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<h1 id="preface">Preface</h1>
<p>Professional skills, Just the mere murmur of the word makes me want to fall asleep. It’s such a boring topic, there’s no getting around that. So many people fall asleep in professional skills classes or never take the time to learn these vital skills.</p>
<p>This makes a large difference between the people who took the boring class and the people who didn’t. So many people apply for graduate jobs every single year, I’m willing to bet around 95% of them have no experience with professional skills. Because of this, there is a gap in the market. If you have even basic professional skills, you’re going to look better than the 95% of the candidates that have applied.</p>
<p>Professional skills are vital. Even if you do not wish to learn much about it. To the nerds out there, like me, who have studied professional skills we know this to be true. It is a boring subject, but if you study this boring subject, you’re going to look like the best thing since sliced bread to employers.</p>
<p>Degrees don’t matter. Unless you don’t have one. If you have one, it doesn’t matter. 99% of the people applying for graduate junior positions have degrees. A degree will not make you stand out, no matter how hard you work towards that degree. You need to differentiate yourself, by showing that you are more than just a degree title. One of the ways you could do this is by learning professional skills.</p>
<p>This book is written for everyone who understands that this is a vital skill but does not have the knowledge or means to study it. This book is written for everyone who desperately wants to learn these skills but falls asleep in the lectures on them.</p>
<p>If you have no interest in getting an increase in salary before you start, or no interest in being the best intern a company has ever had, then put this book down. Do not read it. This is not for you.</p>
<p>One of the people who read the original draft on this got a promotion before they started. Their CV was “the best thing we had ever seen” and because of this, the person was deemed a god amongst everyone who didn’t have basic knowledge of constructing a CV.</p>
<p>Let me tell you a secret. For a select few who are obsessed with professional skills, getting internships is a game. I am not joking. One of my friends got 36 internships in his first year at the likes of Bank of America, Barclays, Royal Bank of Scotland, Amazon, Apple, and many more. I have more friends who have achieved similar feats.</p>
<p>For a select few, professional skills are a game. I’ve interviewed as many of them as I could to learn the secrets to the game, how to get any job you want. This book is a compilation of wisdom from that exclusive group and much more.</p>
<h2 id="career-vs-job">Career vs Job</h2>
<p>Let’s get right into the business of the day. A job is something you do for money. Your part time Tesco work is a job. A career is what your life is, what you’re doing with your life. This is anything that can take over your life. A professor at University, for example.</p>
<p>With a job, you work a shift and that’s it. You don’t do anything else.</p>
<p>With a career, you work a shift, you go home, and you work some more. You may go to conferences, you may network, you may learn some things in order to improve yourself at your job. Here are the biggest differences:</p>
<table>
<tbody>
<tr class="odd">
<td><strong>Career</strong></td>
<td><strong>Job</strong></td>
</tr>
<tr class="even">
<td>Long term</td>
<td>Short Term</td>
</tr>
<tr class="odd">
<td>Lots of growth and opportunities</td>
<td>Low or no growth</td>
</tr>
<tr class="even">
<td>Earning experience</td>
<td>Earning money</td>
</tr>
<tr class="odd">
<td>Go above and beyond</td>
<td>Doing the bare minimum</td>
</tr>
<tr class="even">
<td>Happy that you get to work</td>
<td>Angry or frustrated that you’re forced to work</td>
</tr>
<tr class="odd">
<td>Aligned with the core values of the company</td>
<td>Uninterested or doesn’t care about the core values</td>
</tr>
<tr class="even">
<td>Looking to move up the corporate ladder</td>
<td>Looking for a new job that pays more</td>
</tr>
<tr class="odd">
<td>A career is a journey</td>
<td>A job is a grind</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<h2 id="the-job-cycle">The job cycle</h2>
<p>When you’re in university, there’s a certain cycle you normally have to follow in order to get a good graduate job. The cycle is:</p>
<p>Insight days > Spring internships > Summer internships > Placement year > Graduate job.</p>
<p>You don’t need to do all of these things. The typical way most people go around it is:</p>
<p>Summer internships (or a placement year) > Graduate job.</p>
<p>The lower you start on this cycle, the more likely you are to get a job. This cycle doesn't matter that much, unless you’re applying somewhere exclusive. If you want to work somewhere like Bank of America, you’ll need to follow this cycle.</p>
<p>Bank of America would rather hire someone who went through the whole cycle with them than someone who didn’t. It matters here, since they are such a big company even their insight days fill out quickly. They don’t need to bother with people who have only done an internship, if they have hundreds who have done insight days or are even campus ambassadors for them.</p>
<p>The lower levels (insight days, spring internships, sometimes summer internships) carry over from other companies in the same industry.</p>
<p>If you did insight days and a spring internship at BlackRock, Bank of America will think that’s really good as you’re in the industry. Of course, they’ll always pick someone who has worked for their company over someone who’s just worked at a competitor, but you can’t expect to do 20 insight days / 20 spring internships just to get a chance at a company.</p>
<p>Most insight days / spring internships are just advertisements for a company.</p>
<h2 id="landing-that-job">Landing that job</h2>
<p>It’s better to focus on 5 companies than it is to apply to 100. I’m willing to bet that the person who applies to 5 companies, who has researched every company and knows them all will get more graduate job offers, than the person who has applied for 100 but doesn’t know a thing about the companies they have applied for.</p>
<p>If you have an internship, here’s some good advice from a recruiter on how to turn that internship into a graduate job.</p>
<p>This advice comes from Andrew Osayemi.</p>
<p>“So, you are fortunate to have a spring or summer internship & are looking for 1 piece of unconventional advice, to help increase your chances of being offered a full-time graduate job?</p>
<p>Well the advice is very simple — Ask everyone on your team if they would like a tea or coffee every 2–3 hours each day</p>
<p>Do it with a warm smile.</p>
<p>If they say no — still smile & politely say “no problem, please let me know if you need anything!”</p>
<p>And if they say yes, write down their order carefully so you don’t mess it up including any special requests (soya milk, 10 sugars etc)</p>
<p>When you return with their beverage of choice, again make sure you give it to them with a warm smile!</p>
<p>Now the next 10 seconds is crucial</p>
<p><span id="_tyjcwt" class="anchor"></span>You have an opening to ask how their day is going, if they have any work for you to do, if you can book a convenient time to work shadow them, did they watch the latest reality show etc.</p>
<p>Very soon your likeability factor will be increased which greatly impacts your chances of being offered a full-time graduate offer!</p>
<p>I’ve given this advice to countless students whom I have coached via Rare Recruitment & the feedback is “It works”!</p>
<h2 id="your-universitys-careers-team">Your university’s careers team</h2>
<p>Your university's careers team is an elite squad of experts whose entire jobs are to get you great jobs. This book isn’t meant to be a replacement for them, it goes hand in hand with them. They can interview you, look at your CV & more to help you get prepared.</p>
<p>You can find out how to access your university’s careers team by Googling “[University name] careers team”.</p>
<h3 id="my-universitys-careers-team-is-bad">My university’s careers team is bad</h3>
<p>It happens. The good news is that you’re already on your way to becoming an expert in employability skills. By reaching out and reading this book, you’re already doing 90% more than anyone else applying for that job - learning more about employability skills.</p>
<p>For practice with interviews - go to as many as possible. Apply to companies you’ll likely never work at just to get interview experience. The more you do, the better. When you’re at an interview, make friends with the other candidates and work together to achieve greatness. To get great jobs. They’ll likely be able to help you with your CV & other things.</p>
<h2 id="one-last-thing-before-chapter-1">One last thing before Chapter 1</h2>
<p>This book isn’t a one size fits all book. The recruitment industry is large. So large in fact, that it’s impossible to cover every single titbit. In some industries, a nicely designed CV is essential. In others, anything other than black and white is seen as a monstrosity. While I try my best in this book to guide you along this path, know that you need to research yourself. I can’t possibly cover every single industry here.</p>
<h2 id="section"></h2>
<h1 id="chapter-1---curriculum-vitae">How to Write a CV</h1>
<p>A Curriculum Vitae (CV) or a resume is one of the most vital parts of job hunting. Put simply, it is a piece of paper you give to a recruiter. This recruiter decides if you are worth the time to interview based on this bit of paper.</p>
<p>Every job requires a CV. Sometimes, the job will force you to rewrite your entire CV on their website. Even if it does, you’ll still need a CV.<br />
<br />
As such, writing a good CV is the key to getting a good job.<br />
<br />
The CV is a summary of your professional life so far. It features your education, your work experience, skills and more.</p>
<p>Most times a person reads the CV, but sometimes machines can also read it. Recently artificial intelligence is being used to read CVs. When a human reads your CV, they don't exactly read it. Estimations say that they spend 7 seconds on your CV, but this isn't true. If you were in the position of looking at CVs and you saw something that looked spiritless, would you bother reading it? I know you wouldn't. That's why your CV needs to catch their eyes. It needs to make them curious and interested in you within the first second or two. First impressions matter here, A lot.</p>
<h2 id="personalising-your-cv"><br />
Personalising your CV</h2>
<p>Your CV will impress the person reading it if it’s customised to them. Everyone likes a customised birthday cake more than a regular Tesco own brand birthday cake.<br />
Make it look like you're perfect for the job because the employer only wants the perfect candidate. The thing with applying for a very large organisations is that they have no shortage of candidates. Why settle on someone mediocre when 2 weeks later you’ll have someone perfect for the role? You need to act perfect and believe you are perfect for the role.</p>
<h3 id="keywords-is-the-keyword-of-this-section">Keywords is the keyword of this section</h3>
<p>An AI looks for keywords. They do not have an average time of looking at your CV.<br />
