conversational.
Really it's all about writing as if you'd speak, and coming across as a clear communicator, rather than trying to sound like an intelligent communicator.
All right. Our next point is to dial in your level of enthusiasm.
Now here, I want to share some advice from Christian. So Christian was the first employee that we had here at the company.
And Christian has looked through, I think probably hundreds of applications at this point for other video editors and graphic designers. And he has some strong opinions.
So this is what he said. "What worked for me is getting to the point fast, not writing thousands of words about how excited I am, and what a fantastic person my childhood friends and family consider me to be. Starting with what I can do for the person I'm applying to, instead of listing my extensive experience or fluffing up my qualifications tends to work."
So he's leading with value. He's saying these are the things that I can do for you rather than, oh my God, this is how excited I am to be working with you.
"Sounding like a giddy excited child is just not my jam, but I've seen that in other applications, I would personally not hire a person who just exudes enthusiasm and excitement like a kid on Christmas, because I find that tiring to engage with. And in the end, it's just a demonstration of the halo effect, but for a company. Makes the person sound really needy.
Rather find out how much work I can offer to that person and whether it's going to get done well and on time.
And whether I can have a discussion with them without wanting to strangle them. I'd also suggest tailoring the application to the person's interests instead of using a complete cookie cutter application, this works.
Suggest how you could help with whatever side gigs the employer has, even if competence is not 100% in those areas.
And definitely no, dear sir, no excessive ask asking thing. No over the top lavishing of praise."
I think this's fair enough. I like enthusiasm when I'm looking at my own, when I'm looking at job applications, but there is a level. There's a good level of en enthusiastic for me, that would be something like, "Hey Ali, I just want to say, I really love your content, been watching you for the last four years and working with you would be amazing. Here are the reasons why I think you should hire me... ."
That's a good level of enthusiasm, but there's quite in quite a few of these applications.
There's sort of two paragraphs of like, "Oh my God, you've changed my life in all these different ways." Which is very nice to hear, but it's not really the thing you want to see in someone that you're hiring.
And one piece of advice that a lot of creators often give and get, is that, in a way you don't want to be hiring someone who's too much of a fanboy or a fangirl.
Because generally then that leads to this kind of weird power dynamic, where really when I'm hiring someone, I want to hire someone who's better than the job at me.
If I'm hiring a video editor, I want them to be a better video editor than I am.
If I'm hiring a videographer, I want them to be better than I am.
I don't want them to be thinking, oh my God, the ground that Ali walks on is halo. And that is sometimes the vibe we get from some of these applications.
So keep that in mind, if you are applying to work for someone who is well known, or someone who's stuff you've admired, you can say that, but you don't want to make it sound as if you are ultimate fanboy, kind of trying to do anything to get their attention.
All right, next tip we have is to be paranoid.
Let's have a look at one of these cover letters, as an example. Again, apologies to whoever wrote this in. I don't know the names I've asked Dan, or hiring in person head of HR to redact all of the things.
So I'm not throwing shade at anyone, but it's just a good example.
"My name is whatever, and I am interested in the something job you have offered on LinkedIn.
It's not how you spell LinkedIn. This seems like my type of role as I really enjoy writing
