Finding Remote Work Jobs | JobSearchTV.com
By Jeff Altman, The Big Game Hunter
Way before our current crisis, people have wanted to work remotely. Maybe you want to work from home. Maybe you want to work from some remote location.
Jordan Carroll does that for himself and helps others achieve that. In this interview, we talk about his experience and what others can do.
Jeff
So my guest today is Jordan Carroll. Jordan is a Forbes featured remote job coach. He helps high performing individuals and companies make the transition to remote work. Jordan, how are you today? Welcome!
Jordon
Jeff, I am excellent. Thank you so much for having me.
Jeff
You are welcome. And where in the world is Jordan Carroll today?
Jordon
I am in 00:26 [Inaudible] in Mexico, senor 00:33 [Speaking in Spanish]
Jeff
I took French in school.
Jordon
I’ll throw you off of with Spanish.
Jeff
I cannot with the best of them. And you appear to be an American, am I wrong?
Jordon
I am an American. I’m from California, but I live in Mexico. I’ve lived in Mexico for most of the past year and a half or so, but over the past two years, I’ve lived in about 15 different countries.
Jeff
How fitting with the remote job coach winds up living abroad. And Jeff, how did you become interested in doing this? What was it in your story? And then we’ll get into how other people can do it as well.
Jordon
Yeah, I mean, I think growing up, it was weird. I always had this inkling that there was more to see; and then I think there are moments in people’s lives that cause them to reflect on what it is they’re doing and what their default future is. So I had a few specific moments that I think really led up to that: One was leaving my corporate job at IBM; one was a really big breakup that I had with an ex-girlfriend, and then another on was leaving Portland, Oregon, where I was living at the time; and moving everything out of my apartment and saying, “Hey, I’m going to go travel the world”. And realizing that remote work was going to give me the opportunity to not only work remotely outside of an office but change everything about my life. That’s really where I think a lot of this started was that realization. So the more I was self-aware about what I thought I needed, the more it became the only option for me to be honest.
Jeff
And that’s beautiful. And folks will just simply say, you don’t have to move out of the country to work remotely.
Jordon
Oh, that’s a really good point because I think a lot of people might see traveling to different countries, and going to all these different places every month; and they get overwhelmed by the thought, Oh, like, I don’t want that lifestyle. And remote work is not about that lifestyle. Remote work is giving you the freedom and flexibility to own your lifestyle, whatever that means. And that’s why I got into what I, what I enjoy and love doing it is; because the moment that I felt the liberation of being able to be in Lisbon Portugal in March 2018, looking up at the, one of the biggest bridges I’ve ever seen in my life up close; and everything that I had done up until that moment got me to that point where I felt truly free; that moment. I want other people to feel that whatever that is for them; could be at home with their family. Right?
Jeff
A lot of people have had that taste in this as we’re recording this COVID-19 times, but you obviously predate that, and had been working remotely for quite some time, which is fabulous. Me, I have been working remotely for quite a few years now and I love it as well. So where does someone start? How does someone begin the process of figuring out if can be a remote career?
Jordon
Yeah, well, Jeff, that’s a great point. I want to make a call back to the comment about COVID and remote work right now. This is not at work truly. Right? This is you are forced into your house, let’s make it work remotely for now for a lot of people. Right? And that’s kind of the difference is that true remote work with a remote-first company, a company that has remote work policies, systems, and things in place that help create and foster a remote culture, now that’s true remote work. You can go to the coffee shop down the street, you can travel to the next state over if you want it to, or you can telecommute on your terms at a coworking space. That’s true remote work with that full flexibility and range of work. So I think where it starts is commitment. It’s asking yourself, what is it that you are committed to?
Because in life we commit to different things, whether we know it or not. And if someone doesn’t, if they can’t commit to what remote work looks like for them, which could mean not having the socialization of being an office or not feeling productive if they don’t have someone to talk to like their manager, you know, right there with them; or not having the digital skills.
I think more often than not, it’s actually a healthy exercise to ask yourself if remote work is right for you first, because the moment that it just seems like this really cool, kind of a fun thing to do, and then you actually do it and realize, Oh crap, you know, maybe I’m not built for this. Right? Maybe I need to be in an office because that’s what helps me be a productive employee. I think that’s the first thing that I have people go through in the process, it’s really just determining if they can commit to that.
Jeff
And how do they evaluate for that? And I know you spoke about, can you live with, we’ll call the water cooler conversations.
Jordon
Yes.
Jeff
And the constant visits from old cheat your boss where you’re checking in with one another,in fact, being micromanaged. Like how does someone, what are the determinants for how someone can figure this out that you see with the people you coach?
