I dealt with my job search as a sales cycle and I got a new role in 57 days

This also told test is based on a conversation with Dan Dougherty, a 46 -year -old sales director in New York. It has been changed for duration and clarity.

I jumped in the job search immediately after losing my sales job in a startup and set myself to get a new job in 60 days.

I applied to certain jobs on LinkedIn to test the waters and received the rejection after rejection, even on the jobs for which I was fully qualified. I realized that I had to be more strategic and intentional if I wanted to stand out, so I decided to treat hunting at work as a sales cycle.

I treated it as a sequence of steps to follow to conclude an agreement with a customer. Only this time, I was the product. I realized that being intentional and strategic is crucial to get a job on this market.

I started by zero in 70 companies

According to the suggestion of a friend, I signed up for a Crunchbase subscription and spent about a week prospecting 200 to 250 companies in the start -up or scale phases. I thought they needed sellers most.

Then, I reduced my list to 70 companies which had a high execution rate, a solid management team, and which found me in an industry that passed me excited. I recorded the information of each company in an Excel spreadsheet.

I checked their website for specific job offers, but I planned to contact all the companies anyway. I gathered email of recruiters and used Hunter.io to find e-mails of CEOs and people of VP level to contact.

I spent a few hundred dollars to optimize my curriculum vitae

I am not really a grammar person, so I bought a monthly subscription of $ 19 to use the IA function of kickresume to optimize grammar and formatting of my curriculum vitae and to store several curriculum vitae. I also hired a few people on Fiverr at $ 50 at $ 100 each to make me a curriculum vitae.

I compared the Fiverr CVs to the suggestions of Kickresume and I kept the common points. I found that Kickresume was more useful because I had to personalize each curriculum vitae.

Finally, I used ATS scanner sites to scan my Curriculum Vitae and report all the errors that would prevent it from going in the first round.

I adapted my curriculum vitae for each work

If I applied to a role of representative of corporate sales, I would modify my previous work descriptions to highlight my work as a business representative and use the keywords and sentences listed in the publication of employment.

Even if my professional experience is not explicitly a ton of business, I think it is important to tell a coherent story in my curriculum vitae to attract the attention of the recruiter.

I used specific messaging tips to stand out

I generally sent an email to the recruiter and CEO of each company that interested me. I knew that my emails could be transmitted in their organization, so I made sure to personalize each message.

In an email to a CEO, I could personalize the message by saying that I noticed that their company was collecting funds and worked with Xyz VC groups, which means they probably needed sellers. Then I would describe how I could help specifically.

I used Chatgpt to write examples of emails. I asked the AI ​​what would be his answer if it was a CEO receiving my email, and this generally gave me a formatting suggestions or means of reducing the number of words.

I was meticulous to follow

I generally sent my emails late at night because I thought that the CEOs would see them either at night, when their reception box was not flooded or that it would be at the top of their reception box in the morning. I also follow each email with a LinkedIn message indicating that I threw an email and that I was looking forward to catching up.

I was meticulous to follow. On weekends, I would send emails with catchy subjects like “I know it’s a Sunday morning …”

I used messaging trackers who informed me each time someone opened my email or transferred it to someone else. I also knew that the recruiters would go on my LinkedIn after looking at my curriculum vitae, so when I would have a notification that my profile was visualized, I was waiting to contact them something like: “I noticed that you checked my LinkedIn profile. I would love to connect more.”

I ended up getting my new job in 57 days

My targeted approach helped me get interviews with recruiters and level C people, and I interviewed various companies before being officially hired day 57 as sales manager.

The biggest point to remember from my job search is that applying and hoping to be chosen will not work. You must be proactive, whether you wish or not. I sold myself using my skills on sale, but I encourage people to take advantage of the skills they have to stand out.

If you adopt a unique approach to your job search and want to share your story, send an e-mail to the publisher, manseen Logan, to mlogan@businessinsider.com.