There have been many gloomy articles in the Press in recent months about the number of job applications candidates are making, without managing to land an interview. In one article, a graduate had applied for 500 jobs without success. My automatic response was, “If you’ve applied for that many jobs without success, you need to change your approach!”
That’s not to deny that the job market isn’t a tough place at the moment. However, there are still jobs out there. The important thing in a crowded marketplace is to make sure your application stands out. Perhaps you’re using AI to help complete your CV and application form. However, this risks your documents looking very similar to those of other applicants. AI may save you time in making applications, but there’s not much point if yours don’t make it onto the shortlist.
What, then, can you do, to increase your chances of success? In this post I take a look at one particular resource that can help.
Socrates said, To know thyself is the beginning of wisdom.
I’m with Socrates. If you understand who you are, what you want and what’s important to you, you’ll be in a much better position to match what’s important to you, to the roles you’re applying for.
It’s tempting to think of making applications as a numbers game, to take a “spray and pray” approach and hope for the best. However, that’s an approach that’s clearly not working for most people. It’s simply led to a massive increase in the number of applications recruiters are receiving.
It may seem counter-intuitive to submit fewer applications for the jobs you’re genuinely interested in. However, investing time in tailoring and targeting your CV and application to each specific role is much more likely to increase your chances of being shortlisted.
You can create higher-quality, bespoke documents much more readily if you’ve invested time in getting to understand yourself first. When you know why you’re applying for a particular role, your application immediately becomes more compelling. One way to do this is through completing online questionnaires that help you identify your values, motivations, strengths, preferences and skills.
There are some very good free online questionnaires available. I’ve written about some of these in a previous post which you can find here.
In this post, I recently discovered a free Strengths questionnaire which offers some valuable insights, so I’m sharing the link for this one below, with a description of what it offers.
FREE Strengths Questionnaire
As those of you who are regular readers of my blog posts, you’ll know I love a free questionnaire. The StandOut assessment was designed by Marcus Buckingham, who is well-known in the field of Strengths and positive psychology.
The Questionnaire takes no more than 15 minutes to complete and identifies your top two strengths from a possible list of nine. Importantly, the questions in the assessment are designed to capture how others see you, rather than how you see yourself.
Your Primary and Secondary roles
Your top two strengths together identify your unique way of making a difference in the world. The report aims to identify your recurring reactions and behaviours and how you can leverage these at work.
For example, when I completed the assessment, my top two Stand Our roles were Creator and Provider.
‘Creators make sense of the world, pulling it apart, seeing a better configuration and creating it.’
‘Providers sense other people’s feelings, and they feel compelled to recognise these feelings, give them a voice and act on them.’
I felt these two roles and the way I behave fitted well with the work I do as a trainer for the Springboard women’s development programme I deliver, through the posts I write for my blog and in my career coaching.
The nine roles
There are a total of nine possible roles, which are:
- Adviser
- Connector
- Creator
- Equaliser
- Influencer
- Pioneer
- Provider
- Stimulator
- Teacher
Your top two roles are described in more detail in the report:
- You, at your most powerful
- Your roles combined, with example phrases to describe you. These could be useful in an interview when asked about your approach to situations or challenges
- The career advantages each of your roles gives you
- How you can make an immediate impact– helpful to consider when starting out in a new role, or if you’re changing career
- How to take your performance to the next level-useful if applying for promotion or exploring your career development
- How to win as a leader and manager
- How to win in client services and sales
- What to watch out for. How your behaviours manifest in less positive ways and therefore what you need to be aware of.
Self-awareness is key to a successful career
The work of self-discovery is life-long. As you gain experiences throughout life, your experiences will change you. You’ll develop new skills and strengths and some of your values will evolve. Knowing yourself makes it much easier to decide what’s important to you and to make decisions with greater confidence.
Understanding your values, skills, strengths, behaviours and motivations enables you to present and articulate your authentic self to a prospective employer compellingly. And most importantly, in ways that make you stand out against the competition, increasing your chances of making the shortlist.