Episode 36: How to get a job in property, with Rob Bence

November 21, 2015 Podcast

For episode 36 of the Graduate Job Podcast, we niche down, as we delve into what you need to do to get a job in the field of property, with special guest and property guru Rob Bence. If property is your thing we have all the bases covered, but if not, you’ll still want to keep listening, as Rob shares some absolute dynamite insights into how to get any job. We cover the difference between A and B players, and why B player’s applications end up in the bin. What to say to an employer when you’re applying for an internship or work experience to ensure you get a yes. Why and how you can reverse engineer the job application process so that you know exactly what the interviewer is looking for, through to why you should never carpet bomb job applications.

You can download the podcast to your computer or listen to it here on the blog. Additionally, you can subscribe via Spotify, iTunes, or Stitcher radio.

MORE SPECIFICALLY IN THIS EPISODE YOU’LL LEARN ABOUT:

  • What you need to do to get a job in property
  • How to differentiate yourself as an ‘A Player’ in the recruitment process
  • Why you should reverse engineer the application process to ensure success
  • What to say to an employer when you’re applying for an internship or work experience to ensure you get a yes
  • Why you should never ‘carpet bomb’ applications

SELECTED LINKS AND RESOURCES MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE:

  • Who: The A Method for Hiring – Rob’s second book recommendation. Read this if you want to understand the thought process that recruiters will be going through. Click on the image below to buy NOW from Amazon!

 

Transcript – Episode 36: How to get a job in property, with Rob Bence

Announcer: Welcome to the Graduate Job Podcast, your home for weekly information and inspiration to help you get the graduate job of your dreams.

James: Hello and welcome to the Graduate Job Podcast, with your host James Curran. The Graduate Job Podcast is your weekly home for all things related to helping you on your journey to finding that amazing job. Each week I bring together the best minds in the industry, speaking to leading authors, entrepreneurs, coaches and bloggers who bring decades of experience into a byte size weekly 30-minute show. Put simply, this is the show I wish I had a decade ago when I graduated.

In episode 36 of the Graduate Job Podcast we niche down, as we delve into what you need to do to get a job in the field of property, with special guest and property guru Rob Bence. If property is your thing we have all the bases covered, but if not, you’ll still want to keep listening, as Rob shares some absolute dynamite insights into how to get any job. We cover the difference between A and B players, and why B players applications end up in the bin. What to say to an employer when you’re applying for an internship or work experience, to ensure you get a yes. Why and how you can reverse engineering the job application process so that you know exactly what the interviewer is looking for, through to why you should never carpet bomb job applications.

No matter where you are in the application process, this is an episode which you aren’t going to want to miss. As always, all links to everything we discuss and a full transcript are available in the show notes at www.graduatejobpodcast.com/test. Don’t forget to get in touch by email or twitter, on twitter I’m @GradjobPodcast, and my email is hello@graduatejobpodcast.com. What you love, people or companies you’d like to see on the show, I’d love to hear your thoughts, so send everything my way. But now without further ado, let’s go straight in to episode 36.

James: I’m joined by podcasting royalty today: entrepreneur, multiple business owner, leading podcaster, and importantly for today all around property guru.  Rob Bence, welcome to the Graduate Job podcast.

Rob: Thanks, James.  The money’s in the post.  Very kind.  Wasn’t looking for that intro.

James: Today, we’re going to explore the area of property and what graduates need to do to get a job in property.  So, first things first, Rob. Would you like to tell us in more detail a little bit about yourself and how you came to be in the property game?

Rob: Yeah, sure.  I’ve been in property just over ten years now.  I’ll be honest; it’s always been something I was interested in, and when the opportunity came to apply for a role in property, which was for a builder at the time, I went for it.  As we’re talking about interviews, and getting jobs today, graduates, I’ll talk you through the process –I remember it being a room full of people.  I’ll say fifty; at the time, it felt more like a hundred.  It was a packed room.  And that was their first-stage interview.  They had a room full of people.  So I made an effort to stand out.  I made sure I asked questions, could offer value where I could during that process, got through to the smaller group interview, and then one-on-one interviews, and ended up working for a national developer, but they focused in the north west, mainly, and a few other regions.