A recruiter will insert a bunch of keywords into a computer program. The program will scan each CV and give the CV a score on how many keywords the CV has. This is why it is important to know what keywords to put into your CV. But, having an A4 piece of paper with font size 2 to fill it to the brim of keywords might not work. You don't know whether they will use a human or a machine - or even both. Machines can rank your CV depending on how ‘clean’ it is too.</p>
<p>To insert keywords, you need to know what job you are applying for and what company.<br />
Let's say you apply to Barclays for a summer analyst position.<br />
First you would Google around. Search for terms like "Barclays CV keywords" and "Summer analyst keywords CV". If these do not return anything then read the description.<br />
A part of the description in 2018 states this:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“<em>We are looking for bright, personable individuals who have the ambition to succeed and an impetus to learn and make the most of this fantastic opportunity within a competitive environment.”</em></p>
<p>From https://joinus.barclays/eme/internships/banking-summer-analyst</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Barclays are looking for people who love learning. Who want to make a difference to themselves and to the world and are above all, kind.</p>
<p>You should customise your CV to show that you love learning. You are kind hearted (volunteering work can prove this, for example) and understand that it is a competitive position. Try to use the keywords themselves. Barclays say you need “an impetus to learn”, you can write in your CV profile that you have an impetus to learn. You should show that you need this position.</p>
<p>To customise your CV, analyse the job description. Obsessively read it and highlight keywords that come up. They say that they want someone with strong self-motivation? Find something you’ve done that proves this and put it on to your CV. Just like with the Barclays example earlier, it’s all about matching your CV up to the job description as much as possible.</p>
<p>By inserting keywords into the CV you'll be able to pass the keyword test performed by machines, as discussed earlier. But please do not puke keywords onto your CV, it has to look natural.</p>
<p>Read the job description, the responsibilities, the specific requirements, the location. If you see a word you don't know, Google it. That word you don’t know is likely a keyword. Remember the Barclays example from earlier? It’s like they’ve grabbed a thesaurus and randomly inserted words into the job description. These words are keywords.</p>
<p>Some keywords come up and up again in many jobs such as:<br />
• Teamwork<br />
• Time management<br />
• Microsoft Office<br />
• Leadership skills<br />
• Computer literacy</p>
<p>Let’s say a job description has this sentence in it:</p>
<blockquote>
<p><em>“Required — Advance knowledge of Microsoft Applications (Word, Excel, PowerPoint).”</em></p>
</blockquote>
<p>Then instead of writing “Microsoft Office” on your CV you write:</p>
<blockquote>
<p><em>“Advance knowledge of Microsoft Software (Word, Excel, PowerPoint).”</em></p>
</blockquote>
<p>If the machine reads your CV, you'll pass the keyword test. If a human reads your CV, they may not remember the job description exactly, which is good. When they read "Advance knowledge of Microsoft Software…" something will click in their head which makes you stand out. That something is that their subconscious memory recalls the keywords used in the job description.</p>
<h3 id="making-the-cv-fit-around-you-not-you-trying-to-fit-into-a-cv-template">Making the CV fit around you, not you trying to fit into a CV template</h3>
<p>If you’re applying for a job that requires programming, have a “languages” section on your CV that talks about all the languages you know. Or if you know other languages, include them. There isn’t a one size fits all CV that’s perfect for you. You need to make the perfect CV for you.</p>
<p>It’s also best to rate your skills. If you’re fluent in German, say you’re fluent. If you’re not fluent but still quite good, write intermediate. Be honest, don’t lie that you’re fluent in Mandarin as the job might need that you are.</p>
<p>Most people fire off blankets of CV’s to every single recruiter on their LinkedIn or job recruiters like it’s the last thing you’ll ever do. Do not do this. Customisation per job is vital.</p>
<h3 id="lie-about-your-location"><br />
Lie about your Location</h3>
<p>Want to get a job in London? Then write “London” on your CV.<br />
This won't work well if you write "London" and you live in Scotland unless you plan to move.<br />
If you get called up on it say you're going to relocate, or you enjoy commuting.</p>
<p>You need the employer to think that if they hire you, they won’t come into any problems like you living an hour away.</p>
<h3 id="how-to-research-an-organisation">How to research an organisation</h3>
<p>You need to know about an organisation before you apply for a job there. You can’t apply to an organisation you know nothing about and expect to get the job. In order to be the perfect candidate, you need to be an expert on this organisation.</p>
<p>Some of the things you want to find out are:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>The mission statement of the company</p></li>
<li><p>Who founded it and why</p></li>
<li><p>A brief history of the company</p></li>
<li><p>Current CEO of company</p></li>
<li><p>Where they are based</p></li>
<li><p>Products and services</p></li>
<li><p>Competitors</p></li>
<li><p>Current issues</p></li>
<li><p>Current news</p></li>
<li><p>Ethics & morals</p></li>
<li><p>Culture</p></li>
<li><p>The people you will be working with / the person interviewing you</p></li>
<li><p>Career development</p></li>
<li><p>Travel opportunities</p></li>
</ul>
<p>Once you’ve researched about them, add the things you’ve found to a word document and print it out. Go over this document on the way to the interview. You do not need to memorise every company you apply for. Use this information in your cover letter and learn the information the day before your interview.</p>
<p>You could Google most of these. Just Google “[Companies name] [thing you want to find out]”. ` When you research a company, the best website you should concentrate on is the company's own website. For history, you should look at the company's Wikipedia page. For current news, you can Google search the company and click the “news” tab.</p>
<p>For most companies, Bloomberg contains a “snapshot” of the company. This includes the key executives for the company, their age, their annual compensation, a company overview, how many employees they have and more. The key thing about these snapshots are the “key developments” section whereby Bloomberg lists the most important news and developments for a company.</p>
<p>To find a Bloomberg snapshot of a company, Google “[company name] Bloomberg snapshot”.</p>
<p>If the company is especially big, chances are that the Economist has written an article about them at some point. Find sources you like & trust, and search to see if that company has come up in these sources.</p>
<h2 id="writing-a-cv"><br />
Writing a CV</h2>
<h3>How Long Should an CV Be?</h3>
<p>Now we know about customising a CV, let’s get into how to write a CV. The first most important rule is that your CV should be 1 page. Not double sided but one page. If you have 15+ years of experience then 2 pages is okay, but 1 page is always preferable.</p>
<h3 id="choosing-the-right-cv-template">Choosing the right CV Template</h3>
<p>Choosing the right CV template is always important. You could try to create your own template, but I don’t suggest you do this unless you’re good at design. The simplest and easiest way to find a good template is to Google “CV Template” and pick one you like.</p>
<p>Make sure the template is well designed and it has to be visually appealing. The template should be slightly sparse of information. A CV with little information on it looks more appealing than a CV full of information. The recruiter is used to CVs with paragraphs upon paragraphs of information. If you have little information, it will catch their eye. Try not to disclude stuff that’s directly relevant to the position, you want to be the best person for the job.</p>
<p>If you know a little tiny bit about computers, you can Google “LaTeX CV templates” to get some nice templates for free. If it’s on Overleaf or ShareLaTeX then it’s easier to use. LaTeX is like a programming language but for writing.</p>
<p>A well-designed CV is more important than most people think. Well designed does not have to equal “pretty colours and nice shapes”.</p>
<p>In some industries, a well designed CV is a burden. Employers can hate them with a burning rage. The recruitment industry is less “this one tip works for everyone” and more “this one tip is really cool for a specific part of the industry”. Well designed CVs may be appreciated at tech start-ups or design companies, but at other places like law firms they can be hated. While in this book I advocate for colour CVs, know that you need to perform your own research and find out if its appropriate for your industry.</p>
<p>Another downside to using well designed CVs is that Applicant Tracking Software can’t read them. This is the software / AI used to determine whether or not you are the right candidate.</p>
<p>Instead of reading these chapters and thinking “this is perfect for my industry” I implore you to think “this is a good idea, but I wonder if my industry likes this?”</p>
<p>If you believe the answer to be “yes, my industry likes this” then go ahead.</p>
<p>But, the benefits for well designed CVs still exist. No one else will have a CV like yours, so you’ll stand out. Also, you can have a well designed CV and have a plain black / white layout. Whitespace is your friend here. Lots of space, sparse information.</p>
<p>You have to decide for yourself what is good and what is bad. All industries are different.</p>
<p>My friend Chris has so many internships he’s lost count. These include places like Bank of America, Google, Facebook and many, many more. His CV is black & white and it worked pretty well for him. Try to find people in the industry you’re applying for like Chris who have a lot of experience applying to jobs. Ask them what the industry is like. You can use LinkedIn for this.</p>
<p>Your CV needs to be eye-catching, it needs to be designed well. It needs to look good and have the correct information in it.</p>
<p>Personally speaking, I use NovoResume.com for all of my CV needs. I have been using them for years, and they’ve never once let me down.</p>
<p>Your university careers team might also have templates for you to use, but I would recommend at least modifying this template. Thousands of people will use your universities careers template every year, try to make it unique and make it your CV. If you’ve found 2 or more templates you really like, and you don’t know which one to use, just ask your university careers team.</p>
<p>If your CV is visually stunning, the employer will love it. They read so many of the same black & white PDF documents filled with information every day they’re desperate to find something that has a hint of graphic design.</p>
<p>Going hand in hand with a well-designed CV, don’t crinkle your CV or put folds in it if you print it out. It has to look like it just came out of a printer. Never, ever hand over a CV with a crinkle or fold in it.</p>
<h3 id="achievements-jobs-on-a-cv">Achievements & Jobs on a CV</h3>
