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Advice for the ‘underdogs’ applying for jobs
CAREERS NOW APRIL 10, 2022 The goal is to rise to the top of the candidate list.
DEAR READERS: Anyone who has vied for a job knows the feeling of being the “underdog” in the job search. You know you don’t have the same credentials as others applying for the position, but know you can succeed if given the chance. How can someone in an “underdog” position rise to the top to become the candidate of choice?
Business consultant Theodore Clark, author of “Shipping Clerk to CEO: The Power of Curiosity, Will, and Self-Directed Learning,” shares some good news from a 2018 CEO Genome project: Eight percent of the 2600 CEOs surveyed didn’t have college degrees yet had achieved high levels of career success.
“This study suggests that rising in a company or industry where you can gain experience and demonstrate your abilities and earn a good reputation is a good path for underdogs on unlikely career paths,” says Clark. ““What they found among this subset of leaders should encourage underdogs everywhere.”
So, how can people who perceive themselves as underdogs transform themselves into top candidates for positions they seek? Industry experts offer this advice:
*Learn about the company before you apply. Vlad Cristea, executive account manager responsible for hiring at Branziba Agency, doesn’t get past the first two sentences of over 90% of the job applications he sees. Why? “Because they are identical. Most people put zero effort into understanding the employer needs and learning one or two things about the company culture,” Cristea says. “They get the first template they find online and apply to 20 different companies a day.”
Putting in even a little more effort than other applicants can turn an underdog into a viable candidate.
“This is a great opportunity…read the job description carefully and personalize the cover letter to fit the employer’s needs,” Cristea says.
Separate credentials from the experience required. “For some jobs, credentials can be very important and represent both specific learning and experience, like a pilot’s license or a job that might require a licensed engineer or other very specific knowledge and certification requirement,” Clark explains. “But for many jobs, experience and results can be as much or more of a differentiator than a college degree.”
Operations, management and sales jobs are some examples, he notes.
“The key is to focus on your experiences and how these experiences have positioned you for the next job,” Clark stresses. “Be ready to tell the story of what skills you have learned and mastered as a result of your experience and why that makes you a good candidate.”
Answer every interview question by using an example from your past, then transition to how you’d apply the same skills/knowledge at their company in a hypothetical situation. Mary Zhou, SEO copywriter at Zen Media, credits that tip to helping her land her current position. “As someone who likes to work in different industries, I often have to face feeling like an underdog in my interviews, because chances are it’s for a different industry every time,” she explains. “I was like an underdog because I had only ever written in-house before, never for an agency. All the job posts I saw required three to 10 years of copywriting experience, and I only had one.”
Her approach succeeded — and she believes it can help others succeed too.
“The more you do this, the more the employers will be able to make the imagination leap and envision you in the position,” Zhou says. “Plus, what employer doesn’t want to know how you would handle the same situation at their company?”
Think ahead before an opportunity presents itself. Clark says it is important to consider the skills will you need to learn and master. “For example, you might currently be a sales manager looking to jump to a general manager position, so you will need to know what additional skills you’ll need to learn in advance of the opportunity,” he says. “This could mean mastering the understanding of profit and loss statements and balance sheets or the importance of working capital management.”
Cristea agrees that learning new skills can be the key that opens the door for underdog candidates.
“Let’s say you are new to digital marketing. You can say you have zero experience on your resume, right?” he says. “But you could also take some quick, free courses and list them there. It may seem to you as nothing that someone would consider as experience, but to an employer, it shows that you care and are willing to put in the extra time.”
(Kathleen Furore is a Chicago-based writer and editor who has covered personal finance and other business-related topics for a variety of trade and consumer publications. You can email her your career questions at kfurore@yahoo.com.)
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