Want to get hired? Win over the hiring manager.
Exclusive advice from career expert, Adam Broda.
Adam Broda is a legend on LinkedIn. There’s a reason he has nearly 300,000 followers and a ton of engagement. He shares some of the best job search advice out there. As a career coach he’s helped hundreds of people transition into tech jobs. He understands how to win in this job market.
What makes Adam really unique is his experience as a hiring manager. Right now he’s a Sr. Manager of Product Management at Amazon. He has real-world experience with interviewing and hiring the world’s top talent.
If you’re interested in following Adam or looking into his services, check out these links:
This week I had the pleasure of interviewing Adam for this blog post. I asked him 4 questions:
What are the benefits of networking with hiring managers during a job search?
What are some practical tips for initiating contact and building relationships with hiring managers?
What are some common mistakes to avoid when networking with hiring managers?
If given the chance to speak or interview with a hiring manager, how can you stand out?
Let’s find out what he had to say!
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A good use of your time would be to network with Recruiters. Recruiters share candidates, they can network you into multiple roles, and shop you around to several hiring managers. They also share systems like the ATS. Remember that hiring managers don’t function like this. If you happen to get in front of a hiring manager, your resume would likely stop there (managers don’t ping each other very often to share talent).
Consider the likelihood of the approach you’re using. What scenario will most likely help you win? After coaching hundreds of job seekers, the best possible situation that will lead to an interview is having an advocate inside your target company that can push your information to the right hiring manager. Hiring managers trust people in their own company. Getting in touch with hiring managers directly is fine. It could lead to something. Just remember that it’s better to have someone else reach out on your behalf.
Out of 20 people on my team, only one person was hired because they reached out to me directly on LinkedIn. Everyone else applied or came through another pipeline. I get hundreds of messages online. Getting hand picked from that pile is rare.
Probably 70% of the messages I get are generic messages that feel “spammy”. They are in no way customized for what I’m looking for. They aren’t specific to my job description, to my company, or to what I’m doing. These type of messages will go in the trash - I’m probably not going to finish reading them!
Customize every message you send. Make it specific. Include a value proposition! Why should I care? Why should I look at your resume or LinkedIn profile? Sell and market yourself! The person on my team that was hired after reaching out to me wrote a brief message (just a few sentences). Her message was clear and concise. It included her experience, top skills, and best results.
Don’t send hiring managers lengthy messages. Always go short! You don’t need to send 3 paragraphs. Make it a quick pitch and remember managers don’t have a ton of time to read messages. Remember the acronym “BLUF” - bottom line up front. Get your message across and get out!
When you do get the chance for a coffee chat or interview, here’s how you can stand out. Make it clear how you can deliver value, positive business impact, and results. Communicate your ability to solve problems. You don’t have to have mind-blowing results and your ideas don’t always have to work. What’s important is that you have an approach and you know what success looks like. You can track and measure towards a set of objectives. As best you can, show quantifiable evidence (i.e., data) to back up what you’ve done. For someone with experience this could be related to a multi-million dollar program. For someone entry level, this could be related to a school project. The point is that you have the ability to consistently deliver.
Another way to stand out is to share what’s often referred to as a “value validation project”. This goes beyond your soft skills and your business impact. This is an opportunity to do deep research into the company and its problems and how you can specifically help them solve those problems. This is not a silver bullet and it does not guarantee you’ll get the job. It’s simply a way to go above and beyond and share how your background can benefit the company. It could be as simple as a few slides with the research you’ve done. Don’t overdo it and don’t get ridiculous with it. This is not something that I recommend for every candidate but if you’re an entry to mid-level professional, it can be a way to stand out above other candidates.