The Strategy Memo

• 00:04 I want to give you one very,
• 00:06 very specific advanced tip that I believe will help distinguish you from
• 00:11 all the other people who get a job interview with this organization.
• 00:16 And here's the tip, don't simply walk in with an extra copy of your resume.
• 00:20 Of course, you do need a copy of the resume, even though they should have
• 00:24 one on file, or how would they have called you for the interview?
• 00:27 You do need another paper, people still do like to read paper sometimes,
• 00:32 paper copy of your resume.
• 00:33 But I would also suggest you have another sheet of paper, it's a one page memo.
• 00:41 And in this one page memo, I would spend 25, 30% of the page summarizing
• 00:46 what you think are the key strategic strengths of this organization.
• 00:52 What this is doing is it's showing you've done your research.
• 00:55 That you can write, that you can communicate,
• 00:58 that you can process information, and that you value the organization.
• 01:03 That you see what they're doing well.
• 01:06 But the bottom two-thirds of the page, I would come up with suggestions,
• 01:11 Ideas, whatever you want to call it, on how to improve the organization.
• 01:17 Now, there's some risks to this, because someone could always be offended.
• 01:21 Well, they're criticizing something I'm doing by suggesting we need to do this.
• 01:26 But here's what I've noticed.
• 01:29 Most employers are impressed by anyone who's given time and
• 01:33 thought and energy to how to improve things.
• 01:37 So coming up with just ten ideas, it could be bullet points,
• 01:41 of very specific things the organization can do perhaps a little differently.
• 01:46 A new market to enter,
• 01:48 perhaps an ebook on a particular topic to reach certain customers.
• 01:52 Come up with ten ideas, and present that in the interview.
• 01:58 Say, hey, I'm so excited about this company, what I've learned about you,
• 02:01 I hope you don't mind.
• 02:03 But I took it upon myself to do a brief memo on what I think the key strategic
• 02:09 assets are of your company and possible areas for improvement.
• 02:14 And I realize I certainly don't know everything at this point.
• 02:18 But I do want you to have a sense of my general thought process.
• 02:23 I'm willing to bet that 98% of the time if you did that,
• 02:27 an employer would be extraordinarily impressed.
• 02:31 Because even bad ideas are better than no ideas.
• 02:36 What you're doing in this memo is you're talking about them, not yourself.
• 02:43 Here's the little secret about job interviews.
• 02:46 The more you talk about that person, that company, that organization,
• 02:50 the less about yourself, the better off you are.
• 02:53 People care about themselves, they care about their organization.
• 02:57 They care about how you are going to help them.
• 03:01 They're not hiring you just to help the unemployment rate.
• 03:06 They're hiring you because you can somehow make their life easier.
• 03:09 Help them make more money, help them serve more customers, clients, patients.
• 03:15 So everything you do has to be focused on that.
• 03:19 And that's why this little secret strategy, a one page memo,
• 03:23 I'm not suggesting quit your other part time jobs,
• 03:27 stop job hunting, and write some 30 page treatise.
• 03:31 Just a one page memo, spend an hour on it, and come up,
• 03:35 brainstorm ideas on how this organization can be better.
• 03:42 Even if you just have one good idea and the others are horrible,
• 03:45 they're likely to remember that idea.
• 03:47 Even if they think all of your ideas are horrible, they're going to
• 03:52 be impressed that you took the initiative to create something, to produce something.
• 03:59 And they can see that you can write clearly,
• 04:02 that you can write concisely, and that you can present a proposal.
• 04:07 That's going to go a long way towards distinguishing you in this job interview.
• 04:12 I can tell you I've never had anyone do that in a job interview with me,
• 04:18 but if they did, pretty good chance I would hire them.

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