Show Me!

When applying to a career or educational opportunity take every advantage to "show" the prospective school or employer why you're an excellent candidate.  For example a part of our "Attack PLans!tm" is a personal inventory and assessment.  Within that we have a number of tools to help clients critically analyze their background and skills, but one of the most important is the "show-me" section.

A good example is whn a client says they are organized in the skill set inventory.  Our next quetion is . . . how do you know?  Show-me!  This requires the client to think about their past experience and indicate something like: "Over the past 10 years of professional development I have been the primary fundraiser for XYK Corportation.  Included in that is an essential requirement to be able to be organized myslef, but also to organize others, events, deadlines, and goals.  It is not just a process of doing things the correct way, but an extensive personal intuition I have developed to know when something is not working correctly.  Let's look at . . . . "

This is the exact thing you need to do in your written pices and face to face!  Be creative, designers have long brought portfiolios to interviews, but even before that send a piece with a resume!  ut not just any piece! 

For example if you are applying to a marketing design position.  Take the time to redo their logo, or a mock-up web page, or facebook page.  Always ensure that you watermark it with your information and copyright on it because it is your intellectual property in the design of their materials.

You would be supprised how many call backs you will get and how impressed managers will be that you took the extra step and can see yourself already in the organization working!  If the letter/resume never makes it past the gatekeeper - go up on the ladder!  We all want to respect top managements time, but if you have a great idea and it is not being convayed after many tries then finout who your boos would be and contact them directly with your piece and a letter explaining why you came to them and why it was important that they recieve this information.

This is a tricky avenue to manuover to ensure you are not stepping on toes or completely blow your chances at that organization.  Thus in our next post we will go over the non-tradition approach letter!