I worked there–that was really rewarding, really got to understand property from a builder’s perspective, and I ended up working with investors, because this was pre-crash, so we’re going back a few years–11 years ago.  I was working pre-crash and working with investors who would buy up lots of property, and I found it really interesting–so interesting, I actually moved to a property investment company, still up north, on Merseyside–worked there for a few years before moving to London to work for another property investment company, so another level up again, and managing that, and then left to set up my own company.  Which began with, as you mentioned there are a few now, but the first one was RMP Property.

James: Excellent.  Property is one of those funny industries where there doesn’t seem to be a set career path.  So it’s not like, say, medicine, or law, or something like that.  People tend to come into it in different ways.  You mentioned RMP there.  I know you have a company, Yellow Lettings, that has been hiring people recently.  I’d love to get some of your experience of what the hiring process was like for people coming on board to Yellow Lettings.  What sorts of people were you looking for when you put those job adverts out?

Rob: We have, strictly speaking, three businesses.  We have our content business, which is the Property Hub.  We have a lettings business, which is Yellow Lettings, and a property investment company called RMP Property.  Everybody who works for Yellow Lettings and for the Property Hub works remotely, so you work from home, essentially, or from working space.  There are no offices for those people.  RMP does have an office in Central London, so there are people at desks in an office.  We have different approaches, obviously, because we have different types of working environments.  But what we do have is a very systematised approach to attacking the job process, because while it’s hard for people going for job roles, it’s hard for people who advertise them as well, because there’s so many people applying, so you need really good processes.

We start off with an application form.  That weeds a lot of people out.  Then, we go to an audio recording where we ask people a question, ask them to leave a recording.  Then, obviously, that will weed more people out.  Then, we go to group interviews.  Then, we go to one-on-one interviews.  In between those two stages, we’ll do some profiling, some profiling tests, so that we understand their personalities a bit more.  Then, we’ll go to references, and then probably a final interview to discuss the job itself and make sure we’re a great fit before we shakes hands on the role.

James: There’s quite a few stages.  The audio recording sounds interesting.  What were you looking for from the audio recording?

Rob: The whole point behind the audio answer is, telephone interviews do take awhile to go through, so it just quickens the process.  You know on the telephone interview whether or not this person’s going to work, pretty quickly, or has the potential to work.  The audio interviews just allow the person who leaves the message to get it over and done with quite quickly and make an impression or not very quickly.  For us, it allows us to sift through the candidates a lot easier as well.  It’s just all about efficiency.

James: That’s completely true.  I know when I’ve been doing telephone interviews, and as you said, you know within the first minute, or even how people answer the phone, and their attitude, whether they’re going to be a “yes” or a “no,” and then to have to go through the half-hour’s worth of questions, it could be quite painful.

Rob: Absolutely.  We learn from the pain.

James: Did you specify what sort of message you wanted them to record, or was it quite open?

Rob: We have a specific question.  It’ll be a question which allows them to shine or the opposite, completely flop.  It’s a deliberate question.  We think about it before we put it out there.  It’s interesting.  Some people put a lot of effort in, and some people, even though they’ve bothered to leave a message, don’t.  Some people think about the question and put effort into their answers, and other’s don’t.  That’s the beauty of it: It allows us to sift through people pretty quickly.

James: I’m guessing you’re looking for people who do make the effort and are positive and enthusiastic in how they leave the message.

Rob: Absolutely.

James: You talked about the application form before that.  What sorts of things were you looking for in the application form?

Rob: Again effort, you’d be amazed at the amount of people who just write one line.  We’ll ask them a question, and we don’t give them any limits or guidelines on how much they should write.  Some people will really go to town and put lots of efforts in, and others will literally write a sentence or even a few words.  It’s very easy to get rid of the people who write a few words or a sentence or two.  You look at the people who put effort in, decide whether it’s waffle or quality, and then move them forward.  Obviously, you’re looking at quality standards.

