Have you found a job and thought to yourself, Oh my God,
this is perfect for me or I would love to get this opportunity?
Sounds like such a great job.
And then you applied and then nothing.
You just heard crickets.
Or maybe you got to the interview and you thought you did so, so good.
And then nothing happened.
Well, you're not the only one.
Lots of people are in this situation sooner or later,
and I think the most important thing is to become aware of some of these
really frequently made mistakes that are going to kill your chances
of getting hired, especially for online jobs and do something about them.
So in today's video, we're going to talk exactly about this.
After having hired probably over 50 people, both for online jobs
and face to face both freelancers and full time employees.
I've gathered a few examples of what not to do, and I would like
to share those with you today.
So let's dove in.
So the first mistake
that I would like to start with today is don't apply to the wrong job.
And I know it's easy to say, hard to do, because what does a wrong job mean?
A wrong job is a job where you have no or low authority
and where you're just trying your luck. And be honest,
I know you've done this because we probably all have done it.
You read the job description and you think this sounds like such a cool job.
And even though I probably don't fit with some of the criteria
or some of the requirements, I do fit with some.
So maybe there won't be any better candidates and they'll pick me.
That never leads
to a good successful hiring process, so I'll give you an example.
A while ago,
I was looking to hire for a data scientist and I probably got over 2000.
Yes, 1000 resumes and letters of intent and proposals for that job.
And out of those 2000 people, only two actually had authority.
In terms of data science, only two.
Everybody else was just trying their luck.
Obviously, the chances of them being hired were extremely, extremely low.
And what that led to was just frustration on both fronts.
Because I spent so much time reading through all of those 2000 resumes,
just being disappointed because all of those people were wasting my time.
And then for them, it was equally frustrating because they spent the time to
write the resume, to write the proposal, to write the letter of intent,
send that through and then wait impatiently for an answer
that was never going to be a positive one because again, they had no authority.
And what I mean by authority is not that you need to have a four year degree
or that you need to have a master's degree,
or that you have to have ten years of experience in a certain area.
What I mean is that you are able to solve
the problem that the employer or the customer,
if you're a freelancer, is looking to get fixed or sold.
That's why they're looking to hire.
They have an issue, a problem with challenge,
and they're looking for somebody to solve it.
I have four questions that I think will be very helpful for you to figure out
if a job is good for you, if it's the right one or a wrong one.
So question number one is, can you do the job?
Ask yourself, Honestly, can I do this job?
And if you're honest, genuine answer is no, then forget about it.
Look for something else.
There are so many jobs out there you will certainly find something
where you can honestly answer Yes, I can definitely do this job.
Number two, the question that you should also ask yourself is, can I bring value?
And this one is a little bit more sophisticated
because there are lots of people that will be applying to that job.
But the way you know that you have higher chances of getting hired
is if you can solve the problem
and bring value to your employer or to your client.
If you're afraid, answer.
You want to see, are you able to help them drive their business better?
Are you able to help them generate more money?
Are you able to help them tell a better story?
Are you able to help them save costs?
There are many, many ways
that you can help bring value to an employer or a customer.
If your answer is no, then don't bother.
The third question that you should ask yourself is
Can I solve their problem better than others?
Again, there will be lots of people applying
to every single job that you will ever apply to.
Can you do that better than others?
Because if the answer is no.
Then again, don't bother.
But if the answer is yes and you have an edge,
you think that you have done it before, you've helped other people
with similar problems or challenges, you've done it for some time
and you really know it or you learned how to do it from.
Somebody who's really experienced and very successful.
There are many ways that you can do something better than most
in the market, try to again, honestly think about this.
Can you solve their problem better than others?
And if the answer is yes, then that's a good job for you to apply.
Question number four that you should ask yourself is How can I prove my authority?
Because if you are not able to show that you can solve that problem in a way
that can be validated by your employer
or by your client, then it will be hard for you to differentiate yourself.
So think about it.
How can you prove your authority?
