CV is one of those things that is so similar for 99% of the people that if you only do marginally better than everyone else, you will stand out.

And it is also one of those things that even when you know that you look like everyone else, you don’t put in much effort to learn how to write a great CV.

After reviewing 1000+ CVs in the last 3 years, I can tell you that the bottom line mindset of every employer when going through the pile of CVs is this:

“If the person is not smart enough to learn to write a great CV, he/she is not smart enough for the job”

When you are creating your CV, you have to think about the 2 stages:

Stage 1 – How to get your CV to stand out in the pile so it gets shortlisted into the 10% of the CVs that will be reviewed in detail.

This stage has to do with the aesthetics of your CV. What is the image it creates in the employer’s head in 5 seconds? Does it scream that the person who has created it must be really smart? Is it even beautiful to look at and soothing to skim through? When do you write your GPA and when you don’t?

Stage 2 – How to construct your CV and word it to make your personality, qualifications, and experiences convince the employers that if they do not call you for an interview, they will be missing out on a great candidate.

This stage has to do with how you present your information in your CV. What words you use? How do you make your experiences relevant? How do you construct sentences to give full context? What details you give?

This blog post will highlight 3 Mistakes you are doing in your CV.

I have developed a Full Online Video course in which I teach you in detail both Stage 1 and Stage 2, with examples and exact words to write.

You can access the course here: Ultimate Resume Makeover

3 Mistakes You Are Doing In Your CV

Mistake # 1: Telling Everything

Most people put everything they have ever done in their CVs. They think that a CV has to contain a list of all the facts in chronological order. That’s the wrong strategy!

Your CV is not your Timeline that has to include everything in a perfectly dated manner. Instead, your CV is a sales page whose sole purpose is to sell you to a potential employer.

What’s a better way to do it:

Is it by writing about your part-time job when you were shelving books in the library or doing car washing to earn some extra bucks?

Or do you do it by putting in only the things that support your experiences and personality that are best suited for the job you are applying for?

Companies want to see the focus, not a random list of jobs that aren’t coherent. 

You might be thinking that what about showing yourself as a diverse personality?

We will talk about that in detail in the full CV video course. But in a nutshell, your CV should only have things that make logical sense for the career you are creating this CV for.

A CV that stands out is the one that has a clear focus.

Mistake # 2: Using Flowery Meaningless Language

The single biggest issue with CVs is the generic language that almost everyone uses.

What do these terms even mean?

“I delivered under challenging environment due to my professional abilities and interpersonal skills.”

“I was part of a highly competitive and dynamic team that helped me learn exponentially.”

“Highly organized, hardworking and a team player.”

They don’t mean anything!

These are examples of the phrases that employers see every day. After a while, we all develop this secret ability to be blind to these sentences. We don’t even read them. We skim through all this fat to find any meat underneath.

Dressing up a CV in a fancy manner does not mean you are smart. It actually means that you haven’t done anything that you can concretely talk about.

People often complain that they can’t fit in information in one page. 9 out of 10 CVs that I see, I can instantly cut off 70-80% of text in there which is flowery and pointless.

By the way, only the first page of your CV matters. Here are the 3 Hacks To Make Your CV Standout that you should read and implement right away.

So what do you do instead of using the flowery meaningless language?

You use 1 to 3 bullet points to explain each experience in a thorough manner – starting with telling what you did and ending with what was achieved through it.

You use vivid details and numbers to describe the exact experience and show the exact results.

We will explore this point in much more detail, with tons of examples, in the video course.

For now, let’s move on to the third mistake you might be doing.

Mistake # 3: Not Putting Yourself In The Employer’s Shoes

Most of you are selling yourselves without thinking about the employer’s needs.

Instead of understanding the job requirements for the specific job, you are busy telling your totally unrelated experiences.

And not just experiences, even the traits of your personality that you are highlighting, have you taken the time out to understand whether the potential employer is interested in someone with that kind of personality?

Is an employer a start-up who is looking for someone who is multi-skilled and can fill in the roles of operations, research and social media marketing?

Is an employer a big company who is looking for a very specific skill set, e.g. advanced-level proficiency in Ms Excel and Power BI?

Is an employer looking for someone who has a history of taking more initiatives?

When we go through dozens of CVs each week for a certain job, we are only looking for 1-2 very specific traits in the applicants.

If we can see those traits in your CV, we will shortlist you.

It’s your job as an applicant to read the job description, and even go an extra mile to understand the company’s size and culture, so you can highlight the exact things in your CV that we are looking for.