James: I do find lots of people do mistake “quality” with “waffle.”  They see a box and decide they need to fill it, and they fill it with superfluous information.  So moving on into the group interview, what would that be like?  Would that be a group exercise, or people working together, or…?

Rob: No, actually, the group interview is a two-way process.  It’s an opportunity for us to talk very honestly about the role that we have in hand, but also for the people to really rule themselves out, as well.  The worst thing you can do is go and start in a role and realize pretty quickly that this place, this company, this environment, or the role itself, isn’t for you.  So while we’re not downbeat, we’re just very open and honest about what the company is like, what we are like as a team, and what the role is like.  We give them the opportunity to say, “Hey, we’ll contact you after this, but let us know if it’s not for you.”  We give them the opportunity to walk away from the process.  I say that to them, “You don’t want to work in a company you don’t like, so we’ve got to make sure we’re a good culture fit.”  It’s a very open conversation.
What happens is, I’ll tend to run through the company. I’ll go through a few bits and pieces: what it’s like to work from.  I’ll often take quotes from other team members and just copy and paste, word for word, the language, whatever it says (it might be more colorful), but I’ll put it in and get the people in the room understanding what we’re like as a team.  Then, they’ll know whether we’re right or not for them.

Then, I’ll open it up to Q&A.  And that’s really where we’ll be able to assess the people and their interest.  I have observers in the room, so they’re looking at the body language, how engaged they are, the type of questions they’re answering, the type of questions they have themselves, and the quality of those questions.  Then, I’ll sit down with the observers afterwards, and then we’ll make a short list of who we want to move through to the next parts of the process.

James: I’m guessing when you move from the group interview stage to the one-on-one stage, you really whittle down literally thousands and thousands of applicants to, what, ten, twenty, would it be?

Rob: No, one-on-one interviews, I never like to take more than five.

James: Oh, okay.

Rob: So yeah, we’re pretty ruthless getting through.  It hopefully means that we get the right candidates.

James: And for those five people that you got through to the one-on-one stage, were there any common characteristics or experiences amongst them?

Rob: The thing they have in common is that they have gone out of their way to stand out, in one way or another throughout the process.  So in their CV they’ve made effort.  In their application form, they’ve made effort.  And when they left their audio recording, they’ve asked good questions or made good comments.  When all through the process, they’ve put that little bit more in, and showed that they’re an A player, so you look for A players.  You don’t want B or C players in the business.

The type of questions that they’re asking, B players will ask questions like, “How many days off a year do you get?” or “What’s the start date?” or things like that.  A players are asking, “If I came in, within six months, what would an A performance look like?  What could I do to stand out?  What could I do to actually exceed your expectations?  Where are the weaknesses in your business?  What can we improve on?  What systems don’t you have in place in this role, what systems do you have in place in this role?”  You know, really asking intelligent questions that show you care about the business and you care about the role.  Because if those people do care about the business, then they’re probably going to be really good employees, because they’re already thinking about how they can make an impact, and they want to make an impact.  They don’t want to be a passenger; they want to make a difference.

James: I love that.  I love the difference, categorizing them to A or B players, and I think something that holds, no matter what company you’re applying for. You do see people coming in, and the first question they ask is, “How much am I going to get paid?”  You just think straightaway that it’s not going to go well.

You talked about standing out.  We’ve got a special coming out in a few weeks on creative applications.  Were there any specific creative ones that you can remember that really made you think, “Wow!” when you came across them?

Rob: I think with an application or a CV, your first paragraph is going to make or break it for you.  That’s really going to help people decide whether to–you think about it, we get hundreds, if not thousands, of applicants.  So it’s those first few lines that are going to make a difference.  I can tell you what I used to do, if that helps.  I think my last job, I wrote something on the lines of, and this is not word for word, something on the lines of, “I’ve run marathons, I’ve climbed some of the highest mountains in the world, I read ferociously,” blah, blah, blah.  I put loads of achievement stuff outside of a work environment.  And then I said, “And I apply exactly this same work ethic and sense of adventure in the workplace.”  Something on those lines.

