Making Yourself Stand Out as An Applicant

Conducting Due Diligence to get yourself noticed.....

Good morning,

I thought to write this article after I received some positive feedback from a post I posted yesterday. In that post, I mentioned I how I have an interview today for a job I applied to on Monday. The trick that helped me stand out as a candidate and get the interview only 3 days after applying, I sent the hiring manager an email. And that’s what I’m going to explain how to do in this article.

I was going to make a video for this presentation to show everyone the step-by-step actions I take to conduct research when I try to locate and reach out to a hiring manager for a job I’m applying for, but I thought this article with screenshots would be a little easier.

I also considered doing an impromptu “LinkedIn Live” event, but I thought this article might garner some attention on this topic first. I’d be willing to host a “LinkedIn Live” event sometime in the near future on this topic, if there’s enough interest.

We all know applying for jobs can be a lot of work, especially if you’re out of work and anxiously trying to find your next career opportunity. With bills to pay, family members to support, and other unexpected expenses that can arise, finding a job can be a stressful time.

My goal with this article is to help others looking for their next career opportunity and to decrease the stress involved with the job search process.

The application process is very dynamic, both for the job seeker and the people involved with the hiring process. Job seekers spend countless hours applying for different jobs, tweaking their resume for different positions, practicing their interview skills, and hoping they’re selected for an interview. Recruiters and hiring managers are reading countless resumes, making tough decisions on who to interview, and considering salary requirements of candidates against their budgets.

The steps I’m going to share in this article are meant to help you stand out as a job applicant. Personally speaking, the process I’m going to share in this article have helped me stand out with applications to 4 different companies, landing me 3 of my most recent jobs.

While I possess some advanced research skills, anyone can really do what I’m doing….there’s no rocket science behind it. One thing I will say is “information” commonly referred to as “data” is IMPORTANT!! Pay attention to the information in the job postings. I say this because often times a job posting will list the "Title" of the person hiring for the position. For example, "This position reports to the VP of Manufacturing" or "This position reports to the Director of Business Continuity" or "This position reports to the Western Region Sales Director."

Look for these statements in your job postings. This will drastically help you with your research to identify the hiring manager hiring for the position.

Here we go…….

1) The first thing, of course, is finding a job you want to apply for. I know there are many others, but I keep it simple and stick to LinkedIn and Indeed.

For this article, I selected this position with Huntington National Bank to use as an example.

2) Now we need to find the hiring manager for this position……

There are a few ways to go about this. Using the “Search Bar” in Linkedin, you can type in the Company Name & Part of the Job Title you’re searching for. I typed in “Huntington National Bank Security.” Remember, use the NAME of the company and PART of the job title “YOU’RE” researching. ?

This gives us a mediocre result. We see the “Chief Physical Security Officer” at Huntington National Bank is Nick Zambeck. He’s the head guy, responsible for the entire physical security program at the bank. We probably don’t want to bug him with a lower-level position, unless it was a position directly reporting to him. So, we continue our search.

I like these pages on LinkedIn. Each company who is on LinkedIn has a page.

The “People” tab gives us a lot of data regarding the employees of Huntington National Bank who are on LinkedIn. Oh, and there’s Nick Zambeck again.

From the “People” tab, I want to narrow down my search for the hiring manager who might be hiring for the “Threat Management Specialist, Physical Security” position we want to apply for. Since the title of the job has “Physical Security” in it, I’m going to search “Physical Security” in the “People” tab. These are the first 6 results that come up. While I can’t include everyone who comes up in this search beyond the 6 that are here, I couldn’t really find anyone who I thought would be directly associated with this recruitment. Our search continues.

Recall the job title is “Threat Management Specialist, Physical Security.” Instead of using “Physical Security” in the “People” tab, let’s try “Threat Management.”

Voila, now we’re getting closer!!!!!

In the upper right corner we see Lucas Hunter, “Threat Intelligence Manager.” Considering this position is a “Specialist” position, which likely reports to a “Manager” my strong hunch is Lucas Hunter could be hiring for this position.

