Buckle your seatbelts and get excited for week 2 of Steven’s journey to getting his dream job in NYC!
Can he do it?!
Or is he biting off more than he can chew in this thrilling adventure.
I wish I knew myself, but I guess we’ll just have to wait to find out!
In this post I’ll cover what I experimented with during the second week of my journey.
We’ll talk about comparing CVs, getting advice from people hiring for the role I’m after, networking in a different country, and seeing if I can run ads to get hired!
In marketing terms, if week one was market testing & discovery, week two was all about getting my MVP ready.
Two weeks in and I already feel like a seasoned expert!
What is week 10 going to feel like?! 🤯
The Growth Curve Begins 🌱
It turns out learning something new like how to get a job is so similar to starting a startup!
Before I officially started, I kicked off full of confidence and a healthy dose of ignorance.
And by starting, I began learning about the process, gaining confidence, and making mistakes.
After all the growth during the first official week, I felt like I had learned so much already. I was approaching everything on a whole new level.
Now, after the second week, I look back at week 1 with pure nostalgia.
How sweet and ignorant I used to be thinking what I was doing in week 1 was as effective as how I’m thinking about it and approaching it in week 2.
This is what got me get into growth marketing in the first place.
The absolute joy of learning a new process, figuring out the highest potential areas for improvement, and constantly measuring & testing assumptions!
But With The Highs Come The Lows 🎢
Along with each growth curve, a roller coaster of confidence also enters the equation.
Some days I wake up full of confidence.
In my mind I can see myself surrounded by an awesome team, working on something that inspires me.
I find it easy to remind myself of the awesome support network already around me.
I feel like I’m enough, and I can easily see the value I could bring to a team.
And then there are days when I wake up with that feeling of vulnerability.
Only exacerbated by act of putting yourself out there again and again.
A marketplace that normalizes not responding.
Getting only 20 seconds to make a great first impression as they scan your entire career or else getting swiped off the stack of CVs on the desk.
Is this dating…?!
But this isn’t my first rodeo.
Well, technically it would be if it was a rodeo 🤠, but I’ve built a career going through this process so I know what to expect.
And I’ve always been surprised how fast that final uptick in the journey is, where seemingly overnight, it all comes together with enough curiosity, persistence, and joy.
What I Experimented With This Week 👩🔬
The first week was about getting used to the process of sending CVs, building helpful tools, and wrapping my head around the process.
Week two was about refining my CV to a place I’d be happy sharing around!
Essentially refining my Minimal Viable Product (MVP) before we start testing it in the market.
This week, with the help of my community, I made two big shifts.
Shift 1
The first, inspired by my partner is a different frame of mind around connecting.
In this job market, we know that there are more talented people than ever looking for their next job. So how can we approach this in a slightly different way.
Rather than applying for jobs willy nilly, how can you connect with people that are in the jobs or companies you are values aligned with, in order to learn from them, create a genuine connection, and build trust before even applying.
Her steps for success:
Step 1: What are your core values / requirements? Done! ✅
Step 2: What are some companies out there that look Like they might fit the criteria?
Step 3: What are some people / communities I should speak to?
Step 4: How do I present myself with my CV?
Step 5: Reach out to speak to people! See how they enjoy their job. See if you can add value to them. See how they got the job. See if the values of the company actually line up with how they say they show up.
Shift 2
The other big lift this week was reaching out to three people to get feedback on my CV!
It’s wild how vulnerable this can be. Sending my CV to unknowns? Easy.
Sending my CV to someone I care about? Ahh!
Here are some lessons from those people:
Person 1 - The Career Coach 📚
The first person I sent my CV to was a friend who is also a career coach. I know I have achieved a lot, but maybe it’s the NZ in me where I can sometimes struggle with being super direct when sharing my accomplishments.
Her feedback was consistent throughout my website & CV. Cut the fluff.
Be super clear and direct. Don’t use vague words like ‘helped’. Own exactly what you did and be very direct.
In a world where people are spending 20 seconds scanning your professional life accomplishments, there’s no room for them to fill in the gaps, otherwise they’ll swipe.
The person looking at your CV knows what they want you to do, and they want to read that you’ve done it before, or that you can be trusted to figure it out.
By being clear and direct, you help build their confidence that you’re the one who can do it.
Person 2 - The Startup Founder 💼
Her feedback was equally as incredible. The theme? Be concise!
She prompted me to cut my cover letter by ½ and reduce my CV from 2-pages to 1 page.
Eek!
Again in a world of 20-second impressions, even if your professional experience is full of awesome stuff, you should only include the tip of the iceberg stuff that is most relevant to that specific application.
Otherwise, swipe!
For example I had some results I delivered as a freelancer, and she suggested keeping that section a lot shorter if I’m looking for an in-house role and emphasize my in-house experience instead which makes total sense.
I also had a photo in my CV and she suggested that I should remove it which was great advice. In a progressive world of hiring, you don’t want to influence the hiring process.
We know traditionally that there has been and still is so much bias in this world. White men still on average get paid the highest. Job descriptions are still gender-coded towards stereotypical masculinity with terms like ‘dominate the market’.
And with unconscious bias training, one recommendation progressive recruiters follow is to encourage no photos.
Person 3 - The (Other) Marketer 👋
Finally, I did a CV exchange with a friend who is also a marketer!
This was incredibly helpful as I could see what a talented person in the industry shares on her CV and could so easily compare it to what I was sharing.
It made it so easy to do a side-by-side comparison, and I made a ton of tiny adjustments from this as well.
Results So Far 🎉
This week was a doozy.
- I did 3x rounds of CV feedback & improvement sessions this week.
- Created a Calendly to make it easier to book times to chat with overseas folks.
- I reached out to a hiring manager who had rejected my application and asked if they do consulting to help me arrange my experience in a way that others like them would be looking for.
- Applied for 11 more super aligned jobs
- Reached out to 4 industry professionals cold, seeing if this could work
- Connected with 14 people in my community that really values aligned with to see if they knew about any opportunities
- Had 1 call and reconnected with an old friend who now lives in NYC
- And 1 person who I sent my CV to has checked out my LinkedIn. Progress!
Pondering 🤔
Seth Godin had a article recently around the prompt ‘What Will I Tell My Boss’.
As we know in the professional world, you’re not selling to companies, you’re selling to people. And those people are often weighing up their decisions against those 6 words.
How might I show up in a way that will help a recruiter share a better story that also makes them look great when they tell their boss about me?
What’s Next ✨
I’m now feeling pretty confident about what I’m after, as well as my CV & cover letter, in week three we’re looking at introducing scale!
It’s going to be all about reaching out to more connections in my community.
Seeing if I can communicate my visa situation better (because of my Australian passport it means my work visa is more like a Canadian visa than a NZ visa).
And running some ads in NYC to see if I can create a little bit of interest in this journey!
Thanks for joining in on this weekly adventure!
See you next week ✨
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