I cannot remember never being called back for the next stage when I was applying for my final role at the time.  And I got the job I wanted, my dream job.  It’s looking to stand out, show the people that you’re trying to work with that you’re an achiever.  Show them that you’ve done stuff that’s above the norm.  You don’t have to go out and start climbing the highest mountains in the world or run marathons to do that.

I remember one of the best team members I’ve got talked about how she worked within a charity and organized an event over Christmas for homeless people.  It was really, really impressive.  But she went into detail as well.  She didn’t just say what she did.  She went into detail how she coordinated it and the difference she made.  The fact that she spends part of her Christmas doing that, giving her free time to make that happen, was super impressive.  So you don’t have to go crazy, but do something to show that you’re an achiever, that you’re an A player, that you do a bit more than the normal person.

If you’re passionate about learning, make sure you show that.  Demonstrate it by telling them that you listen to podcasts.  The fact that you’re listening to this today shows that you probably are a cut above the average applicant, because you’re trying to be better.  Tell them that you listen to podcasts, the type of podcasts you listen to, especially if they’re industry-relevant.  Tell them the books that you’ve read that you think will make you a better applicant.  Show them that you’re just not run-of-the-mill.  Show them that you’re an achiever.
James: I love that opening statement, Rob, and I guess that in the future, you might be getting a few people that when they applied to you have copied it and are playing it back to you.

Rob: If it’s word for word, I might be suspicious.

James: Focusing again on the one-to-one interviews, you’ve got five people down.  How’d you then begin to decide between the five?

Rob: Ok so, we use a method called top grading, which is better described in a book called Who.  I’m happy to recommend the book.  It’s called Who: A Method for Hiring.  That’s what it’s called, really simple title.  It’s put together by two guys called Geoff Smart and Randy Street.  The book is really, really good.  I’d actually advise anybody applying for a role, because you can reverse engineer the process.  You can think about how the interviewer is approaching interviews.  They might not be using this exact process, but if you can understand this process, which is getting more commonplace now, then you’re going to be a better applicant throughout the process by understanding the type of things employers are looking for.  It might not be stage for stage of what Who describes, but I’m sure many of the concepts will be there.  So if you understand that process, you’d be a lot better off.

But to dig into it a little bit, we run through the CV.  We ask, if there’s job experience, several questions about each role they’ve been in.  We go right back through the work history.  What successes, what failures, why they left.  We’ll break through the CV, then we’ll go into general questions.  We’ll discuss their profile test results.  It’s minimum an hour and a half, normally two hours for the right candidates.

James: Brilliant advice about reverse engineering.  Nobody’s ever recommended that before, but it makes complete sense.

Rob: I’d actually go one further.  If you’re applying for jobs, reverse engineer the process again.  When you’re looking at the role, don’t think about you.  Put yourselves in the shoes of the people who are trying to fill that role.  List out the qualities they’re probably looking for, and list out the skills they’re looking for and the experience.  You might not have it all, but if you can identify the key attributes, then you can mold your approach to it that way.  So if you’re serious about the role, then I would take the time to list out the attributes of their ideal candidate.  And if you are that person, then great.  Make sure you really emphasize those qualities.  You actually might rule yourself out of the role as well.  Say, “Actually, this person is the complete opposite of me, so I’m not going to waste my time going through this process.”  But I would really take that time to think about their ideal candidate and see if that is you or close to you, and then emphasize those points throughout the process.

James: Brilliant advice again.  I completely recommend that.  It would certainly stand you in great stead, and so many candidates, all they think about is what they want from the process, as opposed to what the employer is looking for from the process. You talked, Rob, about experience.  How important was experience and previous work experience for you with the candidates you were looking for?