Do you have a degree?
Do you have a certification?
Do you have experience?
Do you have examples of success stories
that you've achieved with other clients or in other jobs?
Do you have feedback from your other clients?
Do you have maybe feedback from your former employer?
There are many ways that you can prove authority, but it's important
that you have some way to show that you not only can do that
job, you can bring value and you can do it better than other people
by showing that you have authority in that space.
The second mistake that I see a lot of people making is they show up
with either a profile or a proposal that are too generic.
And I'll give you an example here so that you understand what I mean.
Right now, I'm in the process of redecorating my filming set here.
I'd like to do something else with it,
and I have a few ideas, but I'm looking for a company
that is an interior design company who can help me and work with me on this.
But I want somebody who understands
what are the specifics of a YouTube filming set.
Unfortunately, a lot of the proposals that I've received are from
just generic interior design companies that are doing a great job
in terms of designing a bedroom or living room.
But I have no confidence they understand the uniqueness
of a YouTube filming set, because if you understand that YouTube
filming set needs specific lighting and a specific set up
so that the contrasts look better and the depth looks good.
There are certain things that you need to understand
that are specific to a niche that won't necessarily be known by a generalist.
The same applies to you when you find a job
when you apply to a job.
If your profile is too generic, the employer or the client will not know
that you can solve their specific problem because everybody feels their problem
is somewhat unique.
And while there might be other people who have a similar problem,
the niche is quite narrow and they want to make sure
that you are able to solve their problem, not a generic one.
I'll give you another example if somebody is looking to hire a Facebook
Ads graphic designer, and if you show up with a generic
graphic designer profile, they probably won't hire you.
And the reason for this is not that you are not talented.
I'm sure you are very talented.
If you are offering your services as a graphic designer.
The concern they probably have is that you might be specialized
in something else, and you might not understand
what's specific about Facebook ads design because they need to have
a certain style of design.
They need to be able to tell a certain story that is not necessary
or not the same if you do T-shirt design, for example.
So you see you need to position yourself following a specific niche rather
than having a too generic profile or a too
generic proposal if you're a freelancer.
Mistake number three is probably a little bit
counterintuitive, and that is talking too much about yourself.
I've seen this so many times where people start their proposals
or start their interviews by talking only about themselves, about who they are,
about what they can do
about their skills, their experience, their education and so forth.
And you might be thinking, of course, they do that because the employer or
the client needs to get to know them and needs to make sure
they're a good fit for whatever job they're looking to hire for.
The reality is they're not hiring you because they want to help you.
They're hiring you because you can solve their problem.
You can help them achieve their goals.
You can fix whatever needs to be fixed.
A better way to interact with your future employer
or your future client is by focusing mostly on them.
Everybody will love that, and as you start focusing more on them,
you will see how you can bring more value to them.
So again, I have a few questions that you can ask yourself to make sure
that you are able to focus more on them, and then I'll tell you
how to use the answers to those questions .
OK, so question number one is what problem
is my client or my employer looking to solve?
Again, let's take the Facebook ads graphic designer as an example.
People are not hiring this just to have a design for a Facebook at.
The reason why they're hiring you is because they need to promote themselves.
That's the problem or the goal that they have, right?
The need is to promote themselves through Facebook as a channel.
Now, the second question that you need to ask yourself is
what are they trying to achieve?
What is the outcome?
Why do they need to hire for somebody to help them promote themselves?
Well, probably in our case with the graphic designer for Facebook
ads is they probably want to generate more leads.
They probably want to bring more people on to their website.
They probably want to increase the size of their community.
There are lots of reasons why somebody would want to have an ad on Facebook.
And then the third question you should ask yourself is what is the business
impact of the work they're looking to hire for?
In this case?
Again, the business impact could be more leads
or could be higher income, or it could be
broader community that is not necessarily
more noticeable at the moment, but could become monetizable later on.