Jordon
Yeah, I think it’s an honest evaluation of the why, right? Getting down to the why and why this is important first. If this is something that’s going to enable family life balance, and that that’s really important to you, for instance, then it’s figuring out, okay, well, how are you going to create an environment at home that allows you to do that? And there is a learning curve. That’s the biggest thing that most people don’t think about, is you don’t just go from being a decent office employee to now creating a home office and everything’s fine and dandy. You have to create a structure around that, so I recommend it. For instance, if someone is working for an employer right now where they could work remotely, that they start with a pilot of working remote outside of COVID, right?
Because obviously in COVID, a lot of people are working remotely, but it’s not the ideal situation. Now, if you’re in a situation where you can have the ideal, part of we’re not in COVID, you can work kind of wherever you want. Start to figure out like, okay, what does it actually look like? And what are those parameters, the criteria that I’m evaluating my success with my management? And then that’ll give you a good sense of, is this actually working for me or is this actually a detriment to me?
Jeff
Yeah, and the detriment, I always think in terms of, you know, I gave him a former head hunter. And I remember every time the economy would turn sour, the first people that would get cut were the remote workers; because they hadn’t taken the time to remain connected with the office all that much. And thus, no one really knew what they did, had an appreciation for the effort that they put in because they weren’t seen, and thus, they were easy to dismiss. These times seem to be different as we’re recording this.
Jordon
Yeah, and a distancing bias, right? So it’s a leadership bias that actually happens within top-level leadership when they’re looking at their organization. And they’re saying, you know, it’s whoever’s close to you is more important, but really in reality, that’s not always the truth, all of this starts with being an indispensable employee.
And I’m sure that you, as a head hunter, like, you know, that the highest performing individuals, the ones that really command the big bucks, the ones that command the respect, they’re the ones who’ve proven themselves time and time again in their work environments, no matter what the work environments were. So that’s the first priority is if you can be indispensable and the company would be in some deep crap without you, that’s your ticket for leverage, for whatever it that is important on your end.
Jeff
And how long do you think the trial period for the initial remote work might last? So we’ve got the employee, they want to propose remote work to their management. How long are they proposing it for and what sort of things do they do in the proposal?
Jordon
Yeah, so that would be usually, probably like a three-month deal, like a quarter. Take a quarter to evaluate that and starting off with certain parameters around this. And the biggest thing that you can’t get wrong is measuring success with success criteria, contingency planning; so making sure that if right now, if I’m in the office and we have a standing meeting on Thursdays where I go into the actual room, now, this is how we do it virtually. Right? And again, this is all theoretical too once everybody gets dragged back into the office.
But you’ll start to wonder what are the metrics of success? So having actual things that you track as your output, that’s super important too, because if you’re, then if you’re in that situation where companies cutting, you actually have metrics. So you’ve actually begun to track those things; and you’ve had conversations with your manager said, “Hey, here are the KPIs that we’re tracking within my outputs, things that I do from a day to day basis, a week basis, quarterly basis. And at the end of this quarter, if we’re at these numbers or, you know, we’re close, I’d like to have a discussion about fully remote, or three days a week, or four days a week or whatever it is that naturally makes sense in that progression.
Jeff
I always think in terms of this is the behavior that employees should be taking regardless of whether they want to work remotely. Identifying what success looks like, finding something measurable, and doing that in advance of proposing the remote work. Because if you can demonstrate you’re hitting those numbers, then you have something a way of returning and say, “Okay, let’s see if I can do this or better”.
Jordon
Yeah, and Jeff, I bet that you’re not surprised, but I bet if we polled a hundred people from your audience and ask them, tell me about the metrics that you use to evaluate your job? I guarantee you that somewhere less than 25% of that, I don’t know what you, I’m curious if you would think that you might know what the answer is to that. Like how many people you think would actually have metrics for their job?
Jeff
Somewhere between zero and 5%. Most people have something that’s fairly ad hoc from it than from the review time. They get annoyed at what’s thrown at them; because most of it’s all the critical feedback. This is what you did wrong. No one does praise well anymore. Managers invariably dive into this is what you did wrong, this is what you got to improve on, No one offers compliments, so people only hear the criticism.
Jordon
Yeah, it’s so true, it’s so true.
Jeff
It’s an unfortunate part of American human nature.
Jordon
Yeah, because you get a grade in school, right? And let’s say that you got four As and one F, what do you think you’re going to be talking with your parents? It’s going to be DF. So I think a situation within these work environments. And I see a lot of times within these work environments, they’re not really structured to not only the praise, but the actual numbers, and they’re not able to track it as well. So being proactive and taking this to your manager and really saying, “Hey, you know, I want to advance in this company. I want to become a, you know, a top-performing employee. I want to know what I’m being measured on”. That’s a very impressive thing to come to your manager with. And if there is any manager worth their salt, they’re going to appreciate that because that helps them justify their job. Right? Up the chain, if they’re more easily able to report, then you’re helping them. So I think you’re totally right, that this is a proactive conversation to become indispensable, no matter where you’re at in your journey, no matter what type of employee you are, no matter what your goals are.
