Helpful tips

I’ve learned a few things about finding and procuring jobs in my short time in this here “real world”:

• Your resume is the key. Don’t half ass it.
• Your cover letter is even more key. Write it, put it down, then edit it, reading backwards. Then get someone else to read it. It should be three paragraphs long and substantively show your personality.
• Interview well. If you don’t know how to, just practice talking to yourself in a mirror or to your friends. It’s silly, but who’s going to hire someone who can’t:
  1. Look them in the eye
  2. Prevent themselves from saying “ummm”
  3. Present themselves at the appropriate level of professionalism
  4. Answer questions without a pause. Learn how to stall, folks.
• A little bit of exaggeration to get that “better job” is a good thing.
• If you do exaggerate a bit, you have to have the dynamism to back it up.

And yet somehow I’m stuck at work training someone with 20 years of age over me, supposedly twice as much experience as me, and supposedly a skillset tailored to our job requirements. Newsflash: Do NOT. And I mean NOT list specialized programs and skills and then ask me how to use them. It’s just embarrassing.

What’s worse is that we all have been there. In order to get a job that is an advancement, you should be overselling yourself a bit. Otherwise you can’t grow, especially since it seems that employers of any sort now are far less into on-the-job training and advancement. However, if you do this there is one cardinal rule:

Don’t let your new employer know you’re faking it.

Simple, no?