Ay yo, the flyest ************ in the room
Yeah, you know it's me
******** hating on him, cause he started out here locally
Hopefully, I'll be at the top soon
For now I'm at my house, on the couch, watching cartoons..
--lyrics from Donald Trump by Mac Miller
I'll give you a short post today. It's about your career, so it could be for an HR pro, a recruiter, a manager or someone that has maintained the common sense that being an individual contributor is the best way to go.
At some point, you're going to interview for your next gig. The whole process is designed to get to the following point:
Can I see this yahoo doing the job in question at my company?
With that in mind, there's two ways to approach it:
1. Be prepared to talk about what you did, with an emphasis on your knowledge, skill and abilities.
2. Do #1, but be able to clearly articulate the "big wins" you've achieved in your role.
Let's be clear - you can get a job by doing #1. But the real way to show you're better than other people is to share the big wins you've worked on and delivered in your role.
Call it the nuclear effect.
The Mac Miller lyrics I led with breaks down your average candidate. They're thinking they want to be on top, but let's face it - from a career perspective, they're on the couch watching cartoons.
If you're in the market for your next HR role, what I really want to know is what you're biggest 3-5 wins from a project perspective are. What did you do that had the greatest impact? Share slides, spreadsheets, etc. Entertain me - whether I have a need for the specifics or not doesn't matter. You're telling me you hunt big game.
Ballers ball. Big game hunters shoot animals with horns and pose for pictures. The best candidates get big wins in addition to making the buses run on time and drive value - and they can tell that story.
What were your 3 biggest wins in your current/last job? Could we talk in depth about each for 15-20 minutes? If you can't articulate the bigs wins, you're like Mac Miller - dreaming of the big time, but dozing off on the couch.
Last but not least - don't wait for someone to ask for the big wins - you weave it into your narrative whether they ask or not.
Instrumental version of Donald Trump by Mac Miller appears below (email subscribers click through if a white rapper from Pittsburgh is interesting to you - promise it has a good hook...)