What Can You Do to Set Yourself Apart?

Last weekend I was at a college commencement ceremony and got to know Ryan Atkinson. Ryan is an impressive new graduate excited to be moving to Boston for a job at HubSpot as a Business Development Rep. Ryan feels part of the reason he was hired at HubSpot was because of his podcast, The Business Cloud. 

I was intrigued by Ryan’s story because I love creative job search tactics. 

Ryan started his podcast in August of 2020 because he wanted to network with people in the industries in which aspired to work. His podcast interviewing CEOs, company founders, and entrepreneurs allowed him to access people who probably wouldn’t have sat down with him if he didn’t have a podcast. 

Ryan mentioned his podcast also gave him plenty of topics to talk about during interviews. Since Ryan was interviewing for sales positions, he was asked about his ability to develop rapport and credibility with decision makers. Ryan gained experience conducting thorough research, finding common ground, and being genuine and curious. 

Ryan pushed himself outside his comfort zone and set himself apart from other candidates by founding and hosting his podcast. For other jobseekers, this could mean sharing content on social media, speaking at a conference, volunteering for a project to help build skills, or creating a website to showcase graphic design work. 

Companies take bets on employees with limited information. In Ryan’s case, HubSpot was able to take on less risk by having more data on how he would build relationships and relate to challenges business leaders face. His future employer was also able to quickly get a feel for how intelligent and intuitive he is. They had resumes, LinkedIn profiles, and interview collateral on all (bold) their candidates, but they had over 13 hours (bold) of data (via 23 podcasts) on Ryan. 

What creative ideas have you seen jobseekers implement to get noticed?