ROSE: Why are you the BEST person for the job?
In this post, I will provide a framework to help your job applications stand out from the crowd by avoiding the generic buzzwords usually seen at the top of CVs and in cover letters.
Hardworking, enthusiastic, intelligent, quick learner, self-motivated, ambitious, work well as an individual and as part of a team. We’ve all used them.
Employers see the above attributes as a given; the minimum requirement. Who would admit that they don’t work well on their own and as part of a team? That should go unsaid. These generic traits are not unique and are in no way making you stand out.
Companies don’t hire people just for the sake of having more people. Every person a company hires, is hired for a specific reason; to solve a specific problem. When companies are growing fast, these problems are seen as ‘good’ problems to have, arising from growth in other areas (customers, users, product etc).
You need to be the solution to these problems.
ROSE
So how does this work in practice? Here’s a simple framework to follow that will help you communicate yourself as the best person for the job.
Research
First, you have to do your research. Too many people miss this step. As a job description alone rarely gives you all the information you need, you’re going to have to dig deeper to find out the root of the pain and the real reason why the company thinks they need another 40+ man hours a week to solve it. Our post on how to research a company will give you a great base to start with.
An important part of this research is looking into the ‘how’. Working out how a company is run and how it wants to fix it’s problems is just as important as what the problems are. You will use this information later on to convince the employer even further that you are the right person for the role.
Objectives
Through your research, work out what the key objectives and success metrics of the role are. Answer the question ‘what does success look like?’. Is it increased sales? Is it a new feature or a more visually appealing product? Is it improved customer happiness? How will the company know they’ve hired the right person after 6 months?
Skills
Once you know the objectives of the company and the role, you can work out what core skills are needed in order to achieve those objectives. These will obviously vary hugely depending on the role.
This is where your research into the ‘how’, mentioned earlier, will help you. Make sure that the skills you come up with will help you reach the objectives in a way that aligns with the values of the company.
Also, note that these skills aren’t simply the ‘key criteria’ from the job description. Often these criteria are included to establish a base level of competency, and more often than not they are vague and ambiguous. You need to establish the tangible, everyday skills required. Try to find two or three that you can work with.
Evidence
This is where you prove that you have the skills identified in step 3. Where have you used these skills previously? How have you improved them? If you can, try to quantify this evidence with specific results you’ve achieved in the past (e.g. increased x by 100%).
A key thing to remember here, is that often evidence doesn’t have to be specific or related to the company, or even industry. Obviously if the skill is coding in a certain language then you do need to be able to provide evidence of that specific capability. However, if the skills are softer, for example ‘excellent communication’ needed to achieve improved sales, your evidence could come from anywhere that you have shown that skill.
Further, even if you have no specific evidence of a certain skill, you could show evidence of learning in a different area; prove that you can learn new skills and get up to speed quickly.
If you’re in real hustle mode, one of the best ways to prove you’re the best person for the job is to do it before you’re hired!
Once you have all of the above, working backwards through the steps, you can link the skills you’ve spoken about back to the objectives and success metrics of the specific role you are applying for. Again, think about the way you communicate how you are reaching those objectives and how your methods align with the company’s values. Then link back even further to how achieving those objectives will solve the initial pain point you uncovered in step 1. This is the step that will position yourself both as someone who fully understands the problem and as the right person to solve it.
The great thing about this framework is you can include pretty much all of the above information into just one or two sentences, which can fit nicely with the rest of your well thought out and tailored cover letter. Here’s an example template you could use. It might not work in every circumstance but I’m sure you can see how you would edit it to suit your needs.
I see from your [article, webpage etc] that [company name] is hugely growing in [X area]. As a [job title] the need to improve [Y and Z objectives] forms the basis of my work. In my previous role as [similar job title] I increased [Y and Z objectives] by [A% and B%] in [C months] by doing [techniques (skills) 1, 2 and 3]. I see you are currently using [skills 1 and 2] but haven’t yet implemented [skill 3] and I would love to introduce this at [company name] to achieve similar or better results to [Y and Z] and in turn improve [M initial pain point].
It’s that easy. It’s a small tweak to make to your approach, but you’ll be amazed at the results. Simply by changing the narrative and positioning yourself as a problem solver, you become infinitely more valuable and desirable to an employer.
Note: This post was originally published on 12th February 2016.