Jeff
Agreed. So it seems like from a process standpoint is, first of all, identify the why. Why do you want to do it, what do you hope to get out of it? Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And from there, it seems to be okay, where are you right now? Cause obviously no, one’s going to give it to the worst performer in the firm.
Jordon
Right!
Jeff
So you have to be seen as a quality performer or better in order to do this. And identify metrics for how your current work is being evaluated. She can then say, “Could we try a trial for the next 90 days”? “And if you can keep these metrics up or improve, look at extending this on a more on a permanent basis”.
Jordon
Yeah. And honestly, most people I talk to are actually wanting to move to a different company altogether. So I actually see much less of the, in one of my old jobs, I saw the negotiations a lot more. Because the company that I worked for actually held those, those negotiations with employers on behalf of the employees, which is a really cool experience too, to be a part of. However, the time now, like that I spent with job seekers is mostly how do I find a remote-first company? Because the company that I work with right now, I don’t want to move upstream. I don’t want to be the first person that adopts the fully remote once we’re back in the office; because that puts a target on my back from my other fellow employees. And it, someone has to be the pioneer, but a lot of people are uncomfortable with that. So they’d rather go to a company that already appreciates them and already says, “Hey, here’s remote work, flexible work policy. You don’t have to fight our culture here. You can come aboard and have fun and enjoy the perks that we offer.
Jeff
It’s funny, you spoke about pioneers, it reminded me of many years ago, buying a piece of computer hardware that just kept failing. And it was a few thousand dollars piece of hardware, and it was a hardware that was a lot of money.
Jordon
Yeah!
Jeff
And they sent me a replacement piece of hardware. Great! It failed too. And so I was talking to the head of engineering with his new release hardware. They’ve very glibly said, “Well, pioneers take arrows in the back”, and that’s really what you’re talking about. Being the pioneer, you are invariably the target, and who the heck wants that to happen?
So if someone’s now looking for the remote job, we’ve already covered the, okay, you want to try in within your firm? Fine. God bless, that’s the way to do it. Now, if you’re going to find a remote job, how do you go about doing it? Can’t be about just going on job boards and looking for 15:27 [Inaudible]
Jordon
Right! I start with the priority of what it is they’re looking for in a remote job? So is this a US national remote job? Is this you can live in the state and work remotely? Is this something that you want to work around the world? Like we have to kind of define some of those initial parameters to know what companies we’re going to be targeting. And once we kind of get a good sense of like the priorities, it’s like, okay, the biggest priority to me is that it’s this exact job role. Right? Because I talked to a lot of people who are like, “I don’t know what I want to do remotely”. And it’s like, Oh, well, you know, that’s going to give you a lot harder of time, right? So what if you’re in that place, you might take an entry level position or something that is less or no experience required, just so that you can get in the game. Right? And you’ve never worked remotely, you want to start with something.
So it really depends on where they’re with the skill level, what their technical ability is, and then what their priority is; and then we evaluate a job search strategy. Now at the forefront of any job search strategy in what I teach is networking. Is evaluating who in your current network already are people that you can have either informational interviews with or can get introductions with, or can have some sort of warm connection within those companies that now become targets, or those jobs that now become targets. And there are ways to find these jobs outside of just remote job boards, which is where you should be specifically looking. This is not a monster search, this is not an indeed search, this is flex jobs is a really good place. They do have a paid, it’s a paid version, but it’s really great.
We work remotely, who I interviewed this week, actually on my program was the head of operations there. It’s the largest remote hiring site in the world, and then there are a couple of other ones as well. And there are plenty of them, but there are a few that are really good, but not spending too much time on job boards is I think a good thing. I think to get the alerts sent to you; that’s why they’re there is have the alerts automatically sent to you. Spend a lot of your time networking. And I have a really easy, sustainable networking process that I recommend; and really work angles. Engage with content, with those companies on LinkedIn, engage with the people, their content on LinkedIn, and try to find ways to warm up connection requests so that you’re going through the back door instead of the front door like everybody else
Jeff
Curious, I’m going to back up to something you said earlier, people without experience like next to no experience finding a job remotely, like what do they do?
Jordon
Yeah. So there’s actually quite a few transcribing roles, and that is one of the ones that I see the most for people with little or no experience. Data entry, admin of data administration, virtual assistants, things like that can actually be done with much less experience. However, there’s something like virtual assistants, for instance, my recommendation is usually volunteer for someone who, you know, that runs a business and do it for them for a couple of hours a week for free.
