Category
Standing Apart
Created
Aug 5, 2021 1:16 AM
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Hiring managers want to know, Can you do what’s required for this role? This is your chance to prove to them that you make things happen.
- Showcase projects you worked on and are proud of
- Write about what you learned in that role
- Document outcomes you created in that role. (I.e. gained X customers, raised revenues Y%, top-performing barista in our district, improved conversion rate Z%)
If don’t have work experience OR creative projects to showcase…
It’s time to roll up your sleeves! It’s super hard to win an exciting job if you haven’t proven that you’re willing to do some work. Here are a few easy ways to start building up your skill set, tech stack, and portfolio right now:
Sales roles
Skills required:
- Verbal Communications
- Written Communications
- Empathy
- Persuasiveness
- Competitive
Project ideas:
- Write about a recent time where you had to sell someone something or persuade them about something. How did you do it? What tactics did you use?
- Put together a sales pitch for your favorite product.
- Put together a cold outreach email sequence for a software product.
- Write about the best sales experience you’ve had as a customer. What made it memorable?
Marketing roles
Skills required:
- Attention to detail
- Copywriting
- Persuasiveness
- Complex problem solving
- Analytical thinking
Project ideas:
- Put together an analysis of landing pages from three competing software products.
- Find bad marketing copy and improve it. Explain where it fell short and how you improved it.
- Put together three audience personas for a marketing campaign for your favorite product.
Customer success roles
Skills required:
- Verbal Communications
- Written Communications
- Empathy
- Friendliness
- Ability to problem solve creatively and put other people at ease
- Ability to understand technical concepts and communicate them
Project ideas:
- Write about the best customer service experience you’ve had as a customer. What made it memorable?
- Make an onboarding tutorial for your favorite software product.
- Were you in a sorority or fraternity? Group sports? Student council? Community group? Babysat? Write about what you learned through that experience about helping, motivating, and winning over other people, especially when they were upset.
- Find an app you use that has bad (or no) help docs and write some.
- Tell a compelling story of a time where you made an impact in a group setting (work, school, community group)
Design roles
Skills required:
- Creativity
- Communication
- Understanding of color theory
- Graphic design
- UI & UX
- Attention to detail
Project ideas:
If you are trying to land a job as a designer, you must showcase your design work. There is no way around it.
- Link to your portfolio of work as it relates to the specific job (e.g. graphic design vs. UI/UX design)
- Write or record a design review of a product that you use or an experience you’ve had — an app on your phone, your earbuds, filling out government forms, anything! Mention what’s designed well, and how it could be improved.
If you don’t have design work yet, read the guide above to discover ways to
Software engineering roles
Skills required:
- Analytical thinking
- Systems thinking
- Problem solving
- Verbal and written communication
- Attention to detail
- Ability to explain complex ideas clearly to non-technical people
Project ideas:
If you are going out for a software engineering job, you must showcase software you’ve built and code you’ve written.
- Link to two specific projects on your Github account that you want to showcase. Make sure they have a good readme that explains why you made the project, what the project’s goals are, and how to see it in action. Images and videos are helpful!
- Write a post your development and collaboration workflow: Planning, architecting, writing code, testing, deploying, identifying and fixing bugs, etc.
If you don’t have software work yet, read the guide above to discover coding bootcamps and other ways to learn to code!
Operations roles
Skills required:
- Organization
- Attention to detail
- Ability to digest and communicate complex information easily
- Comfortable / familiar learning new things rapidly
- Complex problem solving
- Analytical thinking
Project ideas:
- Take a manual process that takes a significant amount of time and find a way to make it faster, easier, and more systematized.
- Document a process improvement you’ve made at a previous job or organization: “We used to do task A manually or through P process. It took T time. Then I came up with a new process – Q. Now it only takes S time.”
- Document how you manage your time and tasks.
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