<p>When writing out your CV, list your achievements at a job. Don’t list the duties you had to do. Everyone has to do stuff at a job, achievements are more impressive. Make sure the CV is visually appealing and sparse of information. You want to tell a story in as few words as possible. Put your jobs in reverse-chronological order so your most recent work appears at the top of the CV.</p>
<p>If I was to say that I was the best Student Union officer that would make me sound big headed. If I was to change that to “changed Student Union approval rating from 30% to 90%” it would sound even more impressive and not so egotistical.</p>
<p>Achievements are important too. Try to make your achievements in this format:</p>
<blockquote>
<p><em>“I did X by doing Y as proved by Q”</em></p>
</blockquote>
<p>As a general rule you need to have some sort of statistic related to the achievement. It makes the achievement sound so much more impressive. Mixing this achievement rule with statistics will go a long way for you.</p>
<p>Don’t include jobs if it’s not relevant. If you’re applying to be an investment banker and you worked at an ice cream shop for a week, it’s not really helpful for you to put that on. It’ll just make your CV look messy. If you have no experience, it will be more helpful to put your education on it. You want to balance your education and work experience. If you’ve never worked anywhere relevant before, you’ll want to include your A-levels and university modules with grades. If you’ve worked in industry, as an internship or whatnot then you might not want to include A-levels in order to write more about this experience.</p>
<p>Real world experience is always worth more than education, so try to disclude as much information of your education as possible. But make sure to put university on there. Don’t include primary / secondary school. The earliest you can go back to is A levels.</p>
<p>If you’re applying for a job in academia, your education matters a lot more than normal. If you have a perfect mix of work experience and education, try to list your education shortly. Only include the modules that are relevant to the job. If you’re applying for a job in game design and you’ve done modules on game design, include them.</p>
<p>The single most important thing you can do to make your CV stand out is to customise your CV per job.</p>
<h3 id="how-to-spell-check-your-cv">How to spell-check your CV</h3>
<p>You need to avoid spelling and grammar mistakes at all costs. It is the difference between you getting a job and you not getting the job. The simplest form of spell checking you can do is to run the Microsoft Word spell checker. But, this isn’t good enough. You actually need to read your CV, and then get someone else to read it for you.</p>
<p>Your university's careers team is perfect for this. Almost every careers team will have some form of session or drop in clinic for them to read your CV and pick up on anything that’s wrong. When in doubt, visit your careers team.</p>
<p>Instead of Microsoft Word’s spell checker, I use Grammarly.</p>
<h3 id="to-pdf-or-not-to-pdf"><br />
To PDF or not to PDF</h3>
<p>Always send your CV as a PDF unless they absolutely specify it has to be sent in a format they require.</p>
<p>The PDF is designed to be readable on any machine. The way the PDF looks on your machine is the exact same way it'll look on any other machine. Anyone can open a PDF. PDFs are supported in Internet Explorer or Chrome. With Microsoft Word, if they have a different Word version to you it may look different. It may actually look worse to them than it does to you. Also, not everyone has Microsoft Word; but everyone has a web browser like Firefox or Chrome.</p>
<p>If they need the CV in plaintext (copy and paste) you have to change the formatting. You can make sections using “ — — “. Like so:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Achievements<br />
-------------------</p>
<p>* Changed Student Union approval rating from 30% to 90%</p>
</blockquote>
<p>You can use an asterisk as a bullet point, as seen above.</p>
<p><span id="_4ij8ebsyhmr2" class="anchor"></span></p>
<h3 id="references">References</h3>
<p>No references available on request. No one I know that gets jobs does this. Make it as easy as possible for the recruiter. Contacting you to ask for references is another step to them, which makes it harder. Cut out the middleman and put the contact details for your reference on the CV itself.</p>
<p>I know that some references will write you letters, and that’s good. You should hand these in when they ask for qualifications (if they do) or letters of recommendation. Please do not copy and paste your references’ letters onto your CV or attach them to the other blank side. It’s just not good.</p>
<p>You’ll usually want 2 references, 1 academic and 1 work related. If you have never worked somewhere before, use another academic reference if you can or someone you have volunteered with. Or the head of a society you’re active in.</p>
<p>When you put the reference on your CV, it should look like this:<br />
Name<br />
How they know you (ex-boss, ex-co-worker)<br />
Contact details (email, phone)</p>
<p>That’s it. No “I went drinking with him every Friday”. No stories or anything, short and sweet.</p>
<p>Make sure you ask the person if you can use them as a reference. Make sure they will only say good things about you. If they want to "be honest" about you, find someone else. Your references should gleam at the opportunity to talk about how amazing you are.</p>
<p>In a warm Starbucks once I was talking to a recruiter. They talked about how many people put references down without making sure the referencer is okay with it. Or they'll put a reference down that isn't too keen on the person. The recruiter would often call these references and get:</p>
<blockquote>
<p><em>"They were alright, they did the job"</em></p>
</blockquote>
<p>or even worse:</p>
<blockquote>
<p><em>"Who are they again?"</em></p>
</blockquote>
<p>It's important to make sure your references know you and love you. Be very careful with what information you put down too.</p>
<p>If you put down the references personal phone number and your CV gets shared around, you’ve shared personal information with people the reference doesn’t even know about. This is violating many Data Protection Act Regulations.</p>
<p>In some countries, you don’t even need to put references down on your CV. References are sometimes the very last thing a recruiter asks for. You could instead use that reference space for something more important.</p>
<p>Like with choosing a well designed CV or a plain CV, you need to decide for yourself. While in the UK it is traditional to put references down, you need to consider the benefits and downsides of it.</p>
<p><strong>Benefits</strong></p>
<ul>
<li><p>Easy for the recruiter to find out more about you. Easier for the recruiter is always better</p></li>
</ul>
<p><strong>Downsides</strong></p>
<ul>
<li><p>Takes up precious space on a CV. CVs are supposed to only be 1 page long, you could use that space for something else.</p></li>
<li><p>Not needed in most countries.</p></li>
<li><p>You could accidentally violate Data Protection Regulations.</p></li>
</ul>
<h3 id="make-it-as-easy-for-your-employer-as-possible"><br />
Make it as Easy for your Employer as Possible</h3>
<p>Referencing what I said earlier, make it as easy for your employer as possible. Think about who you are applying to. If you’re applying in the tech industry, chances are that they are reading your CV on a computer, so hyperlinks in CVs are cool. If not, don’t include them as they don’t look good when printed out.</p>
<p>Are you applying to be a graphic designer? The design of your CV matters the most. Are you applying to be a game developer? You could make your CV as a game, like Robbie Leonardi did here: <a href="http://www.rleonardi.com/interactive-resume/"><em>www.rleonardi.com/interactive-resume/</em></a></p>
<p>Really think about who you are applying for and how you can make your CV better for them.</p>
<h3 id="have-a-profile-section"><br />
How to Write a Personal Statement for a CV</h3>
<p>The personal statement on a CV, also known as a profile, is a small section of your CV that includes a brief summary of your skills, experiences and goals. It is your elevator pitch. Imagine you are in an elevator with the recruiter of a large company. You have 30 seconds to convince them to care about you enough to want to interview you. This is the elevator pitch. A good profile makes people interested in you. It gives them a reason to read on and pay attention to your CV.</p>
<p>This is truly customised to you. I really cannot tell you what to write. Your elevator pitch should talk about who you are, what you do, your education, and your goals in life. A good profile will break these rules. It’s one thing to follow the rules, but in order to stand out you need to break these rules. My profile is:</p>
<blockquote>
<p><em>“Obsessive learner and problem solver, always looking for the next big problem to solve”</em></p>
</blockquote>
<p>Your elevator pitch talks about your education & experience, your CV profile talks about you as a person. If they want to know about your education & experience, they’ll simply read on. Your principles and goals in life are discovered, not invented.</p>
<p>My friend’s profile says:</p>
<blockquote>
<p><em>“I love what I do – turning ideas into reality by coding. “</em></p>
</blockquote>
<p>It’s incredibly hard for me to describe this, since it has to be personalised to you. No one can tell you what to write here, but keep in mind that you’ll discover what you love if you keep it in the back of your head for long enough.</p>
<h3 id="bullet-points-paragraphs-action-verbs"><br />
Bullet points, paragraphs & action verbs</h3>
<p>Bullet Points. Always try to have bullet points. You’re allowed to include paragraphs, but if everything in your CV is a paragraph it’ll look extremely dull. Bullet points are more readable.</p>
<p>Personally speaking, the only time I use paragraphs is for my achievements, when I want to tell a story. Everything else is bullet points. You should use action verbs in your bullet points to make it sound powerful. Instead of saying:</p>
<blockquote>
<p><em>“I led a project”</em></p>
</blockquote>
<p>You can say:</p>
<blockquote>
<p><em>“I orchestrated a project”</em></p>
</blockquote>
<p>Here is a list of 185+ action verbs you can use, from the website The Muse<a href="#fn1" class="footnoteRef" id="fnref1"><sup>1</sup></a></p>
<h4 id="section-1"></h4>
<table>
<tbody>
<tr class="odd">
<td><h4 id="you-increased-efficiency-sales-revenue-or-customer-satisfaction">You increased efficiency, sales, revenue, or customer satisfaction</h4>
<ul>
<li><p>Accelerated</p></li>
<li><p>Achieved</p></li>
<li><p>Advanced</p></li>
<li><p>Amplified</p></li>
<li><p>Boosted</p></li>
<li><p>Capitalized</p></li>
<li><p>Delivered</p></li>
<li><p>Enhanced</p></li>
<li><p>Expanded</p></li>
<li><p>Expedited</p></li>
<li><p>Furthered</p></li>
<li><p>Gained</p></li>
<li><p>Generated</p></li>
<li><p>Improved</p></li>
<li><p>Lifted</p></li>
<li><p>Maximized</p></li>
<li><p>Outpaced</p></li>
<li><p>Stimulated</p></li>
<li><p>Sustained</p></li>
</ul></td>
<td><h4 id="you-thought-of-and-brought-a-project-to-life">You thought of and brought a project to life</h4>
<ul>
<li><p>Administered</p></li>
<li><p>Built</p></li>
<li><p>Charted</p></li>
<li><p>Created</p></li>
<li><p>Designed</p></li>
<li><p>Developed</p></li>
<li><p>Devised</p></li>