Learn on the job with someone who can be a testimonial for you and can allow you to make some mistakes, but is also either a friend or someone you respect or someone that you can get an in with. The flip side of that is, again, this goes back to being the most valuable person you can be. If you become an indispensable virtual assistant at a couple of hours a week with this person that they can not live without you, then after a few months, you know, usually go for three month period. I really liked that that three month kind of period. After those three months, you might be able to ask them for a position with them. Maybe it’s a paid freelance position where you’re working five, 10 hours a week, but that’s a remote source of income. Now you can use that on your resume to get something more full time.
Jeff
Very interesting. I get the three-month formula folks; do something for three months and then stretch, expand, explore, and go forward. This is really interesting. Now, for the veteran, like what were you doing for IBM back in the day?
Jordon
I was selling their software. So the analytical software salesperson for, their actually their mainframe systems.
Jeff
Ooh, the mainframes, I remember those days. For a salesperson, for example, wanting to do remote work well, in theory, a lot can be done by phone or video, of course, but I have to present the desire for territory, or industry or something along those lines, it becomes the way substantial organizations key in. Am I wrong?
Jordon
Not necessarily, but I think a lot of companies are now moving towards the predictable sales revenue model, which was a book that was written about basically taking, having separate teams, own separate parts of the sales cycle.
And I’ve, I’m a salesperson, I’ve been a salesperson since it started. I sold at IBM, I sold at every job that I’ve ever had, I’ve been a salesperson. So what this looks like is you have on the front end of the, of whatever the company’s marketing is, is a sales development representative. or our a business development representative, someone who either does incoming or outgoing messages, leads. Not only lead generation but talks to those leads to qualify, then moves them over to someone who would be presumably an account executive or somebody that sells, that does outbound sales as like, you know, a closer. Right? Simply put. And then, then it goes from there to someone who handles the management of the account or customer success, s having those three separate teams.
So what I see a lot as far as how this gets broken down is I’ll give you an example from, me, I worked a year and three months working for a remote year as a salesperson, selling their travel programs. And it was actually more of a Round Robin type of deal. So if leads came in from our ads, they would be round Robin to about 40 of us, and that’s how that system would work. It wouldn’t have anything to do with, with the territory, or like there were some times we could go into the delete pool if someone was lesser qualified; and we can go pick, but most of it was sent to us automatically, and that was kind of just how it was done.
So I noticed that a lot of companies are, if it makes sense, they will do some sort of geographic segmentation. But if you have a fully distributed remote company from all over the world, you may give the calls in the same time zones to certain people. But a lot of times with these companies that can be from anywhere, as long as they have someone who can jump on the phone during those hours. They pick their hours, the calls get booked in their time, and there you go, you’re often going
Jeff
Sweet. Now, so far we’ve spoken about networking, I’ll call it volunteerism, the three-month work for free thing. We’ve spoken about job boards as places where people can find out about remote jobs. What other ways do people do that?
Jordon
LinkedIn is, I mean, it’s by far the most powerful platform, the most powerful place for you as a job secret; because not only is it a place that lists jobs and they now have remote, they have remote filters. They actually have a much better remote work from home filtering system than they had previously. Especially since COVID, they’ve really expanded a lot of that. And you usually want to have the premium version, the career search version because it helps with those filters a lot.
But it’s also your connection place, it is where you connect to people, it’s where you can join the conversation, it’s where you can find the hiring managers. It’s your social proof because you have recommendations and referrals on your actual profile. It’s a place where you could create content. So why not create something that you have expertise in or share articles, or show your expertise? Because when someone from a hiring team says, “Okay, I’ve got Jeff, who’s this Jeff 23:36 [Inaudible]. I have got his resume. I’m going to go and check his LinkedIn. That’s the first thing they’re going to do. So it’s an optimized place for not only you to have a footprint online, but your place to connect with people and apply to jobs. It’s like everything in one, so I love it for that reason.
Jeff
Got you! I’ve started to think of LinkedIn as a job board; because at this point your profile’s a resume, your resume is 24:00 [Inaudible]
Jordon
Yeah!
Jeff
lots of jobs there, but it’s that cute? There are just so many ways for branding an individual that make all the difference in the world. And I speak from the perspective of the 690 some odd million people on the platform. I was part of the first 10,000.
Jordon
Yeah, that’s awesome. Yeah! It’s the early adoption though. I mean, it’s like I had an early adoption moment when they came out with the video feature, I started putting native video on LinkedIn and you know what that did for me, hundreds of thousands of views, engagements and inbound, not only leads for my business but connect collaboration, opportunities, job opportunities, everything. So if you know how to use LinkedIn, not just to hold your resume, but as a place to connect, that’s the key
Jeff
It works. It works wonderful. So what do they do now? Like what are, are interviews of course done remotely? It is not like they bring you in, like, how does the process continue for people, for them to find these jobs?
