Posts tagged recommendation

You may have learned about writing persuasive cover-letters and attractive resumes.

You may also have mastered interview techniques that are purposed to floor your interviewers.

But say whatever you like, talk is still cheap.

Of course, when applying for a job everyone is going to say that they are great and that they should be the ones hired.

Nobody is going to say, “I’m really quite lazy,” “I don’t have that great skills,” “I’m quite a slow learner,” “I’ve never worked in a team before.”

I rest my case.

Now, to blow your own trumpet (i.e. saying that you are good and suitable for the job) is expected in the job-hunting process. So, effectively, you can say whatever you like!

You can say that you have superior leadership skills, a Harvard MBA, has 3 PhDs and once advised Obama for all I care. [Yes, I am exaggerating and that will be lying if you don't really have those qualifications. However, the fact remains that extremely few employers actually check!]

So, what can you do to prove your credibility? How do you show that you indeed are a leader, a fast learner, an excellent resource?

By providing supporting evidence of performance and achievements together with your job application. Nothing else beats this as proof of real work done and someone else singing your praises are way better and more credible than you singing your own praises (which is expected).

Here are some types of evidence you can use:

1. Portfolio

This is a collection of past work that you have completed. For example, reports, designs, plans, proposals, budgets, websites, leaflets, speeches, press releases, etc.

2. Reference letters

These are letters from teachers and employers whom you have completed good work for. No, not letters from relatives like your father, mother, uncles, aunties, etc. No relatives. They won’t give you an impartial reference and so, your potential employer will not trust their recommendations.

By all means, ask for reference letters from your internship, part-time or full-time job supervisors. In your extra-curricular activities, ask for reference letters from your student organization’s teacher advisors. Of course, ask for the letters IF you have done a good job. They won’t be able to say good things about you if you didn’t do a good job in class or at work.

Some of the people whom you ask from will be very busy (who isn’t??). If so, offer to write the letter on your own and submit to them for final editing, printing on company letterhead, and signature. If they take this offer from you, please make sure you write well else they have to rewrite everything which takes time and effort (which are very scarce resources).

Keep collecting reference letters. Don’t ever stop. Even if you are running your own business, you need to collect customer testimonials.

3. Personality Test reports

There is a big correlation between your personality and your ability to perform certain types of work well. As such, if you know that you are extremely suitable for a job because of your personality-fit, why not do a personality test (like DiSC, Holland’s Code, etc.) and send the test results along with your application?

of course, such tests costs money (just like TOEFL, IELTS, and GMAT cost money) but they will provide convincing support for employers to at least interview you.

4. Skills assessment reports like IELTS, TOEFL, GMAT, GRE

Similar to personality test reports described above, forward your skills test reports in IELTS, TOEFL, GMAT, or GRE to potential employers. No doubt these are usually used for graduate school applications, the fact remains that they do give good information about your language skills and analytical skills. And if your scores are good for graduate school, they are good for a job interview.

Always remember that employers will always assume that the way you look for a job will be the way you do the job.