<li><p>Founded</p></li>
<li><p>Engineered</p></li>
<li><p>Established</p></li>
<li><p>Formalized</p></li>
<li><p>Formed</p></li>
<li><p>Formulated</p></li>
<li><p>Implemented</p></li>
<li><p>Incorporated</p></li>
<li><p>Initiated</p></li>
<li><p>Instituted</p></li>
<li><p>Introduced</p></li>
<li><p>Launched</p></li>
<li><p>Pioneered</p></li>
<li><p>Spearheaded</p></li>
</ul></td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<table>
<tbody>
<tr class="odd">
<td><h4 id="you-saved-the-company-time-and-money">You saved the company time and money</h4>
<ul>
<li><p>Conserved</p></li>
<li><p>Consolidated</p></li>
<li><p>Decreased</p></li>
<li><p>Deducted</p></li>
<li><p>Diagnosed</p></li>
<li><p>Lessened</p></li>
<li><p>Reconciled</p></li>
<li><p>Reduced</p></li>
<li><p>Yielded</p></li>
</ul></td>
<td><h4 id="you-were-in-charge-of-a-project">You were in charge of a project</h4>
<ul>
<li><p>Chaired</p></li>
<li><p>Controlled</p></li>
<li><p>Coordinated</p></li>
<li><p>Executed</p></li>
<li><p>Headed</p></li>
<li><p>Operated</p></li>
<li><p>Orchestrated</p></li>
<li><p>Organized</p></li>
<li><p>Oversaw</p></li>
<li><p>Planned</p></li>
<li><p>Produced</p></li>
<li><p>Programmed</p></li>
</ul></td>
</tr>
<tr class="even">
<td></td>
<td></td>
</tr>
<tr class="odd">
<td><h4 id="you-manage-a-team">You manage a team</h4>
<ul>
<li><p>Aligned</p></li>
<li><p>Cultivated</p></li>
<li><p>Directed</p></li>
<li><p>Enabled</p></li>
<li><p>Facilitated</p></li>
<li><p>Fostered</p></li>
<li><p>Guided</p></li>
<li><p>Hired</p></li>
<li><p>Inspired</p></li>
<li><p>Mentored</p></li>
<li><p>Mobilized</p></li>
<li><p>Motivated</p></li>
<li><p>Recruited</p></li>
<li><p>Regulated</p></li>
<li><p>Shaped</p></li>
<li><p>Supervised</p></li>
<li><p>Taught</p></li>
<li><p>Trained</p></li>
<li><p>Unified</p></li>
<li><p>United</p></li>
</ul></td>
<td><h4 id="you-changed-or-improved-something">You changed or improved something</h4>
<ul>
<li><p>Centralized</p></li>
<li><p>Clarified</p></li>
<li><p>Converted</p></li>
<li><p>Customized</p></li>
<li><p>Influenced</p></li>
<li><p>Integrated</p></li>
<li><p>Merged</p></li>
<li><p>Modified</p></li>
<li><p>Overhauled</p></li>
<li><p>Redesigned</p></li>
<li><p>Refined</p></li>
<li><p>Refocused</p></li>
<li><p>Rehabilitated</p></li>
<li><p>Remodelled</p></li>
<li><p>Reorganized</p></li>
<li><p>Replaced</p></li>
<li><p>Restructured</p></li>
<li><p>Revamped</p></li>
<li><p>Revitalized</p></li>
<li><p>Simplified</p></li>
<li><p>Standardized</p></li>
<li><p>Streamlined</p></li>
<li><p>Strengthened</p></li>
<li><p>Updated</p></li>
<li><p>Upgraded</p></li>
<li><p>Transformed</p></li>
</ul></td>
</tr>
<tr class="even">
<td><h4 id="you-changed-or-improved-something-1">You changed or improved something</h4>
<ul>
<li><p>Centralized</p></li>
<li><p>Clarified</p></li>
<li><p>Converted</p></li>
<li><p>Customized</p></li>
<li><p>Influenced</p></li>
<li><p>Integrated</p></li>
<li><p>Merged</p></li>
<li><p>Modified</p></li>
<li><p>Overhauled</p></li>
<li><p>Redesigned</p></li>
<li><p>Refined</p></li>
<li><p>Refocused</p></li>
<li><p>Rehabilitated</p></li>
<li><p>Remodelled</p></li>
<li><p>Reorganized</p></li>
<li><p>Replaced</p></li>
<li><p>Restructured</p></li>
<li><p>Revamped</p></li>
<li><p>Revitalized</p></li>
<li><p>Simplified</p></li>
<li><p>Standardized</p></li>
<li><p>Streamlined</p></li>
<li><p>Strengthened</p></li>
<li><p>Updated</p></li>
<li><p>Upgraded</p></li>
<li><p>Transformed</p></li>
</ul></td>
<td><h4 id="you-wrote-or-communicated">You wrote or communicated </h4>
<ul>
<li><p>Authored</p></li>
<li><p>Briefed</p></li>
<li><p>Campaigned</p></li>
<li><p>Co-authored</p></li>
<li><p>Composed</p></li>
<li><p>Conveyed</p></li>
<li><p>Convinced</p></li>
<li><p>Corresponded</p></li>
<li><p>Counselled</p></li>
<li><p>Critiqued</p></li>
<li><p>Defined</p></li>
<li><p>Documented</p></li>
<li><p>Edited</p></li>
<li><p>Illustrated</p></li>
<li><p>Lobbied</p></li>
<li><p>Persuaded</p></li>
<li><p>Promoted</p></li>
<li><p>Publicized</p></li>
<li><p>Reviewed</p></li>
</ul></td>
</tr>
<tr class="odd">
<td><h4 id="you-supported-customers">You supported customers</h4>
<ul>
<li><p>Advised</p></li>
<li><p>Advocated</p></li>
<li><p>Arbitrated</p></li>
<li><p>Coached</p></li>
<li><p>Consulted</p></li>
<li><p>Educated</p></li>
<li><p>Fielded</p></li>
<li><p>Informed</p></li>
<li><p>Resolved</p></li>
</ul></td>
<td><h4 id="you-overview-or-regulated">You overview or regulated</h4>
<ul>
<li><p>Authorized</p></li>
<li><p>Blocked</p></li>
<li><p>Delegated</p></li>
<li><p>Dispatched</p></li>
<li><p>Enforced</p></li>
<li><p>Ensured</p></li>
<li><p>Inspected</p></li>
<li><p>Itemized</p></li>
<li><p>Monitored</p></li>
<li><p>Screened</p></li>
<li><p>Scrutinized</p></li>
<li><p>Verified</p></li>
</ul></td>
</tr>
<tr class="even">
<td><h4 id="you-achieved-something">You achieved something</h4>
<ul>
<li><p>Attained</p></li>
<li><p>Awarded</p></li>
<li><p>Completed</p></li>
<li><p>Demonstrated</p></li>
<li><p>Earned</p></li>
<li><p>Exceeded</p></li>
<li><p>Outperformed</p></li>
<li><p>Reached</p></li>
<li><p>Showcased</p></li>
<li><p>Succeeded</p></li>
<li><p>Surpassed</p></li>
<li><p>Targeted</p></li>
</ul></td>
<td><h4 id="you-were-a-research-machine">You were a research machine</h4>
<ul>
<li><p>Analysed</p></li>
<li><p>Assembled</p></li>
<li><p>Assessed</p></li>
<li><p>Audited</p></li>
<li><p>Calculated</p></li>
<li><p>Discovered</p></li>
<li><p>Evaluated</p></li>
<li><p>Examined</p></li>
<li><p>Explored</p></li>
<li><p>Forecasted</p></li>
<li><p>Identified</p></li>
<li><p>Interpreted</p></li>
<li><p>Investigated</p></li>
<li><p>Mapped</p></li>
<li><p>Measured</p></li>
<li><p>Qualified</p></li>
<li><p>Quantified</p></li>
<li><p>Surveyed</p></li>
<li><p>Tested</p></li>
<li><p>Tracked</p></li>
</ul></td>
</tr>
<tr class="odd">
<td><h4 id="you-brought-in-partners-funding-or-resources">You brought in partners, funding, or resources</h4>
<ul>
<li><p>Acquired</p></li>
<li><p>Forged</p></li>
<li><p>Navigated</p></li>
<li><p>Negotiated</p></li>
<li><p>Partnered</p></li>
<li><p>Secured</p></li>
</ul></td>
<td></td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<h3 id="things-to-include-in-a-cv"><br />
Things to Include in a CV</h3>
<p>You have a template and you want to change a few things, here are some things you might want to include:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>Personal details — Telephone, professional email, location, name</p></li>
<li><p>Work experience</p></li>
<li><p>Achievements</p></li>
<li><p>Education</p></li>
<li><p>Hobbies and interests that relate to the job</p></li>
<li><p>Key skills relating to the job</p></li>
<li><p>Know any languages that relate to the job? Put them down!</p></li>
</ul>
<p>You can also put a language down that doesn’t relate to the job. If you know an Asian language like Chinese and you put that into your CV, the recruiter will instantly think you are some sort of super genius.</p>
<h3 id="what-not-to-include-in-a-cv"><br />
What not to include in a CV</h3>
<ul>
<li><p>A head-shot / image of you. Unless the company specifies that they need this, do not do this. They do not want to see you.</p></li>
<li><p>Age and date of birth — It’s illegal for employers to ask about your age under the Equality Act of 2010.</p></li>
<li><p>Martial / Relationship status — Again under the Equality Act of 2010 they cannot ask this.</p></li>
<li><p>Every single thing you have ever done — Make it short and customise it per job.</p></li>
</ul>
<p>Let’s just list all the things that the Equality Act of 2010 makes illegal for employers to ask you:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>Marital status</p></li>
<li><p>Date of birth / age<a href="#fn2" class="footnoteRef" id="fnref2"><sup>2</sup></a></p></li>
<li><p>Gender</p></li>
<li><p>Dependants</p></li>
<li><p>General health<a href="#fn3" class="footnoteRef" id="fnref3"><sup>3</sup></a></p></li>
<li><p>Religion</p></li>
<li><p>Disabilities<a href="#fn4" class="footnoteRef" id="fnref4"><sup>4</sup></a></p></li>
<li><p>Spent criminal convictions</p></li>
<li><p>Trade Union membership</p></li>
<li><p>Ethnicity or other underrepresented characteristic<a href="#fn5" class="footnoteRef" id="fnref5"><sup>5</sup></a></p></li>
<li><p>Pregnancies</p></li>
<li><p>Sexual Orientation</p></li>
</ul>
<h2 id="summary-of-this-chapter">Summary of this chapter</h2>
<h3 id="personalising-a-cv">Personalising a CV</h3>
<p>☐ Have you used a CV template?</p>
<p>☐ Have you customised the CV template to fit around you?</p>
<p>☐ Does your CV have keywords in it?</p>
<p>☐ Is your CV clean & minimalistic?</p>
<p>☐ Do you have special sections related to the job? IE languages, skills, achievements?</p>
<p>☐ Does your CV have contact details on it, and is the location where you want to be / where you are?</p>
<p>☐ Do you have achievements at a job on your CV?</p>
<p>☐ Have you spell checked you CV?</p>
<p>☐ Is your CV a PDF?</p>
<p>☐ Do you have references, without "references available on request" on your CV?</p>
<p>☐ Do you have a profile section?</p>
<p>☐ Do you have action verbs in your CV?</p>
<p>☐ Have you gotten rid of everything under the Equality Act of 2010, unless it benefits you in some way?</p>
<h3 id="researching-an-organisation">Researching an organisation</h3>
<p>Do you know these things about the company:</p>
<p>☐ Mission statement of the company</p>
<p>☐ Who founded it & why</p>
<p>☐ A brief history of the company</p>
<p>☐ Current CEO of the company</p>
<p>☐ products & services</p>
<p>☐ Competitors</p>
<p>☐ Current issues</p>
<p>☐ News</p>
<p>☐ Culture</p>
<p>☐ Career development</p>
<h1 id="chapter-2---cover-letters">How to Write a Cover Letter</h1>
<h2>What is a cover letter?</h2>
<p>The cover letter is a letter that goes with a CV that explains why you want a job. It can be the first chance you get to stand out to your potential employer.</p>
<p>What makes a cover letter so difficult is that there is no clear-cut formula to writing a cover letter.</p>
<p>Ultimately the goal of the cover letter is to draw attention to yourself. It should be clear, concise and display competent language skills.</p>
<p>It is important to note that not all jobs require a cover letter. It should state it in the job description if it does require a cover letter.</p>
<h2 id="design-of-a-cover-letter">Design of a cover letter</h2>
<p>Google “Cover letter templates” and find one you like. The exact same advice from the CV applies here too. Make sure it’s designed nicely. If you use Novoresume, they also have cover letter templates.</p>
<h2 id="length-of-the-cover-letter">How Long Should a Cover Letter Be?</h2>
<p>Some people write entire novels as cover letters, well, almost. Your cover letter should be short. A full page at most.</p>
<p>The shorter a cover letter is, the better it will look. Don’t try to skimp on information to make it shorter. 4 paragraphs are around the perfect length since it will follow a typical story arc.</p>
<h2 id="general-structure-of-a-cover-letter">General structure of a cover letter</h2>
<p>Start with an introduction. Make the reader aware of why you’re writing this. Include the job you’re applying for. We’ll go into each section soon.</p>
<p>The 2nd paragraph is your skills, what you can provide to the company.</p>
<p>The 3rd paragraph should be why you want to work for the company.</p>
<p>The 4th paragraph is the conclusion. Mention that you look forward to hearing back from them.</p>
<p>This follows a typical story arc. Start off with who you are, why they should care, why you care about them, summarise and end.</p>