Jordon
So, the biggest recommendation on really kind of getting into this process is segmenting your schedule, and batching your work. So one of the biggest issues I see with people is that they actually don’t know how to do a job search. We were never taught how to do this in school. It’s not something that really comes intuitively to a lot of people, but like anything else, you need a strategy. So a strategy starts with a plan, and a plan starts with scheduling things in your actual calendar, right? Like creating the tasks that you need to do. And what I recommend is batching them into individual blocks of time. So for example, if I am going to be doing job searching on my job boards, I’m doing an hour of that on Monday, but I’m only doing that and I’m saving jobs. I’m not applying, I’m not networking, I’m not doing that; because what happens when you go down this rabbit hole of, Oh, I just found a job and now it looks really pretty. And now I’m going to go into it, now I’m going to, and you get stuck in that for 30 minutes, 45 minutes an hour, and then you’re just, you find yourself coming out of it. You’ve been on their website for like an hour and you haven’t done anything.
So my idea is to go in on Monday, for instance, take an hour of time and save 30 jobs that look like they could be a fit. Within the keyword search that you do, within your alerts, just save them. And I use pocket, which is a Chrome extension, and then go in there a valuation, take time either the next day or in a separate block to figure out what are the three that I’m going to apply to.
And I wouldn’t recommend applying to any more than three in a week like that, that, that to me, that out’s more than that is putting a lot on your plate; because I always recommend that you find a warm connection or a warm way to send in your resume that’s not just through the ATS system, and then you figure out what the strategy is from there. It might be content, it might be an introduction, it might be, I know someone at the company, but you have to find a way to get that resume directly to the person that’s making the decision. And you’ve got to find a way to look different, and that’s the key. You have to, at that first stage, top of the funnel, just look different than everybody else, and you should get to the second round.
Jeff
It’s funny, you know, I interviewed someone this week, the show wasn’t down yet, but he found his internship through Instagram, and the idea became he’s a student, he’s trying to find something. He stumbled into someone he went to school with who was now the top intern in some organization.
And the conversation here isn’t about the 27:43 [Inaudible], it is about finding someone in a different way. What’s the access point? How can you stand out? How can you not be the fish amongst all the other fishes who are trying to jump on that one stinking hook? How can we cut the line? Which is my big thing? I want people to cut the line as much as possible so that people want to come to you, and they’re always thinking of you. So I’m liking this approach that you’re taking, because it’s very much the way I think, too. And of course, you agreed with me, that’s perfect.
Jordon
It makes your job a little bit easier, right? And I’ve noticed that a really good place for that LinkedIn company pages are highly underutilized. There are companies on there that will post things every day. If not every other day, with one like, two likes, a comment, they’ll feature people within their company. They’ll do like a writeup or an article about someone at the company. The perfect opportunity to like that, comment on it, and then connect with the person say, “Hey, I saw your article”. Pick out one thing in the article that you really liked about the person, compliment them on that, and start a dialogue about what it’s like to work with the company. Because the moment that you make it a personal connection, rather than you’re reaching out to them to ask them for something, is the moment that you actually build a real relationship.
Jeff
And when you talk about complimenting someone at the firm, having read an article. Everyone loves him some compliments, especially if it’s sincere.
Jordon
Yes, and it’s got to be authentic, right? And that’s the key is that this can’t be backhanded. I actually don’t care about Oprah Winfrey, but you mentioned her in your article. It’s a, “Hey, you know, I saw this thing”. I give you an example, I had a client this week who found someone at her ideal company who has a dog that looks very similar to her dog, and it’s a very rare breed. And the dog is actually in his picture, and he also has an app that he built about dogs, like socializing dogs, and about like their behaviors and all sorts of things. So she has this whole route to go down where she could go and even use his dog website as a place of entry. That’s the key is like, where is the entry point? Is it through the message like everybody else is doing? Or can it be through some other means? Can it be a cold email? Can it be an email through their website where you have something in common? Once you create that connection, man, you’re in such a better place.
Jeff
And I’m going to say something I say all the time, never ever apply for a job through an applicant tracking system. It’s the lazy approach. It’s called the black hole for a reason, and you know that, so why would you do it anyway? To avoid that, go for the human connection because it makes all the difference in the world; because you have an advocate for you. You have someone who’s going to provide social proof or testimonials, or something to advocate for you. Why wouldn’t you do that? What are we covering yet? Come on. We got more to go, I know that.
Jordon
Yeah, so let’s see. So we’ve gotten to the point where you’re finding that strategy of where it is your entry point is. Because I think that’s one of the first and most important things; because the first impression that you make along the way is going to determine largely your place within the ranking, right? It is how did you make that impression and how much strength does it have behind it? So we go from there so let’s just say that; you know, you had gotten an interview or you’d gotten through the process to be able to do that.
