Transcript
00:00:00So I have been speaking to a lot of students recently and I hear that there is a general
00:00:04feeling of dread when it comes to applying for jobs. And so in this video, I am going to give
00:00:09my honest advice to anyone who's applying for jobs. Now, if we haven't met, hello, my name is
00:00:13Ali. I'm a doctor turned entrepreneur. So I'm not an HR professional or anything like that, but I
00:00:18run a small business where we currently employ about 20 people. As an employer who has hired
00:00:23people in the last few years, I recently, and in particular, since the advent of AI in like 2022,
00:00:30and as someone who sees hundreds to thousands of applications for the jobs that we put out,
00:00:34I have some hot takes that I would like to share. And this is the sort of advice that I give to my
00:00:37friends. Like if I've got a friend who's applying for a job and they're struggling, this is just my
00:00:40opinion, but I hope this opinion is helpful. When you are applying for a job, I think one of the most
00:00:45important factors to keep in mind is that you don't want to give your prospective employer too much
00:00:50credit. It's easy to think of job applications as being just like an efficient market, as being like
00:00:55a machine. Let me tell you what my experience is as a business owner, as an employer, when I am
00:01:00trying to hire people for a job. And I think one of the most useful skills you can have as a job
00:01:04applicant is empathy for the person who's trying to hire you. This is what it's like in my life as a
00:01:08business owner. All right, we got this business. We got these like somewhere between 15 and 20 team
00:01:12members. Man, some of them are remote. Some of them are in person. Across these different
00:01:14departments, man, oh, there's too much shit going on. We're just about able to do the
00:01:18marketing. We're just about able to do the sales. Although man, there's so many things wrong with our
00:01:21sales process as well. God, it's tough. And I saw an email this morning from someone asking for a
00:01:25refund. And then today it's like, I've got this meeting and this other meeting with the team and
00:01:29then this other thing. And then like, we need to hire a director of marketing. Hopefully what you're
00:01:32getting from this is that I don't know what I'm doing and no person who is hiring knows what they're
00:01:37doing. And so the first thing you should do, do not rule yourself out of a job just because you do not
00:01:43meet the requirements that they have listed on the page. The company that you are applying for a job
00:01:48with is held together by duct tape behind the scenes. It might look really polished from the
00:01:53outside, but on the inside, it feels like there are fires going on everywhere. And it feels like a
00:01:58total fricking nightmare on the inside for the people in the business and who are running the
00:02:01business. Like think of your mom or dad on a really, really chaotic day. Let's say it's your
00:02:08mom and your mom's had a really bad night. She's not really slept and the house is a mess and you've
00:02:11got guests coming over. She's got an important meeting at work and it's going to be like,
00:02:14I've got an important meeting at work. Oh shit. I'm going to late for work anyway. And she's like,
00:02:17okay, hiring. Yeah. I know we were going to sort of hire a bunch of these people. I see we've got
00:02:21312 applications. Imagine that is like the state that the person hiring you is in. The reason why
00:02:30someone is hiring you is not because they want to hire you. They would actually rather not hire you
00:02:35because they would rather not pay the money. And it's not even the money. Often they would rather
00:02:38just not deal with the faff because hiring someone is an enormous faff. The reason they are hiring
00:02:43you is because they are hoping that you will make their life easier. All of the roles that we are
00:02:49hiring for, by the way, we're hiring. If you're interested, link down below. All of the roles
00:02:52that we are hiring for is to alleviate some kind of pain that we are currently experiencing.
00:02:56It's a very emotional need that someone has when they say, Hey, I'm going to hire you and pay you
00:03:0050K a year for you to like take stuff off my plate. Given that it's an emotional need,
00:03:04you should not take the job description too literally or too seriously. You should not take
00:03:07the experience requirements too literally or too seriously. You should not take the fact that they
00:03:11haven't replied to you too literally or too seriously or too personally in the current job market from what
00:03:15I hear. And certainly this is true for us. There are way more people applying for jobs than there
00:03:20are jobs available. For example, when we hire, let's say video editors, we have 500 people applying for a
00:03:25job to be our video editor and like one or two or three get the job. We were hiring for student success
00:03:29coaches for our Lifestyle Business Academy. We had 800 people apply over the course of like two weeks
00:03:33and we hired four of the 800. These are not good odds. There are broadly three different routes you can
00:03:39take when it comes to applying for jobs. I'm going to use an analogy from a very good book by a guy
00:03:44called Alex Benayan, which is called The Third Door. The book basically talks about how life is kind of
00:03:48like a nightclub and there are always three doors. There are three different ways to enter the nightclub.
00:03:53The first door, it's the door where you've got a line of like 500 people waiting to queue up.
00:03:58That's the equivalent of applying for a job. When you fill in the form on the website and you apply for the job.
