The Marketing Approach to Career
Look at those numbers!
If you don’t understand them, let’s do quick mathematics together:
The unemployment rate in Nigeria for Quarter 2 of 2020 is 27.1%.
Nigeria has an estimated population of 200 million people. 34.9% of youths aged between 15 and 34 are unemployed, according to Nairametrics. If these youths make up 35.62% of the population, as stated by the NBS, that simply means that 24,862,760 young people from age 15 to 34 don’t have a job. This number gets higher if you consider the underemployment rate and proper labour age of 15–64.
That’s like saying in 1 in 3 youths in Nigeria is unemployed. To put it in a clearer perspective, that’s to say if you pick three random youths on any street in Nigeria, one of them will be unemployed.
If that didn’t scare you, I don’t know what will.
I’m not trying to make you think you can’t get a job. I’m not here to make you despair. I actually want to give you hope.
Do you know that despite that disheartening reality, there are jobs been posted daily?
And thousands upon thousands of youths are not qualified. It’s not because they don’t have the certificate, but simply because they don’t know how to sell what they have.
I am pretty sure you’ve heard this phrase “sell yourself” countless times before. The question that might have popped up in your head every time is “how do I do that?”. This article wants to help you to answer that.
How many adverts have you seen today? How many of them can you remember right now? How many of them can you remember what they were selling?
I can bet that the number in your answer to the first question is far larger than that of the second, which is in turn, larger than that of the last question. That is simply how job application works. Organizations receive thousands of application for a single advertised role, far more than they can process. So, they use a system to make the work easier. The system, called Applicant Tracking System (ATS), scans the submitted CVs for keywords that the hiring manager had set, and then pick the most fitting CVs to be handled by the human hiring manager. This reduces the stress of having to go through thousands of CVs since only about 25% makes it through the ATS.
I’m sorry to be setting this scary premise, but you need it to understand the importance of what I’m about to say. Like the adverts that you see every day on your phone, on the TV, on the road and even in the news, you need to know how to market your abilities to even get the slight opportunity to be considered for a job.
Let me give you the marketing approach.
To have a good percentage of engagement per advertisement, organizations do what is called ad targeting. This is done by selecting the actual demographics that they know their products will absolutely serve. You won’t advertise condoms to a population of septuagenarians nor will you advertise your latest car on Nickelodeon Junior. It just doesn’t make sense.
Likewise in your job search, you have to optimize your application to the right organization and the right roles. This is not about your academic qualifications. This is more of your abilities, skills and experience. To put it more clearly, your CV should reflect your abilities according to the job description of the role you’re applying for and also the organization’s values. What this means is that you shouldn’t submit the same CV that you submitted to XYZ company for the role of Executive Assistant to ABC company that is looking for a Communication Manager. XYZ company may not be concerned with your course of study or degree that you graduated with as long as you have the skills and experience required while ABC may specifically state that only graduates of English Language, for example, are needed. Even if the course of study required is the same, both companies don’t have the same core values. XYZ may value performance over skills while ABC may value skills and abilities over performance. How will you know this? Simply by researching about both companies!
Those adverts that seem to be tailored for you were so because of thousands of hours of market research and money spent on ad targeting. You need to invest your time too before you apply for any role. Search for the company on LinkedIn, if it has a company page, you’d be able to learn more about it and get the link to its website where you can learn even more. Read the recent posts, search for their employees and check the profile of at least 3 of them for their education and work history. If you notice that their current positions doesn’t seem to correlate with their education, it means the company hire based on other performance and not degree. Also, check to see if they have certificates in courses relevant to those job roles, if there are, it simply means certifications are important too. It is then left to you to decide whether you have these two (educational qualification and/or certification).
If the company is not on LinkedIn, you can still search for people in that company by using keywords like “hiring manager + XYZ company” or “Graduate Intern + ABC company”. Also, a quick Google search may take you to the website or the company’s social media pages.
Okay. So, now you’ve learnt about ad targeting. The most important thing to do next is to have a great content. Just telling people to come and buy a particular brand of phone will not make it sell. You need to tell them what makes the phone different from the one they are using currently. Same goes with your job application.
Your content need to make you stand out. From your CV to your cover letter, you need to let the organization know why hiring you will be a better choice than thousands of other candidates. This is not about selling yourself, this is more about selling your values. Your CV should be able to reflect your abilities and skills as well as your experience (not necessarily paid employment), but your cover letter should forget all these and focus on how what you have can help the organization. You should make the organization realize that they have a problem, and you’re the solution. Don’t brag. You don’t have to. Just make them realize that there are truly thousands of other candidates they could pick from, but if they pick others, how will they get what you’re offering. This may be tricky especially if you don’t know much about the company. This involves your understanding of the organization’s mission and vision and selling your abilities in line with that.
Have you bought any item online before?
Maybe not.
Imagine placing an order for a Tecno Spark 5 at the price of 48,300 Naira on Jumia, and you were happily waiting throughout the 7 days it took for the product to get to you. You’ve told your friends that your phone is on its way. They’ve congratulated you in advance.
But it wasn’t Tecno Spark 5 that arrived. It was Spark 5 Air.
Will you be happy?
You went back to the order page and found that you’ve actually placed an order for Spark 5 Air. Spark 5 is 55,000.
Disappointed? Sure.
That’s how it feels to the organization too when you’re called for an interview after impressing them with your CV and cover letter but can’t perform at the interview.
So, while it is important to have a highly optimized LinkedIn profile, a well-targeted CV and beautifully written cover letter, don’t forget to learn the necessary interview skills.
It is important to know about the company, the industry it operates in, the specificity of the role you applied for, the industry pay range, and at least one person that is likely to interview you. The last one can be done with LinkedIn. Others can be done with Google search and Glassdoor or Indeed.
Maximize the usefulness of your social media in your job search and application, tune everything up to reflect who you are as you have it in your CV, or according to your job prospects. Don’t misuse that great opportunity.
Before I wrap up, I want to advise you to check your email always, especially when you’re job hunting. You may miss interview dates by not checking your emails. Check your inbox, promotions, and spam folders in the morning and every night.
In this article, you’ve learnt how advertisement works. Next time you’re applying for a job, see yourself as a marketer placing an advert. This will help you to learn how best to approach the prospective organizations. Your advertisement must be well-targeted to even reach the consumer.
The truth is, jobs may be scarce but the reality remains that many are not even fitted to the few available ones. Build yourself today, and I’m not saying you should just take certificate courses because even if you have hundreds of certificates and don’t know the simple things I’ve highlighted in this article, it still means nothing. Build yourself to fit the job you want and build yourself to market the abilities you possess.
I wish you good luck in your search.
