Transform Yourself into a Purple Cow

Photo by Matthew Billingsley/Visceral

I often tell people the job search is all about sales.  Frankly, it's the most crowded market there is.  You have a finite amount of cereals, laundry detergents, automakers, airlines, etc.  But with 9.4% unemployment, coupled with thousands of recent college grads, the job market is more saturated than it has been in a long time.

But here's the good news.  There is competition in numbers, but not in quality.  I'm not saying there aren't quality workers out there, but I am saying most people do not have a clue how to conduct an effective job search, define their value proposition for a company and navigate the ups and downs of a typical three-to-six month (or longer) job search. 

So don't worry about the competition.  Focus all of your energy on being a purple cow. 

What's a purple cow?  Brilliant author and marketer, Seth Godin, defines a Purple Cow as "something phenomenal, something counterintuitive and exciting and flat out unbelievable."

Every day, recruiters look at hundreds of resumes and meet with a few people who don't stand out...  more and more black and white cows... the kind you see every time you take a drive through the country.

So stop being a black and white cow and become a purple cow, it's not as hard as you think.  It's not hard to be remarkable!

Remember, the job search is sales.  What is going to stand out?  Applying to a job posting?  Generic copy/paste cover letters and thank you notes?  Having your friends and family blast email YOUR resume to THEIR contacts?  Nope.  That's what everyone else is doing. 

Take a brief break from your job search and find five people who excel in a sales role.  Take them out for coffee and ask them what their "secret" is.  I bet you'll hear that they tailor their approach for each buyer based on information they can glean from them.  They find out what the customers want before they try to sell them.  They build rapport, etc.

Purple cow job seekers do the same.  I spot them immediately.  Because there aren't many.  They are well prepared and know many details about the company that you can't find on the Web site, blogs, newspaper articles, etc.  They know exactly what openings you have, what you're looking for in a perfect candidate and how they meet your requirements.  They don't have to sell anything.  They're just checking off boxes.

So start thinking like a salesman and soon enough you'll be purple...

(I highly recommend you read Seth Godin's blog and follow him on Twitter).