<h2 id="some-general-tips-for-the-cover-letter">What to Include in a Cover Letter and General Tips</h2>
<p>Don’t talk about how great the position would be to you. Talk about what you can bring the company, always have the company in mind. Show what you’re capable of within a cover letter. Try to tell a story. Stories illuminate the human mind and intrigues them. Try to push them to read more.</p>
<p>Do not make a one-size-fits-all cover letter. It's the same as the CV, customise it per job. Job hunting is in itself a job.</p>
<p>As with a CV your cover letter may be keyword tested so try to include some keywords that the employer wants to see.</p>
<p>Always send your cover letter as a PDF for the same reason you would send a CV as a PDF.</p>
<p>Do not use weak or passive language. http://www.hemingwayapp.com is an online editor which will show you what is considered weak or passive. Instead of writing "I feel", "I believe" write "I am confident that, "I am positive that".</p>
<p>Try to limit the use of "I". This is a letter about how you meet the employer’s needs, not why it would be good to you.</p>
<p>The formality depends on the company. If you are applying for a tech start-up formality likely isn't something they do. An old-fashioned bank? Be as formal you can</p>
<h2 id="the-start-of-the-cover-letter">How to Start a Cover Letter, and How to Address a Cover Letter</h2>
<p>A cover letter should have your information at the start:<br />
• First & Last Name<br />
• Street Address<br />
• City<br />
• Postcode<br />
• Phone Number<br />
• Email Address</p>
<p>Then comes your salutation. Dear Sir / Madam / Mrs / Mr / Ms / Dr. If you know the person's name and their honorific, then you need to use this. The letter should feel addressed to that individual person, it should never feel like a blanket cover letter you've sent to everyone</p>
<p>“John Gribbin</p>
<p>171 Fake street ct9 9lr</p>
<p>+0174857389</p>
<p><span id="_37m2jsg" class="anchor"></span>[email protected]”</p>
<h2 id="first-paragraph">First paragraph</h2>
<p>The first paragraph is where you introduce yourself. What you’re applying for.</p>
<p>“Dear Sir or Madam,</p>
<p><span id="_46r0co2" class="anchor"></span>My name is Brandon Skerritt and I am applying for the position of Bookseller at Waterstones, please find enclosed my CV.”</p>
<p>In most cases they already know what your name is and what you’re applying for, so if you can don’t include this part. Always include the salutation. If you know the name of the person who will be reading this, use their name.</p>
<p>As stated in How to Win Friends and Influence People:</p>
<p><span id="_2lwamvv" class="anchor"></span>“Names are the sweetest and most important sound in any language.”</p>
<p>Use keywords. Keywords and statistics are the secret key to unlocking that first interview.</p>
<p>If you were referred to the job, mention that contact. Express excitement that you’ve applied. The reader should feel like you would die if you didn't get the job. That you want this job more than anything.</p>
<p><span id="_111kx3o" class="anchor"></span>“I have the pleasure of being acquainted with one of the Counsellors on your staff, Eleanor Seville. She let me know about the open position and recommended that I contact you.”</p>
<p>Recommendations are important. Some professionals state that they would never have gotten the job if not for a recommendation.</p>
<p>The first paragraph should flow into who you are and why you want this job. You can always say "I hope you are well" if you do not know what to write.</p>
<h2 id="second-paragraph"><br />
Second Paragraph</h2>
<p>The second paragraph is where you talk about your skills and experience. Unlike a CV you do not use blunt bullet pointed language here but instead talk about your experience, like a story. You can also explain any gaps that might appear in a CV here.</p>
<p>Try not to regurgitate your CV in letter form. Think about what you’re writing and why you’re writing it. Make it into a story. You need to customise your cover letter per job, much like you’ll customise your CV per job.</p>
<p>This section should display that you have researched this position and know what it is about and how your skills match with the position.</p>
<p><span id="_206ipza" class="anchor"></span>“For as long as I can remember I’ve been an obsessive reader. I review books on GoodReads, I’ve written some fiction novellas in my spare time. I’ve been a bookseller for the last 2 years at [Bookshop name here] and have loved every second of it. As well as being a bookseller I’ve trained new employees and managed the general every day running of the store.”</p>
<p>Sometimes people will use bullet points, it's entirely up to you. If this was bullet pointed it would look like:</p>
<p>“For as long as I can remember I've been an obsessive reader, having even written some fiction novellas in my spare time. I've been a bookseller for the last 2 years and in my role, I have achieved:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>Trained new employees although it wasn't my job</p></li>
<li><p>Broke the record for most amount of money earnt in made in a day. Previous record was £400, my team and I made £1200</p></li>
<li><p><span id="_4k668n3" class="anchor"></span>Located a class photo book from the 1980s by calling up every store in the area to check for it. Just to make the customer happy.”</p></li>
</ul>
<p>Bullet points make it shorter and easier to read but it also takes away the humanity of a normal paragraph.</p>
<h2 id="third-paragraph">Third paragraph</h2>
<p>The third paragraph is why you’re applying. What do you like about the job or company you’re applying to? Any nice anecdotes about the company? After reading the last paragraph the recruiter should be curious. Why do you want to change jobs if you love it? What's so special about this company? <strong>What can you do for the company?</strong></p>
<p>This is where you swing the bat and hit that ball out of the park. This is where you show your determination and undying love for the company. This is where the recruiter decides if you're different from the others.</p>
<p><span id="_1egqt2p" class="anchor"></span>“Waterstones has always been my favourite bookstore. I’ve collected over 11 stamp cards and try to go to Waterstones weekly to see what new books have been released. Sometimes I cannot help myself as a fellow book seller to rearrange books that have been misplaced or recommended books for your store based on the shelves. One such instance is a book titled “how to read water”; this book would have looked good next to The Cloud Collectors guide — a book on reading clouds”</p>
<h2 id="fourth-paragraph">Fourth Paragraph - How to End a Cover Letter</h2>
<p>Fourth paragraph is the conclusion, where you wrap this all up. Reiterate why you want to work there and display that you are happy that you might have the opportunity to work there.</p>
<p>“Your store is my favourite among the many Waterstones I have been to, and I’ve been to nearly all of them. I hope I have the opportunity to work at this fantastic store.</p>
<p>I look forward to hearing back from you,</p>
<p><span id="_2dlolyb" class="anchor"></span>Brandon Skerritt”</p>
<p>Another way to end this is:</p>
<p>“Thank you for your time and consideration. I look forward to meeting with you to discuss my application further.</p>
<p>Yours sincerely,</p>
<p><span id="_sqyw64" class="anchor"></span>Brandon Skerritt”</p>
<h2 id="conclusion">Conclusion</h2>
<p><span id="_1rvwp1q" class="anchor"></span>☐ Have you researched the company and you know what keywords to use?</p>
<p><span id="_5225ueu5to2n" class="anchor"></span>☐ Have you discussed what you can bring the company, not what the company can bring you?</p>
<p><span id="_1un15tyjqrx5" class="anchor"></span>☐ Have you customised it per job?</p>
<p><span id="_9sc0aieyj89s" class="anchor"></span>☐ Is your cover letter a PDF?</p>
<p><span id="_ts1ag93is1n0" class="anchor"></span>☐ Are you using active language (and not passive)?</p>
<p><span id="_7i0kq3riiuh7" class="anchor"></span>☐ Does the formality of the cover letter match the formality of the job?</p>
<p><span id="_43jo0ik71hm6" class="anchor"></span></p>
<h1 id="chapter-3---personal-branding">Chapter 3 - Personal Branding</h1>
<p>"What are you doing?"</p>
<p>"I'm googling them" responded my friend with CVs strewn across her table.</p>
<p><span id="_2r0uhxc" class="anchor"></span>"This one’s bad" she stated with authority. The CV itself looked good enough for an interview but her research online showed she wasn't right for the job.</p>
<p>One by one, she Googled them all. Education didn't matter, their experience - for the most part, didn't matter.</p>
<p>Although this was a part-time waitressing job at a small local café, their online portrayal mattered. It mattered so much that people with amazing academical backgrounds and lots of experience were being tossed to the side.</p>
<p>This is why personal branding is important. It is not only for the entrepreneurs out there but for every single person. Most people believe that personal branding doesn't affect them since they are not a celebrity. The truth is, everyone has a personal brand. It's up to you to decide when and how you'll take control of it. Your personal brand exists, whether you like it or not.</p>
<p>A personal brand isn't makeup you're selling or being featured in magazines. It is everything about your public life. Your Twitter, Facebook, Instagram.</p>
<p>You do not have to be an entrepreneur to care about your personal brand. When you apply for a job the recruiter will Google you. They'll want to know:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>Does this person have a blog or website?</p></li>
<li><p>What does this person do in their spare time?</p></li>
<li><p>Any side projects?</p></li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li><p>Is there anything bad about them online?</p></li>
</ul>
<p>If you tick some of these boxes, you'll stand out from the rest.</p>
<p>There is often a quote given out in running circles:</p>
<p>“It's okay to run slowly. You're still running laps around the people sitting on the sofa.</p>
<p><span id="_ji8e6sxieuat" class="anchor"></span>The same can be said for a personal brand. It's okay if your personal brand doesn't have years of posts or tweets. It's okay if you only started today. You're still doing better than those who have not started.”</p>
<p>Your personal brand will bring you more riches in life than any job you could have. When we work somewhere, we say that thing is us. "I am a lawyer" instead of "I practice law". "I am a programmer" instead of "I program at work".</p>
<p>This way of thinking consumes your life. Your entire life rotates around this one job, this one title.</p>
<p>This should not be the case. If you quit or you lose your job, then your title goes away. If your title goes away, your entire life crumbles.</p>
<p>If you developed a personal brand and have friends and fans, then they will continue to be with you. It is a lot easier to switch jobs or find a new job when you have so many contacts on social media.</p>
<p>As an example, you have have two people:</p>
<p>Charlotte is a software engineer at Google. She regularly writes blog posts about software, goes to conferences, has a podcast. She does stuff outside of her job.</p>
<p>Emily is another software engineer at Google. Emily's entire life is Google. She does not go to conferences, have a blog, or even cares about anything else. She is only a Googler.</p>
