3 selling techniques you must use in your job search

Dana Manciagli

It’s a new world out there! The job market is much more competitive, hiring managers can’t afford to take risks by hiring the wrong person, and candidates must be the best every step of the way through the job-search process.

Now, for those of you with sales experience (whether looking for a role in inside or outside sales), this should be pretty natural for you, right? Wrong!

It’s shocking how few salespeople apply the tools of their trade to their job-search process. Pipeline? Non-existent. Selling yourself as a product? Not. Going for the close? Oops, forgot.

Regardless of whether you are in sales, here are three selling basics for all of you in the job market today:

1. Pipeline management

Picture a big funnel. Your job possibilities (leads) start at the top and then work down into real opportunities, interviews, job offers and employment!
My father used a different analogy when I was a child: you put a mixed bag of change in the top and the machine sorted them into the quarters, nickels, dimes, and penny slots for counting. The core concept of a pipeline is that you need a lot of job opportunities funneling through at the same time.

Most job seekers I have helped during my 30 years working have one job they want and say “I want to see this one through before I start on another.” Cut the Crap, Get a Job!

You must play the odds game and have multiple opportunities in your pipeline at the same time if you want to see results in a timely fashion. Learn now how to “parallel process” multiple opportunities rather than rely on old-fashioned linear processing.

2. You are the product
The interviewer, network contact, hiring manager or Human Resources (HR) department is the buyer. This is not about you. It’s about selling your skills and experiences to the buyer in a very relevant way to them.


They have the need and you need to work much harder to position yourself -- the product -- as the best product for their need. Imagine a grocery aisle full of laundry detergent; you never see. “I’m made of better chemicals” or “I am manufactured in a plant in Kentucky.” No, each box is speaking to you, the buyer, with solutions for your needs: whiter whites, cleaner clothes, etc.

Technique #3 and the complete article