Tip #5: Put your ego in a box

“10 best interview tips”, “10 steps to a successful CV”, “10 common cover letter mistakes”… Stop! Here’s the big picture: before preparing for interviews and meetings, you need to prepare for the job hunting process itself! Here our 10 most important pieces of advice

1) Clearly define what you are looking for
2) What competences / strengths / capabilities do you have to offer that make you stand out from all the other candidates? In other words: what problems can you solve? What value do you add?
3) Flawless documents (we cannot stress that enough)
4) Use all four (!) channels of generating job offers, not just the easiest one (job ads) or networking (i.e. sending an email to friends)
5) Put your ego in a box and put it on a shelf during the job search
6) Put your emotions in another box and put them next to your ego box
7) Thanks to 5) & 6) be systematic, follow up where necessary, say thank you even if you don’t like the reply
8) Be nice to headhunters (don’t burn bridges, don’t be mean or disrespectful)
9) Prepare for interviews as if you were a student cramming for an important exam; relying only on your experience and self-confidence will not cut it (see ego)
10) Be authentic in the whole process and remember that interviewing is a two-way street: they interview you, you interview them