<p>Both of these people are fired. Emily struggles to find a job having to apply to every company that has a position. Charlotte writes a quick tweet about it, it gets reshared a couple hundred of times and she has a new job before the weeks over.</p>
<p>Your personal brand is like insurance for yourself and your job. Your personal brand, if you take it seriously, will transcend your career and will become your career.</p>
<h2 id="making-friends-not-connections">Making friends, not connections</h2>
<p>Do not act like you only added someone on LinkedIn to increase your professional network. Try to become friends with them instead.</p>
<p>A connection is just someone that acknowledges you exist at the best of times. Normally it’s when someone randomly connects with someone on LinkedIn to “increase their network”.</p>
<p>Connections are meaningless. If you wanted a job at a company and you have a connection there, asking them to help you likely won’t work as they won’t know you.</p>
<p>If you are friends with this person however, you are kind, generous and have helped them they are more likely to help you get the job.</p>
<p>Friendships formed over social media are worth 100 times more than a simple connection to someone. This brings us into the second point, you need to care about them in order for them to care about you.</p>
<p>One of the first rules of Dale Carnegie's book “How to win friends and influence people” states:</p>
<p><span id="_3q5sasy" class="anchor"></span>“Become genuinely interested in other people”</p>
<p>If you don’t care about or celebrate someone's achievements, then when it is time for you to celebrate your achievements they likely won’t care.</p>
<p>Not too long ago when I got into university, I posted about it on social media. No one cared because I didn’t care about their achievements. Now I regularly celebrate my friends’ achievements, small or big because I care about them and they celebrate mine.</p>
<p>People will only care about you if you care about them. You need to make friends. Connecting with someone just isn’t enough anymore.</p>
<p>We’re now in the thank you economy. You used to fake being big until you got big, now you have to be small; even if you are as big as Google. Do not pretend like your schedule is too big, treat the other person as a friend.</p>
<p>Back in the day, you used to be able to fake being big. If you owned a company, you could play some background noise when on the phone to make it sound like you’re busy. Now we have public follower counts, you cannot fake being big. You need to be human.</p>
<h2 id="creating-content">Creating content</h2>
<p>Content creation is the only way to build a personal brand. Whether that content is via tweets, Instagram points or blog posts.</p>
<p>You are not going to make friends if you only ever like or retweet stuff. You need to produce content. Content is like seeds you plant in the ground. The more seeds you plant, the more likely they'll grow into a beautiful garden.</p>
<p>The content does not have to be blog posts. It can be reviews, answers on Quora, open source software. As long as it is preferably free, online, and provides value to people it's good content.</p>
<p>You may be able to get by without content creation if you are a big-name celebrity. Elon Musk rarely creates online content but is still famous. The likely chance of you not needing to create content online is slim.</p>
<p>Content creation is what draws crowds, it’s what you can show your employer. People who look at your profile and see you are passionate about your cause will like you.</p>
<p>The majority of your posts on social media should be about what you love. They should also show a side to you, have emotion in it. Nobody likes a re-posting Twitter bot.</p>
<p>Your content has to be great content. Bad content is not good enough. If you have to take time to create good content instead of posting every day than do so. But great content always trumps mediocre content, even if the mediocre content is posted every day or even every hour.</p>
<h2 id="creating-content-from-other-content---the-pillars-of-content-creation">Creating content from other content - the pillars of content creation</h2>
<p>This is a method that allows you to create a lot of content from one piece of content. You need to decide on your main content pillars. Let’s use YouTube or Medium (a blog) as an example.</p>
<p>Once you’ve created this large piece of content, a large 5000-word article or a YouTube video you pick out things to repost to your relevant social media channels. Often your readers / watchers will point out the exact moments they loved about your content.</p>
<p>On Medium, readers highlight what they loved about your article. On YouTube, watchers post video timestamps in your comments.</p>
<p>Once you know what they loved, you can post this specific line or clip of a video to your relevant social media. With content creation, you don’t need to make content for every single platform. Focus on your main pillar of content creation, make that as best as you can. Using this strategy, you can create amazing content from amazing content without straining yourself.</p>
<h2 id="blogging">Blogging</h2>
<p>Blogging is the easiest way to create a personal brand. You can write about anything on a blog. Most bloggers who care for their personal brand will write about their industry. It's a way to show employers that you are enthusiastic about the industry.</p>
<p>Starting a blog is easy, the hardest part is knowing what to write. Read lots, look at the news and wait. Ideas will come to you. Even if you think the ideas are stupid or insignificant, they're still better than the people who don't have a blog.</p>
<p>The platform doesn't matter as much - as long as you write. Medium.com is an amazing platform for getting your voice out there. Although it isn't the best to write on and you're restricted no other blogging platform provides as much value as Medium does.</p>
<p>Many bloggers start out on Medium and move their way to another platform overtime.</p>
<p>If you build an entire business or brand on someone else’s platform you don't get much control over what happens to your business. The platform could fail, it could die like Vine did.</p>
<p>There isn’t much on blogging here, as you can find so much content on starting a blog online.</p>
<h2 id="github">GitHub</h2>
<p>If you write code and you’re not on GitHub, what are you doing? GitHub is a social network with its core functionality being that it is a version control system. You upload code, and friends or fans can see your code.</p>
<h3 id="green-boxes">Green boxes</h3>
<p>GitHub has a section on everyone’s profile called “contributions”. It has a number on top of the green boxes, that number is how many contributions you have made in the last year. Every single day on GitHub, you get a new box. If you contribute on that day, you get a green box. The more contributions on a day, the darker the shade of green.</p>
<p>A contribution is defined as doing something. You upload some code, you edit some code, you write some documentation. You leave comments on bugs software has. You create “issues” which are reports of bugs you have encountered on other people’s code.</p>
<p>The more you interact and support the open source community, the more green boxes you get. The more green boxes, the more it looks like you’re passionate about coding.</p>
<h3 id="bio">Bio</h3>
<p>Nothing special here. Just copy and paste the bio you use on Twitter / Instagram here.</p>
<h3 id="stars">Stars</h3>
<p>Think of stars as likes. You can star a project you find interesting and others can see them.</p>
<h3 id="repositories">Repositories</h3>
<p>Repositories are projects of code. If you’ve created a cool coding project, create a repository for it.</p>
<h2 id="facebook">Facebook</h2>
<p>There’s no point in me trying to explain what Facebook is, you already know.</p>
<h3 id="facebook-groups">Facebook Groups</h3>
<p>Facebook groups are just like LinkedIn groups (discussed later). Find groups that interest you. There are groups for Women in Tech, LGBT+ groups, People of Colour and more. Find professional groups that appeal to you and join them.</p>
<p>I’ve seen hackathons advertised where winners get a guaranteed interview at Apple in Facebook tech groups before, so it’s worth joining Facebook groups just in case.</p>
<h3 id="facebook-targeted-adverts">Facebook Targeted adverts</h3>
<p>I have friends that <strong>love</strong> their Facebook adverts. If you go to a lot of tech events, read a lot on tech and regularly interact with the tech world - you’ll get adverts targeted at you. Some of these adverts are useful. Some of them could be hackathons, or events you can go to. Whenever you see an advert that is useful to you, click “see more of this” to let Facebook know that this is relevant to you.</p>
<p>The idea is to get adverts that can directly improve your life.</p>
<h3 id="following-influencers">Following Influencers</h3>
<p>Just like you can follow Richard Branson on Twitter, you can also follow him on Facebook. Follow as many influencers in your field as possible and interact with them or with people in the comments.</p>
<h3 id="facebook-stories">Facebook stories</h3>
<p>Facebook stories is another way you can build your personal brand. Not many people use Facebook stories, so when you do use it, you’ll stand out amongst your peers. Facebook groups also have a story function, so you can post stories to Facebook groups.</p>
<h3 id="community-facebook-pages">Community Facebook pages</h3>
<p>Make sure to follow & like Facebook pages that interest you. Be aware that others can see what pages you have liked, so don’t go liking anything too silly that may jeopardise your future career.</p>
<h3 id="facebook-events">Facebook events</h3>
<p>Facebook events are ways to find out about events happening near you. From society's or companies posting events, you could find an event for anything.</p>
<p>Facebook will also display “related” events in the sidebar. If you find an event you like make sure to check out related events.</p>
<p>Lastly, there is a wealth of information out there about upcoming tech events. Companies are trying to get their events known and get more personal with their potential customers and attendees. Hackathons and workshops are very frequently posted on Facebook too, so keep an eye out for events by looking at posts in Facebook groups, and using the Facebook search bar.</p>
<p>On top of that, to see even more you might be interested in, look at the Related Events in the sidebar.</p>
<h3 id="url">URL</h3>
<p>This is the first thing you will want to do to brand yourself, a vanity URL is your customised domain on Facebook. Instead of facebook.com/e2434h394oij you can get facebook.com/joeshmoe. Go to the Customized URL page on Facebook and set yours now. If you can’t find out how to do it, just Google “Facebook customised URL”. I’m not including instructions here, in case they change it after I’ve published this.</p>
<h3 id="photo">Photo</h3>
<p>Upload the same one you use on LinkedIn. Some people will disagree with me on this and say that you should give visitors a unique Facebook experience – this is fine, just as long as it’s not harmful to your brand.</p>
<p>As a rule, I would say the picture should be related to what type of person you are, being an authentic representation of your personal brand. If you are on the summit of Kilimanjaro in your profile picture, you had better be into your mountaineering in other words.</p>