00:04:03Now, the second door is for the billionaires and the celebrities and the peoples whose like parents are
00:04:08super, super well connected. The second door is about who you know. If you know someone, you can get into the
00:04:12nightclub, right? But then there's door number three. Steven Spielberg, super famous director.
00:04:16Obviously, you've heard of him. Did you know the way he got his first job directing was he was on the tour bus at
00:04:21Universal Studios. He literally sneaked off the tour bus at Universal Studios and sneaked his way into a film set
00:04:26where he then spoke to someone and he was like, hey, my name is Steven. I'm really looking to break into the
00:04:31film industry. I'll literally do anything you want. The approach that you are taking is like an
00:04:35unorthodox, unconventional approach where there's no like guidebook. No one's going to make a YouTube
00:04:39video being like, here's how you get a job in the film industry. Go sneak off the bus at Universal Studios
00:04:43because as soon as it becomes public knowledge, they will they will close that particular loophole.
00:04:47But it's about finding a loophole. You're not standing in line waiting with other people.
00:04:50You don't have pre-existing connections. You're using The Third Door. You're like hustling a bit and using your
00:04:54creativity and ingenuity to try and get in through The Third Door. We have a few students in our
00:04:59Lifestyle Business Academy, which is like an online business school, who are career coaches, like
00:05:03they're helping people land jobs. One of our students is a career coach in tech. And what she was telling
00:05:07me the other day is that for senior jobs in tech, and even often for junior jobs in tech, 80% of the
00:05:12roles are not advertised. The job exists, but they're just never going to advertise it publicly because
00:05:16they don't want to deal with the BS associated with having 5000 applications. And so what that means
00:05:20is like the network based approach where you kind of put yourself forward and you find networking,
00:05:26you like find these opportunities and you like get your way in that way. Recognizing that hiring is a
00:05:31human to human interaction, not a sort of cog to machine interaction like it often seems when you're
00:05:37like applying for a job. So much like backdoor dealing happens behind the scenes that instead of
00:05:42you being surprised when you apply for 500 jobs and no one gets back to you, I want you to be aware
00:05:45that all of this backdoor dealing is happening behind the scenes. So you can position yourself
00:05:48in a way that allows you to benefit from the backdoor dealing rather than be like screwed
00:05:52over by it like everyone else is going to be. At this point, I would like to tell you a little
00:05:55bit about Shortform, who are very kindly sponsoring this video. Shortform is a wonderful service that's
00:05:58like having your most intelligent friend break down a book for you. So on their library, they've got
00:06:03hundreds and hundreds of books, all of which are in the realm of like education, personal
00:06:06development, history, philosophy, you know, things that actually help you learn stuff. And for each
00:06:10book, they take it chapter by chapter and they break down the key concepts. So it helps you
00:06:13understand them. Now, crucially, this is not just some like random chat GPT generated AI summary of
00:06:17a book. It is instead a human crafted experience where a real human had actually gone through the
00:06:21book, teased out the key points. And crucially, they haven't just told you what are the key points
00:06:24in the book. They've also then correlated those key points with other books that they've got in the
00:06:28library. So for example, they've created a study guide for my own book, Feel Good Productivity.
00:06:31And firstly, the study guide is really good. Like I was very impressed as I was reading it. I was
00:06:34like, oh, wow, these guys really nailed it. Secondly, they've actually like made stuff clearer than I did
00:06:38when I was writing the book. And I was like, damn it, I should have hired them to help me make the book
00:06:41actually better. But then thirdly, you know, when I'm saying stuff in the book about, for example, the
00:06:44broaden and build theory or about like intrinsic motivation, they're like tying that in to other
00:06:49books and other authors and other research and showing you where research agrees with what the
00:06:53author is saying in the book and where potentially there's disagreements with what the author is
00:06:56saying in the book. And so it's a far more like critical thinking way of understanding a book
00:07:00rather than just taking the author's word at face value. I've got two primary use cases for short
00:07:04form. Firstly, I use it if I'm thinking about reading a whole book, but I don't know yet. So I'll kind of
00:07:08browse the short form summary to get the key ideas and then decide if I want to read the book or if
00:07:11I've already read a book and it was a few years ago and I want to revisit the key ideas without having
00:07:15to read through the whole thing. I will also look at the short form summary. Crucially, short form
00:07:18does not replace reading. I'm not recommending that you use it as a reading replacement because
00:07:22reading is very good for you, but I use it more as a tool to augment my reading and understanding
00:07:25and learning. And it's wonderful for that. If you'd like to give it a go, head over to
00:07:28shortform.com slash Ali Abdaal, and that will give you a free trial. And also, if you want,
00:07:32it'll give you $50 off the annual subscription. So thank you short form for sponsoring the video.
00:07:37And let's get back to it. Now, tangible, specific things that you can do to make this happen.