Rob: It has some importance, but actually, many of the people we’ve hired haven’t had direct property experience, if they’re not advising.  So if they’re not in an advising role, to say they’re in marketing or they’re admin, or they’re ops, or wherever it may be.  I’ve never really had an issue if they have no property background.  It’s really transferable skills and attitudes to work, and what they’ve done in their career is what is more important.  The only time I’ve ever really wanted some experience in property is when they’re going to be directly advising our clients, which is obviously a little bit different.  I want experts.  That’s the only time I’ll ever look for direct experience, just showing that you’ve done well in those roles in your CV.  Telling me you worked there is fine.  But what did you do there?  What did you achieve there?  What difference did you make there?  That’s more important, so if you can demonstrate that in your CV, you’re going to again stand out.

James: How can listeners would you recommend best make use of, say, internships or work experience in the property environment?  Do you find many property companies such as yourselves would be open for people coming on and doing work, shadowing, or internships to get experience to add to their CV?

Rob: I think a lot of property companies would be open to it, myself included.  But what you have to remember is a candidate is–people who run businesses tend to be quite busy.  I’m very time poor, so having somebody–I actually get a lot of emails of people saying, “Can I come and work in your office for free?”  You may think that would be appealing.  Actually, it’s effort.  I’ve got to find work for you to do.  What are you going to do day?  How am I going to train you?  What would be a better approach, and something that would really appeal to me, and, I’m sure, a lot of other business owners, is someone who takes the extra step and says, “I want to come in, and this is what I want to do, and this is how it will benefit you.” So thinking about the person you’re approaching again.  They probably haven’t got a lot of time.  They’re probably got a lot of emails like this.  They probably think it’s too much hassle.  So how can I overcome those objections?  By telling the person you’re approaching exactly what you’re gonna do, what difference you’re gonna make, and how easy it will be for them.  We’ll go, “Wow!”  one this sounds great, and two this person sounds really switched on; let’s have a chat.

James: I love that and can definitely see that working.  In your business, are there any situations where you’re thinking specifically that it would be great if someone did email you and say, “I’ll come in and help out your online marketing, or your click online Google Adwords”?  Is there anything at the moment that you need that help in?

Rob: We’ve grown really fast.  We need help in every direction.  We’re hiring fast at the moment.  Across the businesses, we’ve got just over ten people now.  In the next 12 months, we’ll be over twenty, and that’s being conservative.  All the businesses are growing fast, which is fab–but because of that, we need skilled people.  But we’re time-poor as well as we fill those roles.  So if somebody comes in and says, “Hey, I can make a difference this way,” even if we’ve got someone doing that role, if they’re very clear on how they’ll make a difference, then we might bring them in.

James: Thinking wider about property and university, would you recommend that if people know they’re interested in property from a young age, do a property-related degree, or a more vocational course?  Or if they know that property is the road they want to go down, to save themselves lots of money and debt, just to start working straight after university for a property company to get a hands-on experience?

Rob: In terms of the type of degrees, while it’s nice to see a property degree because it shows you have some passion, if you haven’t learned the right skill sets or aptitudes, you’re going to fall away during the process.  If you’ve got another degree, and you’ve done well in it, and you can show the right skills, and personality and your approach to work, then you’ll get the job.  It’s a nice to have but far from essential.

In terms of getting into property, I went to university.  I went twice.  I left twice.  So I probably am not the best person to interview.  I got into property, clearly, without a degree.  The university process just wasn’t for me, and that’s fine.  Some people, it works really well for.  Property is one of those industries that you don’t have to have a degree.  A doctor, you can’t just stand up at the hospital and start mucking in, and suddenly, you’re a surgeon.  It’s not gonna work out that way.  But property, you can rise to the top if you show the right attitude, work ethic, and skills.  It can happen.  It’s down to the individual.  That’s one of the nice things about the industry, that degrees can possibly help, but they’re not essential.

James: Going back to your previous point, my old boss used to say that he hired on attitude and not skills.  You can teach skills, but you can’t teach attitude.

Rob: That’s so true.