Obviously there’s a lot of company research to do, there’s research to do on the interviewer. But one of the more overlooked things on the back end of all, this is, if you don’t get responses if you don’t get a response from your application is following up. Most people who, especially the ones that go through the ATS, just submit kind of blindly, cold.
If they don’t get a response, whether it’s an automated response or a human response, they kind of just give up. And I talked to so many people who are like, yeah, I’ve been sending, I sent in 50 applications. I got, you know, a few rejections that seem like they were automated, but not really anything. I said, “Okay, well, how many times did you contact the company or the person that was potentially hiring for that role”? They are like, “Well, I didn’t, I just sent him the resume”. It’s like, “Okay, well here’s our issue is that one we didn’t establish a connection before you sent the resume, and then after you sent the resume, you didn’t follow up”. What does that say about you once you’re at the company? Does it say much about your work ethic?
Jeff
Lazy, lazy!
Jordon
And what our job is, the biggest reframe that I have to try to help my clients through is that you are not bothering people. The idea of this is that you are actually making their lives easier. You are, de-risking their hiring opportunity. And this is if you’re really truly sold on the fact that you’re a good fit for this organization that this is the job for you, that you’re going to do a great job that you’re an awesome employee. If you believe that, then you have an obligation to help them do their job easier. That obligation is to make it as risk-free of hire as you can and make it really easy for them to say, yes,
Jeff
I love this interview so far. You are a killer. I love this. And I say that with all sorts of compliments. What’s next for someone? Are we going to get into negotiating at this point?
Jordon
I’m curious to hear some of your, I think your negotiations probably better than mine. But what I would say again on the followup part and what I would call a value asset. So there are two separate things that we haven’t covered. One is when you’re seeking to be different within the application stage, especially if this is a company, that’s your number one company. This is like the job you want, this is where you have your eyes set on.
You send in, what’s called a value asset with your application. What is the value asset? A value asset is an asset that the company can use to evaluate your credibility, your competence, and actually give them value without you even needing to be in the picture. I’ll give you an example, I had a person that was working with me. She is within marketing, social media advertising, right? So she’s had a nice career doing this so far, but she’s young. She’s a little, somewhat inexperienced, but she’s really talented. So what we did was, we looked at the company that she wanted to apply for and we created mock advertisements, three mock advertisements to send to the company; because those were deliverables of what the role was. So figure out what the role requires as deliverables, as output, and figure out what is it that you can do that again deem risks, them thinking that you’re competent.
So we sent those over and that landed her interview, and it was just the fact that she had directly sent these advertisements saying, “Hey, here’s a couple of ads that might work. I just wanted to show you, you know, what I’m thinking I would do in the early stages that the role to help the organization does X, Y, and Z”. And we took words directly from the job listing, direct keywords for the requirements, and then we sent that within the cover letter too
Video applications are also great. Some companies are requiring them now, but sending in a video application, there was one client that I had that was not required to send a video application, but the company is a video company. So she created an account and they have a template for video resume, so we literally created a video resume on their platform to send to the hiring manager. It’s like, that seems so obvious to me that you do that, but you know, it’s just one of those things, it’s perfect, right?
Jeff
Folks, I’ll just simply say the skills needed to find a job are different than those needed to do a job. But it’s the notion that you know, think for a second, don’t stay within the system or the box that you’ve been programmed. Think for a little bit, you know, it is a wonderful example of a video resume firm. Why not give them a video resume and you’re speaking their language too?
Jordon
Absolutely!
Jeff
What else? I want more from you, come on. What else?
Jordon
Okay. So yeah, we’ve gone through that part of the process of delivering our value asset. Now the big key is, following up. If you haven’t heard it from anything, one thing that I always recommend that job seekers do is in the email that you send, I always recommend sending a cold email, but it should be warm because you’re trying to get noticed by people. So the ideal situation is obviously, you know, the hiring manager from before, very rare that people know that to their dream company, right? So then what we do is we create the warmth, whether that’s through engaging with content or figuring out some way to get an introduction, a sponsor at the company, whatever it may be, but send an email.
There’s a website called mail, scoop.io, where you can find pretty much anyone’s email in the world. Use that to find the email of the hiring manager or who you think is the hiring manager. Although you should have a pretty good idea if you’ve been able to make contact. And then you send your email with the value asset, with your resume, your cover letter, a video application, whatever it is that you have in there. And you tell them in there that you want to stand out, that you want to make their job easier and you offer empathy. And at the end of that, you say, if I don’t hear back from you in a week, I will be following up because I know things get busy and I totally understand. It shows empathy, but also gives them a firm like, hey, in one week, I’m coming back. You put a note in your calendar, a week later, you’re following up. What you don’t say is, I’m checking in on my resume, that is the worst thing to say. That is the worst thing to say; because everyone’s checking in on the resume.