3) So now we’ve likely identified who the hiring manager is for this position, now we need to find his email address to send him a nice, concise, and friendly email to help us stand out as an applicant.

NOTE - I overlooked the job posting at this point of my article and didn't realize this until I reviewed the job posting on the Huntington National Bank website, when I was getting ready to explain how to prepare an email. As I mentioned before, the TITLE of the person this job reports to is in the job posting! Lucas, here we come...Hahahaha

Using Google, type this phrase in (Of course, you will want to use the name of the company you’re searching for….so it would be “(Company name) employee email.”

After hitting enter on our Google search, this is what comes up. The #1 result is from “RocketReach (If you didn’t know, RocketReach is a website you have to pay for, but it aggregates data (Phone numbers, emails, etc) from employees who work for a lot of companies across different industries). So now we found out the email naming convention (fancy name for “format”) of the email address for Huntington National Bank. RocketReach gives this format a 91.8% correctness rating.

Here’s some common email naming conventions using John Smith as an example. Pay attention to the last part of the Domain. Some companies use .com, some use .org, some use .net, and schools use .edu, so you’ll want to make sure this is correct otherwise your email won’t go through.

[email protected]

[email protected]

[email protected]

4) So we’ve gathered a lot of “Data” (Information). We’ve identified who the hiring manager likely is for this position, we’ve identified the email format for Huntington National Bank, so now we have Lucas Hunter’s email…..

It’s likely [email protected]

Sure we could send Lucas an email right now, but often times, just like when you write a college research paper, you want to confirm the information first to make sure the information you have is correct, as much as you can.

Every company has a website with A LOT of information on it. Scour the website of the company you want to apply with to confirm the email address you found using the above steps.

Most publicly traded companies have an “Investor Relations” page and usually have a “Press Releases” page. Often times if you go to these pages, you can find the email address of someone in their Investor Relations or Marketing Department. If you get to these pages and find the email address for someone within the company you want to apply to, all you need to do is copy their email format for a specific person you want to email.

Here’s an example from Sun Sentinel, a news outlet in South Florida. This whole page has their employees email addresses on it. With this information, I could email anyone at this company. If I knew Greg Jones worked at the Sun Sentinel, I would email him at [email protected]

Ok, back to our Huntington National Bank job using the aforementioned step.

If you go to the bottom of the Huntington National Bank website, you’ll find their “Investor Relations” tab.

https://www.huntington.com/

At the bottom of the “Investor Relations” page, click on “Company Profile”

So now we’ve confirmed Huntington National Bank’s email domain is @huntington.com

5) So, let’s send Lucas Hunter a nice, concise, and friendly email about the position. In my opinion, I would only send a hiring manager an email after you’ve formally applied for a job. This gives you credibility as someone who is genuinely interested in becoming a part of a particular company. Also, like everyone else, hiring managers are very busy. They likely won’t respond to basic questions about a particular job, there’s people like recruiters below them who can answer basic questions about the job (But you can use the same information in this article to reach out to the recruiter). As a hiring manager, I would be more willing to reply to an email from someone who has applied for a job versus someone who is merely “inquiring” about a job.

As an example with the interview I have today, after sending the hiring manager an email on Monday, she replied with a two-sentence email and instructed me to email the recruiter, providing his email address. Your mission for sending a hiring manager an email is to get noticed as an applicant!

Lastly, if you use Microsoft Outlook for email (other email providers might provide this feature), go to "Options." Check the "Request a Delivery Receipt" and "Request a Read Receipt."

By checking these boxes, you as the sender, will receive an email back to you when the email is "delivered" to the recipient and when the recipient "reads" your email. This is important, as you want to track if the recipient actually saw your email. I've had good luck with this. Usually when I send someone an email, and receive a "read" receipt back, they will likely reply back to me.

If you receive a "read" receipt, but they don't reply, you could send a nice follow up email, or leave it alone as they may be busy or not interested in engaging further with you. Bottom line, don't be pushy.

I hope this article has been informative and helps you on your quest to land your next job. Stay positive and use any and all resources to help yourself be noticed as an applicant!

Best Regards,

Gary