James: Moving on, then, Rob, we’ve covered how to get into properties as an industry.  As a common theme, it’s been in the news, it’s in the news every week, in terms of buy-to-let property.  One week, buy-to-let property is the “must invest” way to make money; other weeks, it’s, “The buy-to-let market is gonna crash.”  I know there are lots of listeners out there who are interested in maybe buying their first buy-to-let property.  What advice would you give someone who may be coming out of university, just started work, or in a job that they want to move on from?  How can they begin to get involved in owning a rental property when they don’t know where to start?

Rob: I’d say, educate yourself.  That’s the first thing to do in property investment.  Don’t just go in and think, “I’ll start throwing bids in on this and away you go.  I think educating yourself and decide on what you want, why you’re going into this.  Yes, it could be fun.  Yes, property can be exciting.  But have a very focused end goal in sight.  “I want to get into property because I want it to do ‘this’ for me.”  Then, you can build a strategy around that goal.  I would get very focused on the outcomes you want to achieve, medium- and long-term.  And then, I would start building a strategy around it.

And then of course, to build that strategy, you’re going to need to educate yourself.  Rob, my podcast partner, on the property podcast, and the Property Hub, which is a forum.  It’s all free education.  We’re really passionate about education and helping people to better themselves when it comes to the subject of property.  I think really, there’s no excuse these days not to educate yourself.  There are courses out there, and some of them are expensive.  You can pick up 99% of the knowledge for free.  So there’s no excuses.  Educate yourself.  Have a very clear vision on what you want to achieve, and then build a strategy around it.

James: And I would highly, highly recommend Rob’s three podcasts now, but particularly the property podcast.  If you’ve ever thought about getting involved in owning property, then this is the place to start.  It will take you from complete beginner status through to some very technical and interesting ways to make money with property.  It’s highly, highly recommended.
So Rob, unfortunately, time is running away with us, but before we finish, let’s move to our weekly staple questions that we have with each guest, starting with: What one book would you recommend that our listeners read?

Rob: I’m going to be greedy, because I’ve named one already, which is Who.  I really recommend that book.  But How to Win Friends and Influence People is another book I’d highly recommend.  The title may sound a little off-putting.  Don’t be.  It’s a very, very good book on how to handle yourself day to day, the skill sets socially you should have.  A very, very good book, I book I gift a lot, actually, probably insulting people when I hand it to them.  “You need to read this.”  When I read that book, it matured me by a good few years.  I realized what a bit of an idiot I was.  I realized how to become a better person.  That book had a big impact on me.  Fortunately, I found it a long time ago, and I gift it a fair bit now.

James: Completely recommend that.  It’s a great book.  It will definitely get you thinking about the ways you interact with other people.  But yeah, as you said if you did gift me the book, I would begin to wonder why, exactly, you were giving me it.
The next question, Rob: What website would you recommend our listeners visit?

Rob: Difficult question.  If you’re interested in property, then obviously, I’m going to say thepropertyhub.net.  But I would go and look at the type of websites that people who are hiring are gonna look at.  Profile tests, Talent Dynamics.  That’s profiling system we use.  I’d be looking at that.  I’d be looking at Disc, which is another profiling test.  I’d be looking at typing in how to find good employees, hiring processes, reverse engineering.  Understanding the people opposite the desk, understanding the people in the office you want to be in.  I’d spend a lot more time doing that, going on those type of websites, going on blogs that talk about how to find the best candidates.  It’s almost like you’ve got inside access to how we’re thinking.  That’s the approach I’d take.

James: I love it.  Again, I’d not really thought about doing it from that way, but now, it makes perfect sense.

And finally, Rob, what one tip would you give our listeners that they can implement today on their job hunt?

Rob: Don’t carpet bomb applications.  So many people do this.  90% or, probably, higher do this, where they’ll do the minimum through an application process at the beginning and hope they get through.  Think about it.  If an employer is going to move you forward after minimum effort and a carpet-bombed CV that is generic and not tailored at all to the job you’re going to, if they’re taking you through, what type of role and what type of company is that?  Yes, the roles I’m talking about in the companies I represent are hard to get.  But think about the quality of people we’ve got in there already, because everyone else has gone through that process.  So that should excite you that it’s difficult to get through.

