Today in 5 minutes or less, you’ll learn 5 strategies I teach clients to help them land more interviews.

Plus, the best links and resources… you’ll learn:

• 👀A 4-year look back on remote work
• 🇿🇦South Africa launches their digital nomad visa
• 💰Want a promotion? Come to the office, says Dell

…and more.

Let’s jump in:

If it feels like it’s harder than ever to land an interview, trust your gut.

Here are snippets of conversations I’ve had in my emails and DMs in the past 11 days:

It’s not just you.

Which leads to the question:

I teach a handful of strategies to my clients:

1. Get the referral
2. Do better research
3. Act fast (speed wins)
4. Create a resume that passes the “old boss test”
5. Be the person others want to help

Let’s dig into each one:

1/ Get the referral

I go into more depth on this with my clients but conceptually it’s simple:

My friend Steven Zhang did a beautiful job breaking this down, step-by-step:

1. Look on the LinkedIn search page for 1st and 2nd-degree connections at company X
2. If you have a direct 1st degree connection at company X, ask for an intro/referral
3. If you don’t have a 1st-degree connection but do have a 2nd-degree connection, ask the 2nd-degree connection to introduce you to the 1st-degree connection
4. If you have neither 1st nor 2nd-degree connections/you have exhaustively searched, apply directly

That’s the process in a nutshell.

Spend the time to research the exact roles and companies you’re targeting. With research in hand, you can know the exact language you should use in your resume and LinkedIn profile.

The research then trickles down into every other step in your process:

• Determining who you ask for advice (and what you’ll say)
• What jobs you prioritize
• Answers in your interviews

Spending the time to get this right now will save you hours in your job search process. The benefits will trickle deep into your career.

Note how this is different from other tactics, like:

• Keyword stuffing in a resume
• Posting on LinkedIn for “exposure”
• Blasting applications on Indeed.com

How exactly do you go about doing this?

For company research, I use AI to do a quick, high-level summary. Here’s the prompt:

This is enough to get that 30,000-foot view of a company. From there, I dig in deeper on specifics.

For roles, click on a few profiles you find interesting. Observe a few things:

• How do they describe the outcomes they achieved?
• How do they describe the work involved?
• What were their previous roles?
• What skills do they mention, if any?

3/ Act fast (speed wins)

One of the best ways to stand out in a tough market is to by early.

One of my favorite quotes is from a movie called Margin Call. The basic gist is:

“There are 3 ways to win: be first, be smarter, or cheat. I don’t cheat, and I’m smart, but not smarter than everyone. So I want to be first.”

On LinkedIn, remote job listings attract almost half the applications. We want our application close to the “top of the pile.” To do so, we prioritize speed over perfection.

Turn on job alerts on LinkedIn. When something opens up, apply and then reach out to your network, looking for that referral (see 1 above). Bookmark your job alerts and notifications page so these are always one click away.

Bookmark your high-priority company career pages, and check once a day. Do this even if you have job alerts turned on.

(Click here for more tips on moving fast.)

4/ Create a resume that passes the “old boss test”

What is the “old boss test?”

If your old boss reached out to you because he found the “perfect job” for you, do you have a resume you could immediately send him, no edits needed?

This version of your resume should be 80-90% complete. It’s the version that, with just 15 minutes of editing, you could tailor to specific roles or companies.

What matters in a resume that passes the old boss test?

• The results you drove in past experiences (past experience is the best indicator of future performance)
• A succinct story of your career narrative (preferably 1-page)
• Clear, consistent formatting (so it’s easy to read)

What does not matter:

• Your passions, hobbies, etc.
• Action verbs
• Font size
• Design

Looking for more resume help? I cover common resume mistakes here.

5/ Be the person others want to help

Everyone contends with a deluge of their mental blockers:

• “I shouldn’t have to ask for help”
• “I don’t want to bother people”
• “This feels weird, scammy, or needy”
• “I should be able to figure this out”
• “I won’t be able to add value back”
• “I don’t want them to think this relationship is transactional”

Here’s the “dirty” secret:

But they want to help people who are going to take action. So be that person. Ask for advice. Action on their advice. Then tell them what happened.

Here’s the structure I like to use when following up on someone’s advice:

• Here’s what I did
• Here’s how it went
• Here’s how I think I can improve
• This is what I’m going to do next

(If you’re wondering how you “add value back to a person”… this is how. Take their advice and let them know what happened.)

People genuinely enjoy seeing their advice bear fruit.

Conclusion

That’s it. 5 strategies I teach my clients to help them land more interviews:

1. Get that referral
2. Do better research
3. Act fast (speed wins)
4. Create a resume that passes the “old boss test”
5. Be the person others want to help

Good luck. You got this.

That’s a wrap. See you next week 👋