Three ways to stand out from the job crowd

Getting a job is becoming more and more competitive. Here are three way’s you can stand out from the job hunting crowd:

Get campaigning! (Sort of)

If emailing CVs is becoming repetitive, try something new. We’re all aware social networking sites are beneficial in job-hunting, but using Facebook adverts to target someone directly is a little-known secret that will shoot you to the forefront of a potential employer’s mind. All you need is a free 10 minutes and a few pounds to start your own campaign.

Sounds complicated? It’s not. The best part of Facebook adverts is that you can set your ad to target specific work places. If you fancied working at Facebook, all you would need to do is upload your CV to sites such as Visual CV and create an advert that links to it by visiting www.facebook.com/ads . Putting ‘Facebook’ in the employer box will make sure only people who list Facebook as their place of work get to see it. You are charged for everyone who clicks on the ad but this can be as little as 10p per click – and you can set a limit so your bill isn’t sky-high. If they’re interested, emails will start flocking in and you could nab yourself an interview at your dream job.

Show and tell

Instead of listing your skills in a personality-free application, why not be inventive and show them. Zef Kynaston did exactly this: “"I had sent so many emails to companies and didn't receive responses from the majority. Email felt like a very impersonal way of starting a dialogue with a potential employer."

Kynaston created an online CV designed to look like a Ceefax page, leading to a lot of interest, interviews and, ultimately, a job.

"The response was incredible: after sending emails off into the ether and getting nothing back, I was suddenly faced with interview and job offers from across the country," Kynaston says.

"It reversed the process: I was no longer trying to talk to these companies, they were contacting me."

Even though Kynaston’s product went viral, it would have still given him an edge over other applicants without the attention. All sorts of industries would appreciate this effort; thinking literally and going outside of the box is guaranteed to catch someone up top’s eye.

Go old school

That being said, the methods above might work fine for tech-savvy companies, but what about more traditional firms? It’s almost certain they receive hundreds of emails per day, but how many faxes and handwritten letters do you think they get?

Suit your application style to where you are applying. If it is a boutique clothes company, penning an elegant letter with a CV may have more of an impact than a personality-void email. However, be careful; if the advert tells you to apply online specifically, not doing so may look like an inability to follow instructions.

Get creative guys!