<h2 id="twitter">Twitter</h2>
<p>Twitter is a microblogging platform allowing users to upload "tweets" which are 280 characters long. The user can comment on, like, or retweet a tweet.</p>
<h3 id="handle">Handle</h3>
<p>You need to have a professional Twitter handle. This is often your name such as: "@brandonskerritt" or @brandon_skerritt".</p>
<p>If someone else is using a Twitter handle you want and they're not using it (no tweets or activity), then you can submit a request to get that handle.</p>
<p>To do this, you need to have your own domain and email address. Let's say you want the handle "@skerritt". To claim this handle, you need to own an email address, such as: [email protected] and own a website or domain similar to skerritt.com.</p>
<p>Once you own those, you can file for impersonation on the Twitter handle you want. To get a customised email, just Google it.</p>
<h3 id="twitter-engagement">Twitter Engagement</h3>
<p>Your Twitter engagement score is a key performance indicator (KPI) of how a tweet has performed.</p>
<p>Twitter engagement is calculated using:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>Likes</p></li>
<li><p>Retweets</p></li>
<li><p>Replies</p></li>
<li><p>Mentions</p></li>
<li><p>Follows</p></li>
<li><p>Profile clicks</p></li>
<li><p>Permalink clicks</p></li>
<li><p>Tweet expansion clicks</p></li>
<li><p>Link clicks</p></li>
</ul>
<p>In short: It's a popularity score for each of your tweets.</p>
<p>Here are some statistics directly from Twitter <a href="#fn6" class="footnoteRef" id="fnref6"><sup>6</sup></a>on how to improve your engagement:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>Photos average a 35% boost in Retweets</p></li>
<li><p>Videos get a 28% boost</p></li>
<li><p>Quotes get a 19% boost in Retweets</p></li>
<li><p>Including a number receives a 17% bump in Retweets</p></li>
<li><p>Hashtags receive a 16% boost</p></li>
</ul>
<p>Twitter polls are a good way to gain engagement. Most people want to find out the result of a poll, so they'll vote on it just to see the result.</p>
<h3 id="getting-people-to-care-about-you">Getting people to care about you</h3>
<p>Know what industry you’re in. Find a hashtag that relates to this industry. If you’re a programmer, #100daysofcode is a good hashtag.</p>
<p>If you don’t know of any hashtags, just search your industry and see what hashtags others are using.</p>
<p>Once you’ve found a hashtag, interact with people. Congratulate people, answer questions they may have, just talk to them. Do this, day in and day out and you’ll eventually get more followers who care about your content.</p>
<p>Another way to do this is to post content that helps others. If you help someone through your content, they will want to follow you as you could help them even more.</p>
<p>Reply to every mention you get, and any tweets that you can relate to.</p>
<p>Twitter's new feed is non-chronological. An algorithm selects what tweets a user may want to see, even if they don't want to see that tweet. The more you interact with a user, the more likely your tweets will appear in their feed.</p>
<h3 id="to-tweet-or-not-to-tweet">To tweet or not to tweet</h3>
<p>Like any social network, Twitter rewards users who engage with other users. You need to reply to, like, and retweet other user.</p>
<p>If you don't, Twitter won't show your tweets to people.</p>
<h3 id="twitter-spam-rules">Twitter Spam Rules</h3>
<p>Twitter is incredibly strict with spammers. If you spam follow, like or retweet Twitter won’t show your tweets to many people.</p>
<p>In fact, Twitter’s rules are so strict that you could get flagged for spamming even if you don’t mean to spam. If you like, follow, or retweet too much in a certain time period - you’re classed as a spammer. The exact rules and timing of the spam rules aren’t available to the public as spammers could use them to their advantage. Just be extremely careful when interacting with many people on Twitter.</p>
<h2 id="instagram">Instagram</h2>
<p>Instagram is a social network for sharing photos. I’m not going over how to take good photos, since there are millions of photography guides available on the web.</p>
<h3 id="knowing-if-your-instagram-will-grow-or-not">Knowing if your Instagram will grow or not</h3>
<p>Sometimes, it can feel like a lottery. Will your Instagram grow ridiculously large after 3 months? Or will it not grow at all for many months. There are a few tell-tale signs to watch out for.</p>
<h4 id="the-number-of-instagrammers-in-your-niche">The number of instagrammers in your niche</h4>
<p>How many other Instagram accounts are creating & talking about the content like you are? The more there is, the harder it is for you to penetrate this community. Think about your niche, what are you targeting? Search Instagram for other accounts in this niche and see whether or not it’ll be harder for you to grow here.</p>
<p>You can measure how many people are in a niche from hashtags. This method isn’t perfect, but it’s the best we have. Search your niche like “#Yoga” and see how many posts are under that hashtag. #Yoga has 60 million posts, so it’s a very hard community to penetrate into and grow.</p>
<p>If you search ‘#BuildUpDevs’ you’ll find out this hashtag has a small amount of posts in it, but it’s still an active hashtag. This is an easy hashtag to penetrate into.</p>
<h4 id="how-unique-your-instagram-account-is">How unique your Instagram account is</h4>
<p>The uniqueness of your account within its content category has a direct correlation with the likelihood of growing an engaged audience fast. How are you going to make your account different from all of the other accounts in your niche?</p>
<p>Your unique selling point could be that you post the most visually appealing photos, or you include dogs in your photos. You have to be unique, so you can grow in your chosen niche.</p>
<p>No one wants to follow another account that just posts the same images as everyone else does. You need to be unique, stand out and attract attention.</p>
<h3 id="picking-your-niche">Picking your niche</h3>
<p>The simplest way to pick your niche is to just pick something that makes you happy to look at. That’s it. Just being happy is all that matters.</p>
<p>You may choose to pick a niche that relates to the area you want to work in the future. As a computer scientist, I post about coding on Instagram.</p>
<p>As a general rule, the more specific your niche is the more potential you have to grow. Remember there has to be a want for your niche. Dogs in cute jumpers is an example of a specific niche that has a large demand.</p>
<h3 id="when-to-post">When to post</h3>
<p>Knowing when to post is unique per Instagram account. If you’re running a business and want extremely high growth, you may be posting up to 5 or 7 times a day. You should experiment to see how many posts you should post per day.</p>
<p>Start out posting once on 3 separate days in a week. Then go up to 5, then up to 7. Try posting X per week, record how many followers you gain. Do this for a couple of weeks until you find out how many posts your niche wants. I try to post daily in my coding Instagram.</p>
<h3 id="hashtags">Hashtags</h3>
<p>Hashtags are what gets you noticed in the community. Hashtagging is important and vital for your instagram posts. On Instagram, you have communities. These communities communicate and are built around hashtags. In order to join a community, you need to post regularly to hashtags and follow those who also post to those hashtags.</p>
<p>Users can now follow hashtags, so they can see your posts in that hashtag even if they don’t follow you. Hashtags can also be featured in Instagram stories, to get your story seen by people who follow that hashtag.</p>
<p>You can add hashtags to your profile’s bio. You’ll appear in searches for the hashtags you select. It’s a good idea to use hashtags in your bio to attract a larger audience.</p>
<p>The easiest way to get the best hashtags for your niche is to find top posters in that niche and copy their hashtags. They’ve done all the hard work for you - by finding the hashtags that work.</p>
<p>One of the problems with this approach is that the larger accounts already have a large following - whereas you’re just starting out. Let’s assume the poster with the large account is posting in #Yoga, with 16 million posts in it. This poster has 20,000 followers - so when their fans see the photo, they like it. This boosts it through the other posts in #yoga and makes it appear at the top - where it gets more likes.</p>
<p>If someone with little to no followers tried to post under #Yoga, their photo would be lost in the hundreds of photos posted to that hashtag every day.</p>
<p>When starting out, you want a mix of popular hashtags and not so popular hashtags. You want those popular, big hashtags so just in case your photo blows up it can blow up more. You want those smaller hashtags, so others can find you. You’re allowed a maximum of 30 hashtags, so 25 of those should be smaller and 5 should be larger.</p>
<p>The smaller hashtags have to actually exist. You can’t just make your own hashtags, as no one will discover them. Once you become a bigger account you may choose to make your own hashtags.</p>
<p>The easiest way to find smaller hashtags is to look for smaller creators in your niche and check through the hashtags they use. Knowing what hashtags are “small” and which are “big” depends entirely on the niche, only you can decide that.</p>
<p>When you search a hashtag, Instagram will show you related hashtags to the hashtag you have searched. Click through these and see if you can find any good hashtags you can include in your posts.</p>
<p>When I started my own coding Instagram, I copied someone else’s hashtags and pasted them into my notes app. Now I just copy and paste every time I post something.</p>
<p>When posting hashtags, it’s better to include them in a comment on your post rather than having them in the description of the post. This makes it look cleaner. When posting in a comment, write 5 full stops:</p>
<p>“</p>
<p>.</p>
<p>.</p>
<p>.</p>
<p>.</p>
<p>.</p>
<p>#hashtags #go #here</p>
<p>“</p>
<p>This will make your hashtags hidden in a comment, so the post looks cleaner overall.</p>
<h3 id="interactions">Interactions</h3>
<p>You should see by now that the most important aspect of social media is to be social. Reply to every comment you get, talk to people. Be sociable. These apps reward people for using them. They want you to be social. Make the algorithm work for you by being sociable and interacting with others.</p>
<h3 id="tagging-reposters">Tagging reposters</h3>
<p>Reposters are some of the biggest players in the Instagram game. You tag them in a photo related to the niche, and they repost it. They give you credit, and you get hundreds of thousands of follows / likes / comments.</p>
<p>Usually the biggest posters in a hashtag are reposters. Click on a post. Are they giving credit, like “Photo by @brandon.codes”? If the profile is not of a person, they might be a reposter.</p>
<p>When you tag a reposting account in your posts, you have the chance of being reposted. These reposting accounts are usually the biggest in the niche, so your post will be seen by thousands of followers. This increases your own visibility and will enable you to get a larger follower.</p>
<h3 id="location">Location</h3>
<p>As well as tagging your photos with hashtags & people, you can also tag your photos with a location. Just like with hashtags, each location has its own Instagram feed. It’s worth tagging your photos with a location, simply because it puts you in one more feed.</p>