Understanding the answer to these three questions
is going to absolutely give you an edge, both in terms
of writing your letter of intent or your proposal,
because in those documents, you can focus on these answers and say,
I understand you were looking for this, and it's probably
because you want to solve this need, and it's probably because this is
this could lead to this outcome and this business impact.
And here's how I have done it before.
But also in the interview, if you get to that stage,
you are able to deep dove into those questions and really ask them,
what's the answer to those questions and get into a conversation
where you focus mostly on them instead of you?
They will appreciate that, and you will definitely
get ahead of the list and everybody else will be behind you
if you're able to focus on them and not on you.
Mistake number For that, I see lots of people making, especially in interviews,
and this doesn't only relate to online jobs, but also face to face jobs.
Freelancer full time.
It doesn't matter is they provide too long answers to questions.
And the main reason why this is an issue and why I believe this is a mistake
is because it only gives the interviewer
a lot less time to ask you other questions.
And when they don't have enough time to ask
you all the questions they want to ask,
they will not hire you because they will not be able to triage you.
They will not be able to validate
that you are the right candidate tried to keep your answers short.
The other reason why giving long answers is not a good idea
is because usually when you do, this is because you haven't listened actively
and you don't really know what the answer to that question actually is.
And you're just giving everything you've got hoping
that something is going to stick that will not give the right impression.
It will not give the right experience to your customer or your employer,
depending on whether you're a freelancer or you're looking for a full time job.
My suggestion is that instead
of speaking for five minutes trying to figure out
what you should answer to whatever question either you try to stick
do not more than two minutes answer to a question by adding
also an example you should always back up your answers with examples,
so make sure that your two minute answer includes the example as well, or
if you're not clear what the question is
exactly or what they're looking for.
Ask a clarifying question.
Once you've gotten the clarity, then give your two minute max answer.
That is definitely going to be a lot more impactful for you
in the interview, and it will give a much better impression to your employer
or to your client if you're looking for a freelance job.
The fifth mistake that I see many people making,
unfortunately, is negative behavior during interviews.
What I mean by negative behavior is actually two things either
they speak poorly or negatively about their previous employer
or their previous clients, or sometimes even about their current employer
or their current client or their current manager.
Sometimes if they're looking to get hired in the same company or
the second situation is that they provide
misleading or untruthful information
during the interview and the one thing that I see.
A lot is when people use we instead of
I to talk about previous experiences,
and I've seen many people using examples of projects
that they've been involved in or that they've seen others do.
And then they talk as if they together
had worked on that project, although in actuality,
they've only participated maybe 5% to the entire project,
but they're claiming it as being their own and sometimes they get hired.
And then the experience is so bad in that job that they end up
either getting laid off or the contract being terminated.
If they're a freelancer and or the project is cut short,
they get paid a lot less than what they were hoping to make with that project
because it ends abroad and usually the experience both for the individual
as well as for their employer or their client is really, really bad.
And I would not recommend doing this
because if you do it and you do get hired and the reality comes out
and it is noticed that actually whatever you claimed in the interview
was untruthful, then the testimonials that you will get, the feedback
that you will get will not be something
that you would want to showcase and it will decrease your ranking
if you are working on a platform like Upwork, for example, or Fiverr.
So please do me a favor and try to stay away
from this negative behavior or from stating untruthful things
during your interview or within your proposal or your resume.
Because the truth will always come out and it will never be nice or something
that you would like to showcase moving forward.
That was it for today.
Thank you so, so much for watching.
I do hope that these five mistakes will be something that you will look out for,
and you'll make sure that they do
not lead you to killing your chances of getting hired for online jobs.
Because I know you are better than that and I know that you deserve to get hired.
So please do me a favor and go ahead and check
if you are making any of these five mistakes.
Thank you so, so much for watching.
Until next time, I suggest you go ahead and watch this
video where I talk about jobs that you can do as work from home
and that hire absolutely everywhere in the world
and it doesn't really matter where you're based.
Thank you. Till next time. Bye.