Here’s your answer… 

Since your cover letter should contain 2-4 brief paragraphs that highlight a relevant experience or something about you that helps you stand out for the job, I always recommend attaching your cover letter as a separate PDF (separate from your resume).  This allows the reader to open it up separately and focus on it as well as to easily save it in the same directory where they save your resume, since saving an email can be more difficult. 

Most recipients of resumes try to get through their emails as quickly as possible, so if you have a long cover letter and it lives in the body of your email, the reader might barely skim it or not read it at all since long emails require a lot of effort and time to read.  They’re trying to process a lot of emails quickly, bucket the candidates into yes, no and maybe piles, and then circle back later to review the info in more detail.  People generally don’t like to read long emails.  

However, if your cover letter is brief and succinct, you could consider also copying/pasting it into the body of the email. It just needs to be very brief and succinct (one-third of a page) if you’re going to take this approach.

Most cover letters aren’t brief and succinct, so if your cover letter is long, avoid pasting your cover letter in the body of your email.  In this situation, the body of your email should contain a nice statement about your interest level for the role and that you attached your cover letter which highlights a couple of examples of why you’re qualified for the role. You should state that your cover letter highlights something unique about you so you entice them to open it and read it. 

So, in effect, the body of your email is a very abbreviated version of your cover letter.  It’s a teaser for what’s inside.

GET MY 20+ YEARS WORTH OF RESUME TIPS

If you want to learn more tips like this to help you land the job of your dreams, check out my Winning Resume Masterclass.  It’s packed full of tips and techniques that are proven to get candidates a better response rate when applying to jobs.

“My resume before and after could not be more pronounced and I have since received more replies when applying!” ~Jason

The post Should your cover letter be in the body of your email or as a separate attachment? appeared first on Venture Connect.

You Should Leave Now is a guide for women to find their way back to herself and it couldn’t be more timely coming out of a pandemic.  

My incredibly talented wife, Brie, wrote it and it’s now available for purchase.  

But I’m not promoting this just because it was written by my wife.  I truly believe in the message and the purpose of the book.  I’ve witnessed many women transform their lives as a result of Brie’s work.

TO ALL MARRIED MEN: Buying this book for your wife will change her life, bring her inspiration, and set her on an incredible trajectory.  I’ve seen it happen.

TO ALL WOMEN:  Following the guidance of this book will energize you and reconnect you with your inspired mission. 

The foreword was written by a multi-time NY Times Best Selling Author, and several heavy hitters have written incredibly positive reviews.

Also…

If you want to celebrate the book launch with us and other people living inspired lives, please join us at Hope Hill Farm for Dream: Step Into Your Desire (and a Book Launch Celebration) on July 13th in the evening. 

This event will sell out. Register now while early bird tickets are available!  There will be an engaging talk, an incredible string band, and a beautiful landscape full of inspired people.

I’d love to see you there.

The post A Life-Changing Book appeared first on Venture Connect.

“It’s not who you know, it’s who knows you.”

What stuck with me about that concept is that it reinforces the importance of not just having a lot of connections, but rather being memorable and top-of-mind to other people. 

By being memorable, you increase the likelihood of referrals coming to you.  If you just know a lot of people, it doesn’t mean that you’re top of mind to them in the same way they are top of mind to you.

Do you agree with that idea?  Drop me a comment over on LinkedIn.

The post It’s Not Who You Know, It’s Who Knows You appeared first on Venture Connect.

There’s a concept in there that can you help you land a job offer.  It relates to how you start off the interview and get the interviewer committed to you from the onset. 

Consider trying this technique…

When the interview begins, ask a question along these lines:

“I’m sure you have a lot of questions for me, and I’m happy to answer them all, but I’m curious what interested you most about my background.”  Consider adding, “That will help me focus this time on the most relevant areas of my background.”

Here’s why asking a question like this from the start is so powerful:  Because the act of verbalizing what an interviewer likes about your background subconsciously commits him/her to you. 

When an interviewer tells you what he/she likes about you, that reinforces in his/her own mind why you’re a great candidate.  The interviewer is subconsciously convincing him/herself why you’re a great candidate.  They do the selling for you!

Give it a try.  The worst case is that you will know what to focus your time talking about.

Happy interviewing,

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It’s just as easy to project a positive future as it is to project a negative future, so why not project a positive one?

I stopped consuming the news/media about 6 months ago.  More importantly, I stopped letting it consume me. 

Now when I browse the news, I skim it quickly, I don’t dwell, and I don’t let my mind go to a place of negativity.  I quickly browse it, but I don’t let it be food for my soul.  I don’t let it consume me. 