This is where we find one more place to provide value. So if you hadn’t sent in a value asset, you may be sending a video application first, now’s your time to send the value assets, or now is your time to send something relevant about the company that, you know, you have identified an article, a place where they can improve, something that is about you. And this could also be a 30, 60, 90; if you ever heard of one of those. It’s a 30, 60, 90-day plan. And you say, Hey, you know, I had reached out with my article, you know, or with my resume, and my cover letter, and whatever the value asset was. I want to just let you know, I’ve also prepared what I’m going to do the first 90 days if I were to be considered for this role, and I thought I would include that here as well. I hope you’re having a great week. That’s not checking in that’s I’m ready to go. Right?
And, always give them a call to action. One thing I forgot there was the call to action, right? So give them an easy way to say, yes. I’m ready to interview is there something we can move forward in the process with. Because what you’re really trying to do in a lot of the job search process is get a yes or no, and that’s the truth. The worst part is getting ignored completely, like that is the worst part, hands down for any of the people I work with. And the people that I work with get a very high rate of response, and that makes them feel good because they actually get closure.
Jeff
And it’s so true; because so often the, I’ll be back in touch 39:39 [Inaudible] there as there forever. And you’re just sitting there like a date waiting for the phone call for the weekend. Call me, when is he or she gonna call me? And you’re left wondering, that’s not your power position. The power position is taking action. It’s doing things to engender interest; so that the phone is ringing, the emails are coming in, you’re getting texts, appointments are being scheduled and you’re getting results. So being the passive job, Hunter is really the lazy approach to all of this.
Jordon
Oh, yeah!
Jeff
And having the privilege to speak what you want, in a gracious way, of course, they’re not going to simply make demands. Doing things in a competent way with self-confidence, especially since we’re talking about remote work, where the last thing that they, the thing that you don’t want them wondering is, are you ever going to allow yourself to fall off their radar? If you’re to come to work for someone and then you’re going to disappear, and they’re going to wonder if you’re working. Give me a break! Who would actually want to do that? What else? What else? Come on! Do you have more?
Jordon
Well, yeah, hopefully at this point you’ve gotten an interview, right? Or let’s just say you’ve gotten a response. It’s either a yes or no, and that’s what we’re pushing for is a response. So once we’ve got that response, if it’s a no, we’re always looking for feedback, right? We’re always looking to figure out what it is we could have done differently. And there are a lot of different ways to do that.
But I’ve got a few things within my course that actually cover this too, so if there’s even a free preview, so you could even go in and just look at some of this stuff and just take it directly from there.
Jeff
And I’m going to have a link to the course in the show notes to folks, there’ll be a follow up on that. Find out about the preview. Well, that sort of stuff on the show notes, I’m sorry for interrupting.
Jordon
So you’re obviously going to have these places where you get a guest and you get an interview, and now you’ve gone through that process of going through the interview. A lot of research that goes into that. I think a lot of people underestimate the research you should do on the person, the person that you’re actually interviewing; because the questions that you end up asking that person become akin to the degree of likeability that you gain from them. And that personal connection that happens in an interview, that’s what wins people over to put you to the next round. It’s not always that you’re completely competent because here’s the reality, the very fully competent, overly qualified person that goes into the interview and has a core connection with the interviewer, it doesn’t matter, they’re out.
People want to work with people they like. So doing the research on the person, I’d always try to find, you know, do some Google searching, do some LinkedIn, find something kind of obscure, and if you can, that is you have in your back pocket. So again, this goes back to the dog thing, right? Sometimes you can find people’s social media and you find out they have a certain type of dog and you know, you have a dog and you find a way to bring that up in the conversation at some point. And you do it in a way that opens them up to talk about their love for their dog. But you’ve known that in the back that you’re going to bring it up because now it creates a connection. So it’s not going outright and saying the first thing when you’re in the interview.
Jeff
43:02 [Inaudible]
Jordon
I saw your dog on Facebook. Well, it’s and I really love dogs and I have a, you know, a Cocker spaniel, blah, blah, blah, blah. They’re like, Oh, I have a dog too. It’s just like, you knew that, but you’re basically creating those environments where you’re pointing the direction of the conversation to wherever it is that you want to go. Because interviews are neutral. Interviews are not something where the company is evaluating you, it’s both sides evaluating each other, so don’t be afraid if the company is not a good fit for you or an interview is not good. You’ve determined that this is not the right job for you after an interview, or even during an interview. Take some to reflect on it, and you can say, no, this is not me; and that’s probably better than going into a job, not actually wanting to do it. So
Jeff
When firms hire, I found the competence is only one favorable. Just had a thunderclap here.
