“If you are small and face overwhelming opposition, you must find a way to spend half the effort to obtain – twice the result.” ~Ching- ning chu~

If you are in the market for a job you can be sure of one thing almost as certain as death and taxes…

Competition!

It’s true, more and more people are applying for the same jobs in record proportion, resulting in diminished chances of YOU or anyone else landing the job you’re after. High volumes of applicants mean employers are under pressure to look through possibly hundreds or resumes and applications in short amounts of time. Employers are busy people and their time really is money. Besides it being a tedious task trying to find a few good people amongst hundreds who truthfully would enjoy doing it? Because of these reasons, you have a very limited time to make the best possible impression, and I do mean limited too…try 30 seconds!

The primary goal of your cover letter is to get you noticed during short-listing and to encourage the employer to read your resume, nothing more and nothing less. Standing out for the right reasons really isn’t a difficult task if you know how. So let’s explore how to utilize some manipulative techniques.

When an employer is looking for an employee, they are effectively buying something. This means that you can apply sales techniques that have been used for many years to manipulate emotions in your favor as buying is an emotional decision!

Firstly you need to investigate what the employer is looking for. This may mean picking up the phone and talking to them and asking them outright, or any other way you can think of. Don’t hold back with the questions as this procedure is to gain as much information about what they are seeking from someone they wish to hire. Write down all this information and label each thing under any of these three headings.

Need Want Desire

Once you have your list try to assimilate what your potential employer’s needs, wants and desires are with regards to an employee. This information you have discovered is a gold mine as it shows you what an employer deems as an indicator to profit and success. You should be able to get a very good idea now of what is being sought after and why.

It’s a blatant fact most cover letters which pass through the hands of a decision maker are skipped completely in order to get to the resume. Why?

The answer is because most cover letters contain meaningless information the employer simply doesn’t care about such as what great qualities you have or your interests. An employer doesn’t care! What they care about is more profit and more success. They are always asking… “What’s in it for me?”

Your job is to answer this question using your cover letter and resume.

To answer this question, you need to show that you have skills knowledge and attributes associated with the profit and success indicators which fit the employers’ needs wants and desires you found during your investigation.

Once you know what skills, knowledge and attributes you have which are highly desirable you then need to state them in your cover letter and back them up with extracted quotes from references to demonstrate proof. (If you don’t have many references, I suggest you work hard at gaining more)

Example ~

Dear (TITLE)

You should find I am exceptionally suitable for . I have all the required skills, knowledge and attributes you desire plus other valuable qualities I’m positive you will benefit from greatly. My other employers have found me very beneficial in many of the same areas you require.

For example with regards to ~ a Need, want or Desire and a Sill Knowledge or Attribute~ ~referee name~ said

Place your quote here

Referee name, Title and company

~ End of Example

You can then follow on with another paragraph that leads into another quote etc until you are happy with the number of quotes you have. Do not go overboard.

This technique is a very powerful concept if used right. Although I have only briefly covered it here and merely touched on the subject there are many more techniques which are extremely powerful and compelling.

If you still don’t believe me try looking to see how many best selling novels can you find without a back page full of quotes from acclaimed critics giving them kudos, IT IS EXTREMELY POWERFUL because it proves you have something highly desirable by backed up by an authoritative, respected figure without a vested interest in the outcome.

My name is Daryl Miller and I’m the author of the hot new book “How to write a killer resume”. Want to be the most wanted candidate for a vacancy? Discover how you can get your phone ringing non stop with great interview offers by visiting how to write a killer resume.

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