AJ Kulatunga is a young entrepreneur who runs BLKMGK ICT a technology coaching firm and Dream,Build,Inspire,Lead! a project that aims to protect the dreams of cool young people all around the world and turn them into reality. After completing an IT Consulting degree in the middle of the dot com bust, AJ found it nearly impossible to find a job. Rising above the odds by using the Dream,Build,Inspire,Lead! philosophy he managed to land an amazing consulting job during a global downturn and started turning his dreams into reality. Visit http://www.dreambuildinspirelead.com to hear his story or http://www.blkmgk.com.au to see BLKMGK in action.
Have you ever been in a shop where the sales person comes up and starts telling you all about the product and how great it is but you’re just not interested? This usually happens when there is a mismatch in communication between the sales person and you. If you are trying to communicate something to someone else then you should be able to tailor your message and deliver it in such a way that will be understood. This is a fundamental skill to master for job seekers yet not many people are aware of it.
A Sale is Always Made
As highlighted in the Vin Diesel film Boiler Room, in life a sale is always being made. Either you are selling someone on a reason for doing something or they are selling you on a reason why they shouldn’t. The best way to give you a chance at getting a great job is to match your entire communications strategy with your target organisation.
Don’t Just Tailor Your Resume
Most people tend to tailor their resume for each individual job which is fantastic but don’t forget to tailor it for the organisation as well. If you are really interested in working at a company start by learning how that company operates. Do enough research on the company and its people and start to think about the sort of person they would want working there and then match everything you do with that organisation including your resume, interview and all correspondence and communication with that organisation.
This is where I see a lot of cool young people fail because they think after they have graduated they will easily get a job simply because they have qualifications, fantastic experience and are available for work immediately. It doesn’t work like that. You’ll come across as not being the right fit for the organisation or worse yet, a really annoying salesperson!
Give Yourself the Best Possible Chance
As job seeker you want to give yourself the best possible chance at getting a great job so you need to start matching your communications with potential employers.
I know this takes a lot of time and effort but if you’re not willing to put in the hard yards in getting a job in the first place, how long do you think you will survive in a professional position? Perhaps a casual career would be better for you.
5 Golden Rules of Matching Communications
1. Research the organisation and its people. Find out their mission and their values and look at how they communicate with the rest of the world. What words and phrases do they use? If possible take a visit to the company and see how their employees dress. Research the company on Twitter to see if their employees are online. Connect with these people to give you greater insight.
2. Armed with this information, match your resume to the organisation by tailoring it to highlight the attributes that the organisation will want. If you’re a superstar applying for a lower level job (for whatever reason) re-organise your resume to be less superstar-ish. Also don’t send a private sector resume to a government position. Always be matching.
3. When your resume gets your foot in the door for an interview, make sure that what you presented in your resume is matched in your interview. So if you listed your personality as “bright and cheerful” don’t go into the interview looking like a bus just hit you and you hate the world. Always be matching.
4. You should have done research on what the employees of that organisation wear to work, so make sure you dress appropriately. For instance if employees don’t wear suits and ties to work, don’t be wearing one in the interview. Always be matching.
5. During the interview, at the end, ask if they would prefer if you followed up with them via email or phone? There is nothing worse than a person who prefers email to start receiving phone calls, or vice versa. Always be matching.
Most graduates are just 5% off getting a great job. They have all these great technical skills and experience but what they lack is something small that just needs a little bit of tweaking to get them through the door. Hopefully you’ve now got your 5%. Good luck!