Jordon
Yeah.
Jeff
Confidence, Self-confidence, character, chemistry, maybe a little bit of charisma because charismatic people always do better than noncharismatics. All of which add up to they trust the person they hire. It doesn’t matter whether it is remote or on-site.
Firms want to trust someone, and you can’t get that trust, because all you’re doing is selling competence and not remembering these other variables, you’re in deep kimchi because there were other competent people out there as well.
Jordon
You lose. You’ll lose on competence. That’s the lowest common denominator; because here’s the thing, the reality is they’re not going to hire anybody who’s not competent. Everyone at that stage is competent who you’re interviewing. So then it’s like, what else do you got? And that’s where you really got to look internally and do some of that research.
Jeff
Agreed. So we’ve got to bring this to a rep in the next couple of minutes.
Jordon
Okay.
Jeff
Tell me more, one last thing, one last nugget, because I haven’t been skillful enough to ask the question, help me out here.
Jordon
Oh, man, you’re dragging me through this
Jeff
That’s right. I’ve cast their line into the water.
Jordon
You cast it out?
Jeff
I’m reeling!
Jordon
Yeah. And you know, I was, I’m here in Mexico and I don’t think there are many orange vests, but I was going to try to find one before, so I could be big game hunting, but it didn’t, it didn’t quite pan out. So I think from there, one of the big things again is the mindset shift from the fact that the company owns all the power in this to you having power.
It’s the more leverage you can get from having multiple interviews happening at the same time, the more leverage you can have, where you have created value for yourself. And you’ve displayed that correctly, that will come through in your ability to be confident and you are like unattached to whatever happens. That’s a big key because one of the most discouraging things that can happen to people is that they go into an interview that they’re really psyched up about; they go into this job opportunity application, and they’re so attached to that opportunity that once that falls through their whole world crashes down, and now they shut down for a week, two weeks and they just don’t even search anymore.
Job searching is about perseverance. It’s about grit. You’re going to get hit on the chin. You’re going to have opportunities that don’t come through. So the less attachment you can have, the better and the way that you create that is one, like we said, in the beginning, being an indispensable high-value employee, and then using that as leverage within interview process, and having multiple streams of interviews and incoming conversations coming your way.
Jeff
Fabulous! Jordon, this has been terrific. How could people find out more about you, your work, the course the whole bit?
Jordon
Yeah. So, I’m on the remote job, coach.com, the remote job coach.com. I thought it was a great domain. So hopefully it is easy enough to find, and I’ve got all my services there. I have, you know, mentorship programs where I take people through the entire process of the job search and we have coaching, you know, coaching that’s available there. I’ve got an online self-paced course, which will also be linked in here that you have an opportunity to take a look at for a discount, just for the members of your audience. So that, yeah, that’ll be offered as well.
And yeah, the remote job coach also has a ton of free content. And I know Jeff, you’re a value-based guy. You love to put out free stuff for people because you know, there are so much education and training that’s needed in this space that, I’m so happy to even be a part of what you’re creating, so I appreciate that.
Jeff
Thank you. You know, at this point, it’s over 9,000 posts in the blog, on my website. The number one podcast, the Apple podcast for jobs for more than 1800 episodes. At this point, episode two thousand could it be in November, and folks we’ll be back soon with more. I’m Jeff Altman, The Big Game Hunter, like I was saying, visit my website, the Big Game, Hunter dot US, uses a lot here can help you. And if you’re interested in one on one coaching from me, there’s a place where you can schedule a free discovery call or dive right into coaching. I would love to help you.
I’ve now got a channel on Amazon. It’s got a fire TV or a Firestick that will job search TV an app, it’s about to be ready for 48:20 [Inaudible], it might already be out. I haven’t got the final message about that. So you could watch me on job search TV or on Apple TV, or like 90, some odd smart sets. You can download bingenetworks.TV, and watch me there.
One last thing before I forget, connect with me on LinkedIn, at linkedin.com/in/TheBigGameHunter. Mention that you saw this; because I like knowing I am helping some folks. And once we’re connected, let me know that you like the show.
Hope you have a terrific day and best of all, be great. Take care!
[spp-transcript]
ABOUT JEFF ALTMAN, THE BIG GAME HUNTER
Jeff Altman, The Big Game Hunter is a coach who worked as a recruiter for what seems like one hundred years. His work involves career coaching, as well as executive job search coaching, job coaching, and interview coaching. He is the host of “No BS Job Search Advice Radio,” the #1 podcast in iTunes for job search with more than 2200 episodes.
Are you interested in 1:1 coaching, interview coaching, advice about networking more effectively, how to negotiate your offer or leadership coaching? Schedule a discovery call at my website, www.TheBigGameHunter.us
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