<h3 id="grid-visuals">Grid Visuals</h3>
<p>How your grid looks is important to your brand. Your grid has to be consistent, neat, and aesthetically pleasing. People will follow you if you keep a consistent theme in your grids. Here are some simple grid systems you can use.</p>
<h4 id="normal">Normal</h4>
<p>Just post the same type of content - without worrying how it looks in the bigger picture. Stick to the same colour combination and the same theme, you’ll do well.</p>
<h4 id="diagonals">Diagonals</h4>
<p>With diagonals, you’re aiming to match the same type of photo diagonally. Think Connect Four, but with photos. With diagonal photos you should stick to the same overall niche, such as “Yellow” or “Coffee” but each diagonal should be different from the other diagonals. One diagonal could be yellow cars, another could be yellow coats.</p>
<h4 id="tiles">Tiles</h4>
<p>Much like a black & white tiled floor, you’ll want to tile your photos here. Your tiles need to look different in order for the effect to take place.</p>
<h4 id="row-by-row">Row by row</h4>
<p>Every row has its own unique style. Much like diagonal, each row has to differentiate itself from the others.</p>
<h4 id="lines">Lines</h4>
<p>You can place a column of photos down the middle that all follow a theme, or down one of the sides.</p>
<h4 id="rainbow-feeds">Rainbow feeds</h4>
<p>The colour of your feed gradually changes over time - giving the impression of a rainbow. This is quite hard to pull off, but it makes your feed look amazing.</p>
<h4 id="borders">Borders</h4>
<p>Having white borders around your photos can give more space in the feed to each item, making it look that much cooler.</p>
<h3 id="following-hashtags-to-get-more-followers">Following hashtags to get more followers</h3>
<p>From December 2017, you can now follow hashtags. This is monumental, since you can see the posts of people you don’t follow in your Instagram feed. Follow as many hashtags as you can and engage with everyone on Instagram. The more you engage, the more you’ll grow.</p>
<h3 id="creating-unique-content-series">Creating unique content & series</h3>
<p>In order to stand out, you may wish to create a unique series of content. My friend, Sasha, has a weekly Instagram stories series called “Colour Tuesday”. Every Tuesday, people send her their favourite colours and she posts them into her story.</p>
<p>This interaction with her fan base strengthens their liking for her. When Instagram sees all these hundreds of people interacting with her, they reward her by putting her posts higher up in the Instagram feed.</p>
<p>You can interact with your followers via polls, question & answer sessions, live sessions and much, much more. Instagram is adding more features to enable users to interact more. If you interact more, the more Instagram will like you.</p>
<p><span id="_2koq656" class="anchor"></span>One of the series I have started recently is mini-blogs on topics that my followers suggest to me. They tell me to cover something, like the Turing Completeness of PowerPoint. Ok, I admit, this sounds boring. I can hear your eyes closing as I write this. But I’m a computer scientist, this is what people find fun in my field.</p>
<h2 id="linkedin">LinkedIn</h2>
<p>LinkedIn is a social network for professionals. It's built for anybody and everybody that wants to become more professional. You can think of LinkedIn as the virtual version of going to a careers fair. You'll be able to meet lots of people, make connections & friends and more on LinkedIn.</p>
<p>Your LinkedIn profile is like a general CV. Your CV is customised per job & position, your LinkedIn is generalised.</p>
<h3 id="keep-your-profile-updated">Keep your profile updated</h3>
<p>This is a general rule for all social media. It's important to keep your profile updated. Whenever you get a new job or anything else professionally related, update your profile. If you do something cool, update your network.</p>
<h3 id="the-headline">The headline</h3>
<p>The headline is the first thing someone sees when they see you on LinkedIn. At minimum, the headline should be your current job and company.</p>
<p>The headline has a 120-character maximum. Your headline helps people find you. When someone searches you in LinkedIn search, they get your profile picture, your name and your headline.</p>
<p>Most people on LinkedIn just have their job title(s) as the headline, but you should add much more to it. You can include your expertise, any awards you've won. Even include keywords in your header that you want to come up for in LinkedIn search.</p>
<p>You can include things such as:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>Who you help</p></li>
<li><p>What you do</p></li>
<li><p>What you’re passionate about</p></li>
<li><p>Proof that you are credible (PhD, awards etc)</p></li>
</ul>
<p><span id="_4iylrwe" class="anchor"></span></p>
<p>If someone searches "freelance graphic designer" on LinkedIn and that's your headline, you'll appear in the search.</p>
<p>Instead of having:</p>
<p><span id="_2y3w247" class="anchor"></span>“Student”</p>
<p>As your headline, you can instead have:</p>
<p><span id="_1d96cc0" class="anchor"></span>“Student specialising in mental health applications of VR”</p>
<p>You need to be creative. Don’t be cliché. Don’t have a headline like this:</p>
<p><span id="_3x8tuzt" class="anchor"></span>“Student of life, school of hard knocks”</p>
<h3 id="the-photo">The photo</h3>
<p>LinkedIn profiles which have a picture are 11 times more likely to be viewed, according to LinkedIn.</p>
<p>Your LinkedIn picture should be recent, and it should look professional. It shouldn't be you in a nightclub or your Tinder profile picture. If you can, pay someone to take it for you. Do you know any photography students? Kindly ask them if they could take a photo of you.</p>
<p>It should be an ordinary, professional headshot of yourself. Another good tip is to have a photo of you doing something as your LinkedIn profile. If you're a VR specialist, you in a VR headshet would work. You still need to look professional. Look ahead and smile.</p>
<p>If your industry doesn’t wear suits (technology), then don’t wear a suit in your profile picture.</p>
<p>The background of your photo matters a lot. It should be minimalistic, nothing going on in the background. Preferably a white background would be perfect.</p>
<p>Make sure to use the same profile picture across all of your professional social media. Your brand recognition matters. You don’t want people searching for you on Twitter and getting confused as to whether it’s really you or not.</p>
<p>Try to name the photo file “Firstname.Lastname.png”. Search engine optimisation means that you want to optimise your online presence to appear higher in search engines (Google) results. By naming your profile picture to this, you’ll appear higher in search engine results for your name.</p>
<p>You’ll also only want to use the .png file extension. The .jpeg or .jpg is a compressed version of .png, meaning it won’t look as good. Try to only take pictures on .png. If you have taken pictures on your phone or a camera, it’s likely that this file is a .png file. If your photo name ends in .png, it’s a png.</p>
<h3 id="the-profile-cover-photo">The profile cover photo</h3>
<p>The background picture also needs to be professional. It can be you speaking to an audience or some code you've written. It should be clean and professional. If you've never done this than any photos of you at an event you've been to related to the industry will do.</p>
<p>If you’re still stuck, pick a nice landscape photo or something.</p>
<h3 id="summary">Summary</h3>
<p>This is vital to your LinkedIn. The summary is a paragraph section about you. It includes your professional summary, any hopes or aspirations you have in your career.</p>
<p>Before you write your summary, it's important to understand these things:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>Who your audience is</p></li>
<li><p>What do you want them to know?</p></li>
</ul>
<p>Your summary should be general enough to cover any job you may apply to but specific enough to let you appear in search results. If you want to include bullet points in your summary, Google “Ascii bullet point” then copy and paste it, it’ll look like this “•”.</p>
<p>To appear in search results, you must utilise keywords. Understand what industry you want to go into and Google the keywords relevant to that industry.</p>
<p>You can also find keywords from job postings.</p>
<p>On mobile, the first 92 characters of your LinkedIn summary are visible. For the user to see the rest they must click "show more". This means that the first 92 characters matter the most, make sure every character counts.</p>
<p>Also, write in first person. It’s creepy and weird to read something that says:</p>
<p><span id="_1qoc8b1" class="anchor"></span>“Brandon is a creative genius who loves ice cream”</p>
<p>On someone's profile, when you know for a fact, they’ve written it themselves.</p>
<p>Your summary is going to let you expand on your headline, what problems you solve and why you love doing it. It should be a story and if possible, it should prove your credentials. If you claim to be knowledgeable in macroeconomics, why are you knowledgeable?</p>
<p>If you can, include a call to action. A call to action is you calling the user to take action on something. In your LinkedIn profile, this action is typically to connect with you. Give them a reason to connect and tell them to connect with you.</p>
<h3 id="spellcheck">Spellcheck</h3>
<p>This shouldn’t be said, but just in case, everything needs to be spell checked.</p>
<h3 id="own-a-business-or-brand-check-out-this-cool-trick">Own a business or brand? Check out this cool trick</h3>
<p>Under your Contact Info, LinkedIn gives you the option to link to a website or blog. But by default, the text that shows in your profile is the extremely dull "Blog" or "Website." Anyone visiting your profile has no clue where they'll end up if they click on that.</p>
<p>Want to use your actual brand or business name? You can! Here's a simple little trick.</p>
<p>When editing the Websites area of your profile, select the "Other" option. Now you can add your own website title and URL.</p>
<h3 id="personalise-your-url">Personalise your URL</h3>
<p>Not many people know this, but you can personalise your URL on LinkedIn to a vanity URL. Instead of pointing to LinkedIn/In/3857239 you can make it point to LinkedIn/In/FirstnameLastname instead. Here’s instructions directly from LinkedIn on how to do this:</p>
<ol style="list-style-type: decimal">
<li><p>Click the <em>Me</em> icon at the top of your LinkedIn homepage.</p></li>
<li><p>Click <em>View profile</em>.</p></li>
<li><p>On your profile page, click <em>Edit public profile & URL</em> on the right rail.</p></li>
<li><p>Under <em>Edit URL</em> in the right rail, click the <em>Edit</em> icon next to your public profile URL.</p>
<ul>
<li><p>It'll be an address that looks like <em>www.linkedin.com/in/yourname-numbers</em></p></li>
</ul></li>
<li><p>Type the last part of your new custom URL in the text box.</p></li>
<li><p>Click <em>Save</em>.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>Note: these instructions might have changed since the publication of this book.</p>
<h3 id="sections">Sections</h3>
<p>You can create sections in LinkedIn. We’re going to go over all of the sections available to you.</p>