So you’re about to graduate (or already graduated) and you’re currently looking for a job. 

You stare at your CV trying to see what needs to be adjusted, until you decide to pull up a template off the internet, you add your degree to it, the one internship or two that you did, add the skills and sprinkle some of your hobbies of swimming, horse riding and hiking.

This usually goes along some other document like your portfolio (If you’re a designer, architect…), Github account (Developers)… and after weeks of preparation, you’re ready to start your job hunting journey.

You turn your laptop ON, go to LinkedIn and start looking all over the place applying to every single post out there. You then realize that most companies ask you to re-fill all the information on your CV to their personal portal. (Seriously, applicant should get paid for this!)

After hundreds of applications sent. You find yourself sitting there with a bunch of emails that include words like: Unfortunately, we regret to inform you, you’re not the right fit…etc. That is if you ever got to hear from them at all! 

Months pass by, you didn’t land any job, not even an internship and you’re still in the same position you were months ago but with less self confidence, increased anxiety, horrified of the uncertainty, questioning the years of education spent/money invested and realizing that you’re in the middle of your major existential crises. Hooray! Welcome to reality 🎉

At this point, you start convincing yourself that getting a Masters degree is the right path to go. At-least to get out of the uncertainty and get some clear mental path to your future. Probably that would get you the job, right? Wrong. Sure adding a new education section on your CV would increase the odds, but not as much as you’d think. You’ve just delayed your problem 2 years. 

For starters, it’s not your fault. You’ve been given thousands of theoretical success speeches throughout your academic life by academic people who never went out to the real world. You were never really told how to launch your career successfully while going against all odds. 

This is the case of millions around the world who were left on their own the moment they threw their graduation cap in the air. 

We’re suggesting a new way. An alternative way that will save you a lot of time, get you much better offers and boost your confidence. Every student who enrolls in any of Gritnova’s programs is pushed to follow this approach so let’s get to it

The alternative way

Here are the steps: 

1. Define the target job position

Self awareness is key. Know exactly what position you perform best at! Where do your ultimate skills lie? Note the exact job title. This is your goal. All the work that you’ll be putting next will go to help you reach this job position that you define here.

2. Create a list of companies where you’d love to see yourself working in.

As much as we love aiming big, we always recommend starting with a small firm. You’ll gain way more experience than joining a multinational firm. Not only that but your work has tremendous direct impact on the overall business, which makes a great case when applying for the big corporates later on.
Create a list of 10 potential companies that might be, or will be, looking for someone with your skills.
You can use Excel to document your process.

3.  Find a person in the company who’s involved in the decision making process of hiring. 

They’re not recruiters 🙂 
Recruiters/talent acquisition teams don’t give the final decision. They filter the applications received and send them out to a key person in the company who’ll take the final decision. The trick is to know who this person is.

Here’s a straightforward and fast way of finding them: 
Go to LinkedIn, search for your target company, click on ‘People’ and there you go! 
All of the company’s employees are now listed in-front of you. The question here is how do you know who’s the decision maker! You know this by answering this question:

If you join the company today with the target position you have in mind, who would be your manager? Who would you report to? 

Example: If you’re a developer, you’re reporting to the CTO. You connect with the CTO. If you’re a designer, you’re reporting to the design director. You connect with the director. 

Once identified, send them a meaningful connection request with a note. 

LinkedIn rule of thumb, never send an invite without a personalized note. Never. You want to increase every single chance you have to get your foot in the door. 

4. Add meaningful value to them. Consistently. For free. 

Once you’ve identified the right person in the company, it’s now time to add unconditional value & support to them. Without them asking. Consistently. For free. 

Your goal now is to show them that you’re the perfect fit for the role by demonstrating your skills upfront. 

Here’s a real example: I was once hiring for a marketing role, I posted the job offer on LinkedIn and other platforms, received hundreds of applications, CVs & emails. But there was one girl, who decided to take a different approach. She connected with me on LinkedIn (With a personalized note 🙂) then sent me a super creative Tiktok video of her promoting our service. It was pure genius! Again the trick is to demonstrate your skills upfront. 

Here’s another example when I was on the other side. I used to work as an educational consultant. My goal was to get Universities and schools to hire me as a consultant. I identified key individuals in each university and started sending them super valuable resources, documents, ideas with execution plan, strategy development to reach key goals..I literally never stop adding value, until I receive a call offering me a position. It always worked. Always will. It’s very powerful.

 It’s the same reason why software companies give out free trials. It converts.

5. Understand the Math 

Going after one job position in one company is risky. You never know what really happens inside the company at a given point in time. So we need to be adding value to key individuals in at-least 10 companies. 
For every company that you listed down in your excel sheet. You need to connect with as many people as you can who could help you get a foot in the door. (Ideally 5 per company) This gives you a total of 50 people. 

Dedicate one month to add personalized value to every single one of them. A lot of work? Yes. But trust me, you’ll thank yourself for going through this process very soon.

6. Mental toughness 

If you put out small effort, you’ll get small results. In contrast, dedicating yourself to add value and really putting a lot of work into each path will get you the results that you’re looking for. 

It’s going to be a lot of work. But that’s exactly why very few people get the job.

Key tip: Never say that you’re looking for a job to the person you just connected with in the company. It will throw them off. Only focus on adding value. 

To trick your mind into persevering, think of landing your first job as a 100 steps journey. Each connection you create, whether fruitful or not, gets you one step closer to your goal! 

With perseverance and a lot of value put out in the industry, good Karma will play its role. Soon enough, they’ll reach out to ask you if you’d like to join them. Boom!

This is much better positioning than the typical approach. You get better terms as well 💸

Let us know how it goes! 

Goodluck champ! ❤️