It’s so easy to dwell on the negativity we hear about everyday and fall into a rut and allow it to make you constantly worried about the future.  But to Jack’s point, it’s just as easy to project a positive future.  And a positive future is so much more enjoyable to think about.  Let’s get addicted to projecting a positive future.  

2021 is a new year.  Let’s make it an incredible year regardless of negative events that happen.  Don’t let those events be the food of your soul!

Who’s up for it with me?

The post A Quote to Guide Your 2021 appeared first on Venture Connect.

Was it frustrating?  Yes.  Was it demoralizing?  Yes.  Did I let it ruin my outlook on life or on the project?  No.

I will find a way to figure out a solution.  Not solving this particular issue is not something I’m okay with.  

What this situation made me reflect on is the concept of uncertainty and how everyone deals with uncertainty differently.

What if we could train ourselves to get excited when we encounter uncertainty? 

People are creatures of habit.  We look for routines, habits, sameness.  Yet, we are living in a world of uncertainty.  Uncertainty when we’ll be able spend time with friends and family. Uncertainty when our kids will resume school as normal.  Uncertainty in the economy.  Uncertainty in nearly every aspect of life. 

What if we embraced uncertainty?  And not just said we are “okay with it,” but actually gave uncertainty a great big bear hug and held on?  What if we got life and liveliness from uncertainty? 

But why would we do that? 

Here’s why:  Because uncertainty isn’t going away.  The more comfortable we can get with it, the more enjoyable our lives will be. 

What if we viewed uncertainty as our teacher? 

What does uncertainty teach you?  Patience?  Resilience?  That you need to find personal growth in certain areas?

I know it teaches me all of those things and more.   Quite frankly, I’m grateful for uncertainty.  How would any of us grow if we didn’t have it in our lives?

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In the past, I had a frequent mental wrestling match between my driving “need to achieve” vs enjoying the process and having faith that success will come as it may. 

I heard an incredible podcast yesterday with Srikumar Rao, coach, speaker, author, and founder of The Rao Institute, that touched on this topic.

He provided two analogies of this mental wrestling match – one to doing the dishes and one to people who climb Mt. Everest.  

His first analogy went something like this…

When you do dishes, don’t do the dishes to get the dishes clean.  Do the dishes for the purposes of doing the dishes.

I was immediately confused.  He elaborated by talking about climbing Mt. Everest.

People say they want to climb Mt. Everest.  They spend months or years preparing.  Then they get to the top, spend 30 seconds taking a picture, and then climb back down hoping that they don’t die during the descent. 

Invest in being present in the process, invest in enjoying the process, in enjoying the preparation, in being present at the basecamp experience.  Invest in the process, not the outcome, and you’ll find more success than you ever imagined.

He then came back to the dishes comment.

If you do dishes to get the dishes clean, you aren’t living in the present moment and you miss the enjoyment of the dishes.  You’re shooting for an outcome and you’re training your mind to be outcome-focused.  Instead, feel the soap on your hands.  Feel the texture of the sponge.  Feel the temperature of the water.  Acknowledge the process and be present in the process. See where your mind goes and what happens.  Practice being present.

So how does this relate to your career or to finding a job?

If we’re constantly looking to the future and not satisfied until we reach some pre-determined outcome (could be a promotion, could be compensation-related, could be finding that dream job), we’ll miss the learnings and growth we could experience along the way.

For example, when you’re searching for a job and having networking calls, are you asking yourself what could you learn from the other person?  Are you looking for ways to grow personally?  Are you taking notes not just on what they are saying, but HOW they are interviewing you?  Are you learning from a company’s interview process so you can adopt best practices when you are then in a hiring manager position? 

If we invest in the process and invest in being present and finding growth through the process, we’ll reach our ultimate destination.  And that destination may be different from what we previously thought, but just we might be much happier, and more present, as a result.

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“The champion’s rule is that if you do your homework, the test is easy.  How you prepare determines how well you’ll do.”

I’m frequently involved in hiring processes for various companies and I’m always surprised at how poorly prepared some people are for their interview.

People work so hard to get interviews.  They hustle.  They spend lots of hours on their resume and on researching companies. 

And then they struggle in the interview.  They can’t tell a cohesive story about their career history.  Or they struggle to convey their skills vs focusing only on their past responsibilities.  Or they lack self awareness and come across as arrogant.  Or maybe they just ramble.  

It’s amazing all the ways that people screw up interviews.

How do you not screw up? 

Practice. 

And then you practice some more.

“How you prepare determines how well you’ll do.”