00:07:41Number one is you can actively try and stand out on the job application. One trick that we use in our
00:07:46job applications is we add a question to the end of them that says, is there anything else you would
00:07:53like to tell us? Because often you can just delete any application that does not answer that question
00:07:58of any, is there anything else you would like to tell us? And what they have found is that there's a
00:08:02remarkably strong correlation between the effort someone puts into that final response and how
00:08:07good of a team member they're going to be when they're part of your business. When you are applying
00:08:11for a job, the scattergun approach is unlikely to work. Yeah, the scattergun approach is like, you know
00:08:17what, let me apply for 500 jobs. Let me use ChatGPT to like, I don't know, tailor my cover letter and
00:08:21resume to like this job because, you know, they won't notice. And then let me, I don't know, try and
00:08:26mass apply to as many things as humanly possible because honestly, I'll take anything. What I recommend
00:08:30is take a sniper approach. Figure out, what do I actually want to do? Not, I'll take whatever fucking
00:08:35job I can get, but like, what do I actually want to do? What company has a mission that I think is
00:08:38actually interesting? And like, finding five of those in an area where you would like to work. Ideally, in your
00:08:44local area. Ideally, they have an office rather than being fully remote because it's easier when, when you
00:08:48can meet with people in person. And once you've found your like, dream five, you then take a sniper
00:08:52approach to try and get hired in that dream five. Find on LinkedIn, the people who are working at that
00:08:57company. You try and reach out to some of them being like, Hey, I'm interested in, you know, I saw that
00:09:01you work for blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. I'm really interested in getting into the space. Any chance
00:09:04you'd be open, you know, I'd love to take you out for coffee sometime. You know, I'd love to ask you
00:09:07some questions about your role. And then you take them out to coffee, take them out to lunch. Trust me,
00:09:11it's totally worth the price of the coffee or the price of the lunch. You're genuinely curious.
00:09:14You get to know about the company. You get to know about the roles. And the thing to keep in mind is that
00:09:17the best roles are not actually advertised. And at the point where a company advertises a role is
00:09:21often months after they realize they need the role. If I think of people who've been hired, hired at our
00:09:25company, you know, despite having like thousands of applications for a lot of our roles, they've often
00:09:29been the ones who have gone a little bit above and beyond. So we were hiring for a videographer
00:09:32and of the hundred people who applied, one of them sent in a custom video and he pitched himself
00:09:38through this video to show his personality, to show his videography skills, show his editing skills.
00:09:42And the guy had no experience. His resume was kind of terrible. His application was kind of terrible,
00:09:46but he got fast track to the top of the interview list because he went above and beyond compared to
00:09:50everyone else. So that box, is there anything else you would like to share with us? That is your
00:09:54chance to create a mini presentation, to make a loom, make a video of yourself with showing your face,
00:10:00being there on camera because people hire other people, right? If you can build rapport with the
00:10:06people who will be offering you the job without actually being there in person on the interview,
00:10:10that puts you at a massive advantage compared to everyone else who's not willing to go the extra
00:10:14mile. So it's about taking the sniper mentality and it's about going the extra mile, doing the research,
00:10:18reaching out to the people working in the company, finding out about the job. And then once you have
00:10:22that personal connection with that person working in the company, you can then ask them questions.
00:10:25You can like follow up with them every now and then being like, Hey, I've actually got, you know,
00:10:27the summer free. I'd love to totally do an internship with you guys. You know, here are the different
00:10:31ways I can help. You don't want to say, I'm happy to do anything. What can I do? Because that requires the
00:10:36other person to figure out what they should give you. And they don't have the time to even figure out what
00:10:40they should give you. You want to be proactive in suggesting things that you can do. And if you
00:10:44really want the job, even just like doing those things, if someone was applying to one of our jobs
00:10:48and they were like, Hey, Ali, I, you know, I noticed you talked in your hiring video about like all these
00:10:53pains you were having, having in your business. It seems like I think what you guys would really
00:10:56benefit from is AI automations. I'm actually really interested in working in the space. I'd love to
00:11:00work with you guys. Happy to hop on a 30 minute call with anyone in your team. It doesn't have to be
00:11:04you. I know you're super busy and I'm happy to work for a month completely for free where I'll
00:11:08build any AI automations that will save you guys time. At the end of the month, you can decide if
00:11:11you'd like to keep working with me. If I saw a message like that, I'd be like, holy shit. Nice.
00:11:15Especially because I can just pawn it off to someone on my team. So then I don't have to deal with it.
00:11:18And then if the team member, if I say, Hey, Owen, can you like talk to this guy for 30 minutes?
00:11:22He's going to be like, yeah, sure. Especially if the guy's in person. And then Owen speaks to the
00:11:26guy's like, Oh, actually the guy's really cool. Owen's saying the guy's actually really cool.