If it’s easy, and, with minimal effort, you find yourself going through the process, that’s an alarm bell to me.  So what I would do is, I would pick ten jobs, maybe fewer, that you really, really like the look of, and go all out.  Create that profile of the ideal candidate they’re looking for.  Show that you’re above the norm by demonstrating that in your personal life, you’ve been an achiever.  Go to that extra effort.  Show them that you can do that, and really put a lot of effort into a small number of applications than just hammer hundreds and thousands of jobs. That’s what I would do. You can just recognize so quickly and easily when someone is, as you said, carpet bombing applications.  Sometimes, they don’t even remember to change the name of the company that they’re applying to on the application.  It just is so easy to see when they’ve just cut and pasted one application to another.  Those applications just go straight in the bin.  Make sure you’re not doing that, listeners.

James: Rob, it’s been an absolute pleasure to have you on the show.  You’ve left some amazing insights.  Before we finish, what is the best way for listeners to get in touch with you and your businesses?

Rob: I’d say if you want the podcast, you can go to propertypodcast.com.  The forums, thepropertyhub.net.  I’m not massively active on social networks, but the one I’m on the most is Twitter, and it’s @robbence.

James: Rob, thank you very much for appearing on the Graduate Job Podcast.

Rob: It’s been my pleasure, James.  Thanks for having me.

James: Many thanks to Rob Bence, after listening to his property podcasts for so long it was a pleasure to have him on mine. He gave so many great points that it is difficult to pick out just 3, but here goes. The first is related to his point about carpet bombing job applications, by which he meant the process of sending the same application or CV to multiple employers. As he mentioned, it’s not just difficult to apply for jobs, it’s equally as difficult to be on the other side hiring, and trying to wade through hundreds or thousands of probably quite ropey trying to find the best. As such employers put opportunities throughout the process for you to rule yourself out. Did you just enter a one line answer on the application form? Yes in the bin. Did you not do the video application or did you do it badly…in the bin. As Rob said, he is looking for A players who go out of their way to make themselves stand out. People who put the extra work, effort and ultimately thought, which stands them out from the crowd, and as he described it, makes them an A player. To do this takes time though. Which is why you need to be selective with what you apply to, hence no carpet bombing. No cut and pasting the same answers for each online application, or sending the same CV without tailoring it to 50 employers, and then wondering why you didn’t hear back from any of them. So be selective, choose the few jobs you really want to go for and put the effort in to stand out, and make sure that you are marked out as an A player.

The second takeaway for me is on reverse engineering the process.  I loved robs idea of going to the same source that the recruiters will be using, in his case the book Who – The A Method for Hiring. Instead of thinking about what you want, you need to spin that thinking round into what is it the company wants and is looking for. A few weeks ago we had Ivan Wise, recruitment director from the graduate scheme Think Ahead. He mentioned the 7 attributes that Think Ahead has, and how they specifically look for each of these from each candidate throughout the application process. If you had taken time to think about reverse engineering the process, you can make sure that each of those attributes is front and centre throughout your online application, so it’s an easy decision for the recruiter to say Yes!

The final takeaway for me was Rob’s advice on how to stand out when it came to applying for work experience or internships. As he said, anyone you apply to in this regard is going to be time poor, so the prospective of you turning up and getting in the way isn’t going to be appealing. Again, make it easy for them to yes. Take the extra step and specify what exactly you want to do for them, and how it will benefit them. Think about what their objections will be and then nullify them in that initial approach. Put this extra thought in, stand out as an A player, and they wont be able to say no.

So there you go, episode 36, put to bed. If you’ve enjoyed the show let me know on Twitter, my handle is @gradjobpodcast, or email hello@graduatejobpodcast.com and please do leave a review and subscribe on  ITunes or Stitcher radio, as I say every week it’s the best way other than sharing us with your friends to show appreciation for the podcast and it helps massively in the rankings, so that other people can find us.  I do hope you enjoyed the episode today, but more importantly I hope you use it and apply it. See you next week.

 

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