How do you practice?

Research top interview questions.  Then rehearse your answers.  Write them down then say them out loud.  Ask people you trust for feedback.

Ask people you know who are hiring managers what questions they typically ask candidates.  Who can you learn from so you can prepare for your next interview? 

There are so many things you can do to prepare.  And if finding a job is really important to you, why don’t you put everything you have into making sure you nail your interview?

If your entire livelihood was on the line, would you walk into an interview simply hoping you answer the questions well enough?  Or would you do everything in your power to prepare?

How you prepare for your interview determines how well you’ll do.  And how well you do determines if you’ll get the job.

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My notion is that this statistic holds true today and is perhaps even more weighted towards weak connections as a result of the hyper-connected world we live in.

How Your Network Can Limit Your Career Prospects

If you have a really tight-knit network limited to select people, you’ll have much less likelihood of finding out about new opportunities.  As Granovetter indicated in his research, in a tight network, most participants in that network all hear about the same news and information.  And if all of those people are in the same industry or same types of companies, the spectrum of opportunities will be limited even further.

Whereas if you have a broad network with lots of weak connections, your network will likely span many industries, many companies, and many different types of opportunities.  You’ll inevitably hear about news and information your tighter network wouldn’t hear about.  And you’ll have more avenues to find your next job.

Implications for You to Consider

When I’m referring to your network, I’m not referring to how many connections you have on LinkedIn.  What I’m referring to who is how many acquaintances you have who know you by name and can recall you in their mind at any time.  LinkedIn is a vehicle to help track of and keep in touch with those acquaintances, but email, phone, video-chat and in-person is a better way to deepen those relationships and stay more top of mind.  The most valuable weak connections are those who think of you when they have an inbound request.  How you get thought of by more people is by doing things that keep you top of mind such as being savvy with how you stay in touch with people via email and phone/video, and also by sharing helpful/relevant articles directly with people via email or LinkedIn.

While building really strong and deep relationships is also valuable, extending your network as broadly as possible in a genuine way can offer long-term career benefits. 

So how broad is your network?  And are you doing things to cultivate those connections?  Is your network limiting your career or will it be primed and ready to help you advance it when you need it the most?  

Please drop me a comment over on LinkedIn to share how you’ve cultivated your weak connections over time.

The post How Your Network Could Be Limiting Your Career Prospects appeared first on Venture Connect.

That mistake is asking really poor questions or not asking questions at all.

I’ve interviewed people who look great on paper, but then we get to the end of the interview and they don’t haven’t developed well thought out questions, which leaves me with a poor closing impression of them.

Really good questions set candidates apart.  They indicate you are interested in becoming a thoughtful, lasting, and productive employee.  They indicate you are interested in what makes the business success and how you can contribute.

When an interviewer asks a candidate, “What questions do you have for me?”  That’s the candidate’s opportunity to shine.  Please don’t answer: “I don’t have any.  You’ve answered them all already.” Or, ”I’ve been following your company for a while and feel like I know everything already.”

Similarly, avoid making your first question about compensation, benefits or vacation.  While I’m sure you want to know answers to those important questions to make sure it’s a valuable use of your time, if those are your first line of questions, it gives the impression you’re focused on finding just another job and could jump ship in the future for a better offer, rather than being focused on finding a company where you can make a meaningful contribution. 

I want to suggest an approach for what types of questions you should ask.

Examples of Great Questions

Here are some questions to consider:

→ What is your vision for where the company or department will be in one year? In 3-5 years?

→ How do you define success for this role?

→ What do you view as the top priorities for this role in the first 90 days?

→ How can I best contribute to the department’s goals?

→ How can I best contribute to the company beyond the job description?

→ What do you see as the biggest challenges of working here and how would you coach a new hire to overcome those challenges?

→ How can I best help you and the team succeed?

→ Why did the last person in the role leave? Is there anything you can share about what that person did really well or where you wish the person could have focused more so I can better understand how I can make an immediate impact?

→ Is there anything about my background that makes you think that I wouldn’t do an excellent job? (This gives you an opportunity to address any concerns of theirs before you leave.)

Also, if you do thorough research on the company in advance, you’ll be able to ask more specific questions about the company’s recent news, financings, blog posts, product launches, key partners, and overall strategy.

Here’s the crux of it:  Ask questions that demonstrate genuine interest in the organization and how you can help it be successful.  Don’t let the Q&A portion of your interview sink you.  It’s where you can really set yourself apart.

The post An Easy, but Critical, Interview Mistake You Want to Avoid appeared first on Venture Connect.