00:11:29100X increases the guy's chances of getting a job in the business. And that opportunity only came
00:11:34about because the guy was proactive in like reaching out to me or someone on the team to try and like
00:11:39get that like wedge in the door. Everyone is obviously using AI to apply for all the jobs.
00:11:43The employers are obviously using AI to screen the jobs. So like, you know, it's sort of like an arms
00:11:47race between who can use AI better. The thing the employers do, which is like an anti-AI signal,
00:11:54is they do not ask about hypothetical future scenarios. What they ask about is your experience.
00:12:01What experience have you had with YouTube, with social media, with marketing? Give me some
00:12:06tangible examples of where in the past you have done something. One of the most discriminating
00:12:11questions in a good way that we found in our application is what cool stuff have you built
00:12:15with AI? As an employer, we're increasingly asking about past experience, which means experience is
00:12:21really, really, really important. So what do you do if you don't have experience? Well, you create your
00:12:24own experience. The experience can be stuff that you've built and stuff that you've done without
00:12:28having to ask anyone's permission for it. We are currently looking for a director of marketing.
00:12:32I would be totally open to hire someone on a pretty high salary if they're like, hey, I've never
00:12:36actually done this for someone, but I took the liberty of going through all of your top 10
00:12:41competitors in the info product industry, deconstructing all of their sales pages, looking at their
00:12:44meta ads library and putting together custom proposal on a custom website. By the way, super easy to do
00:12:49these days with AI. That shows exactly how I would go about like revamping your marketing processes
00:12:54and here is a loom with me showing my face, walking through exactly what I've done over here and how I
00:12:59did it. So you can get a feel of what it would be like to work with me. Even if that person doesn't
00:13:02have any experience, the fact that they've demonstrated, they've shown rather than just
00:13:06told us what they've done. They've shown their face. They've done it on video. We can see what
00:13:10they, we can see what their vibe is like to see if it gels with what our team is like. And if it's
00:13:15not, then obviously, you know, it's not in anyone's interest to hire the person, but that would stand out
00:13:18so much. You can take your own portfolio into your own hands. You don't have to wait for someone to hire you
00:13:22for you to do stuff. Just like do the stuff, do it on a weekend, make a personal website, stick a
00:13:26portfolio on it so that when you're applying for jobs, there is something you can show them rather
00:13:30than just telling them because AI can do all of the telling. If you're still at university, one of the
00:13:34biggest pieces of advice I can say is get involved with stuff that will give you stories. Again, a common
00:13:40question in interviews or in job applications or whatever is like, what's an example of a situation
00:13:44where you've handled adversity? Now, if you can say, for example, that like when I was at university in my
00:13:49third year, I was the president of the May ball committee where we were organizing, you know,
00:13:52this party, we had to sell 500 tickets. The price was a thousand dollars. This was like a 500,000,
00:13:56like $500,000 event. And a specific problem that we had was that one of our suppliers canceled at the
00:14:01last minute. Now, in order to deal with that, this is what I had to do A, B, and C. The fact that you've
00:14:05got a story to talk about there on the job application of something you've done in the past, which means
00:14:09AI can't fake it because obviously you don't want to lie on your application form. And you can talk
00:14:13about that story when asked about it at interview. You do have that experience, even if you don't have
00:14:17any experience, right? But if you're someone who has just gone through university, just doing the
00:14:22academic stuff and has not taken part in any extracurriculars or in anything interesting because
00:14:26you think your academics will be the thing that will get you the job, man, good luck. Like, you know,
00:14:31you need to have stories and experiences that you can talk about. But the crucial thing is that you
00:14:35can create those stories and you can create those experiences yourself. You do not have to wait for
00:14:38anyone to give you permission to create those stories for yourself. Once you figure out your list of dream
00:14:42jobs you want to apply to, figure out, like, what are the problems that they are likely to have in their
00:14:46business? And again, you can ask AI to help you with this. You can literally go to Claude and say,
00:14:49hey, Claude, I really want to apply for the job of this company. Can you do a bunch of research and
00:14:51surface all of the problems that you think that they are having? And if you think of yourself as being
00:14:55hired to solve problems and hired to alleviate pain, you are much more likely to apply for the job in
00:15:01the right way rather than thinking of yourself as applying for a job. Now, if you happen to be a student
00:15:05and you haven't yet seen my video about what I would do if I were a student today, like whatever stage you
00:15:08are in the process, check out this video right over here. And again, hopefully that will give you a little bit of a
00:15:12firmware update for whatever it's worth on how I think you could, if you wanted to, approach life as a
00:15:17student. So that'll be right over there. Thank you for watching. I hope you found this video useful. And
00:15:20if you'd like to apply for a job at our company, we are hiring. Bye.
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