The One Thing Your Résumé Is Missing

When I started seeing myself as a marketer instead of a job applicant, the calls came pouring in

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A while ago, I was going through a process that many will find familiar: Sending job applications out into the void, then waiting for responses that, for the most part, never came.

Eventually, I realized where I was going wrong. While my background is in marketing, I wasn’t doing everything I could to market myself. So I shifted my thinking: Instead of approaching the process as a potential employee, I decided to see myself as a seller, and the hiring managers as potential buyers. I then went on a mission to find low-effort, high-reward ways to increase conversions on my sales collateral — in this case, my job application. What could I do to make it stand out?

While brainstorming, I came across an interesting statistic that said nine out of 10 people trust what a customer says about a business more than what that business says about itself. In marketing, this is called social proof — humans naturally tend to imitate the actions of others, especially those they respect. I decided that the way I could boost my own social proof was to tap into a resource that many of us overlook: the vast pool of people I’d worked with before. My previous managers and colleagues were, essentially, happy “customers” who could talk about how I performed in my previous roles.

So I asked some of them to write testimonials that I could add to my résumé, LinkedIn profile, portfolio, and website. The result: I received a spike in positive feedback whenever I applied to jobs. One hiring manager even said my résumé was the best they’d ever seen in their life.

Here’s how to add social proof to your application to get more interviews and, hopefully, get hired.

Make a list. Write down all of the previous managers, professors, or teammates that you’ve had positive experiences with. Ideally, you’ll want to list managers or clients, as well as people who are well known in your industry.

Write down all of the previous managers, professors, or teammates that you’ve had positive experiences with. Ideally, you’ll want to list managers or clients, as well as people who are well known in your industry. Reach out. If the people on your list are on LinkedIn, send them a message asking for a short recommendation. Make it short and sweet, with something like: “Hey, Rehan! I’m looking for a new job and was wondering if you could help by writing a short note about your experience working with me. If you go to my LinkedIn profile, you can easily do this by clicking the “Recommend” button near the bottom of the page. Hope you’re well!” You might offer to return the favor if you can vouch for their work. You can also simply ask for testimonials via email (but if you’re not active on LinkedIn, you should be).

Here are a couple testimonials I’ve received:

Repurpose your LinkedIn testimonials for your résumé, portfolio, or website. Each one serves a different purpose and has its own constraints, so think through the message you hope to convey.

Here’s how to add social proof to each of your application assets:

Your résumé

Résumés are typically only one page, so limit testimonials to one or two lines. Choose the most compelling statements from those with the greatest influence. Here’s an example from my résumé:

Your website

Because you have unlimited space on a website, you can use this as an opportunity to include lengthier testimonials. From my résumé on my website, I link out to another page that’s dedicated to my freelance and contract work.

This link takes hiring managers to a page that looks like this:

Your portfolio

You can repurpose your original testimonials even further by adding them to your online portfolio. It’s a great way to break up different sections. Here’s what mine looks like:

There are many other ways you can use social proof in your job search. For instance, you might ask a previous manager to record a one-minute video testimonial about you, upload it to YouTube, and link to it on your resume or embed it on a page on your website. The point is to let others speak for you when there’s an opportunity. Oftentimes, their words can have a greater impact than your own.