—

In the post above, I have highlighted 3 Mistakes that 99% of CVs make. Chances are you have made these mistakes in your CV as well.

In the Ultimate Resume Makeover course, we go into the principles and the details of creating an outstanding CV, that actually gets you the interview call and a high-paying job offer.

It is surprising to me that among all the steps required to get a job, most people put the least amount of effort in making their CVs stand out. I receive about a dozen CVs each week, and I open them for roughly 5-seconds each!

It is mind-boggling how many CVs big companies, that are 100X or 1000X bigger than mine, would be receiving each week, and still, people expect them to look at their CVs in detail.

Here’s the bottom line mindset of an employer when going through the pile of CVs:

“If the person is not smart enough to learn to write a great CV, he/she is not smart enough for the job”

In almost all cases, a CV that stands out wins over a CV of a person with higher qualifications but horrible to read.

 

When you are creating your CV, you have to think about the 2 stages:

Stage 1 – How to get your CV to stand out in the pile so it gets shortlisted into the 10% of the CVs that will be reviewed in detail.

This stage has to do with the aesthetics of your CV. What is the image it creates in the employer’s head in 5 seconds? Does it scream that the person who has created it must be really smart? Is it even beautiful to look at and soothing to skim through? When do you write your GPA and when you don’t?

Stage 2 – How to construct your CV and word it to make your personality, qualifications, and experiences convince the employers that if they do not call you for an interview, they will be missing out on a great candidate.

This stage has to do with how you present your information in your CV. What words you use? How do you make your experiences relevant? How do you construct sentences to give full context? What details you give?

 

This blog post will give you 3 Hacks To Standout in Stage 1.

I have developed a Full Online Video course in which I teach you in detail both Stage 1 and Stage 2, with examples and exact words to write.

You can access the full course here: Ultimate Resume Makeover

 

Why I Am Qualified Enough To Talk About CVs?

In the past 3 years, I have gone through somewhere between 1000-1500 CVs. These include both the Academic CVs for research jobs or those of PhD candidates and the CVs for the job market (both by fresh graduates with no work experience and by those who have been working for a few years).

In addition, I have also secured several high paying internships and job offers since 2012. These include internship offer from Unilever Asia Headquarters in Singapore (only 21 interns every year), and job offers / interviews from Microsoft, HSBC, VISA, Burger King Asia Headquarters, Centre for Innovative Cities, and about half a dozen start-ups in Australia & Singapore.

All these 3 Hacks are vetted by being on both sides of the process – an employer and an applicant.

 

3 Hacks To Make Your CV Standout

 

Hack # 1: Only The First Page Matters

If you read 100 answers regarding CV’s length on any forum on the internet or ask 100 people around you about how many pages your CV should be, you will always receive 50-50 answers. Half of the people will say that it must be 1 Page, while the rest half will say anything between 2-4 Pages.

I was sitting with two of my friends the other day. They are married to each other, and in the corporate world for the past 7-8 years. I was telling them that I’m writing this post on CV and my first hack is whether a CV should be 1 page or more than that. Almost instantly both of them responded back together – “It should be 1 Page” and “I think 2-3 Pages is optimum”. Then there was a pause… and laughter. All 3 of us realised that CV’s length is one of those topics that even the couples can’t agree on!

Today, I am going to give you a definite answer. Just follow this, and it’s not only going to make your CV stand out in the pile, but will also increase your confidence by taking the confusion out of your head.

 

No matter how many pages your CV is, if you can’t sell yourself within the first page, you are discarded.

More precisely, your second or third page won’t even be looked at if you haven’t qualified for the interview.

When the employers look at the CVs, they only look at the first page. If your first page convinces the employer that you are smart, qualified and suitable for the job, you get an interview call.

It’s only during the interview that the employer will look at your other pages, and ask questions if there’s anything relevant or interesting in there.

 

The mistake most applicants do is that they think that having more pages means that they have more experiences and skills to talk about. So they should definitely write at least 2 pages and spread their information on those 2 pages. That’s suicide!

I want you to have a different mindset from now on. Think like an employer. You have a hundred CVs in front of you. You need to quickly shortlist people who are highly qualified and have relevant work experiences. You won’t be turning to page 2, read through to the third paragraph, and try to find a qualification or a relevant work experience, right? You will be taking a look at the first page only.

So as an applicant, take whatever is important to you, summarize it, and put it on the first page.

Yes, you can still have a second page or even a third page, although not necessary, but know in your head that this extra information will only be looked at during the interview. These could be your volunteer experiences, student society’s experiences, or some projects you want to talk about.

 

Hack # 2: What Comes First: Education or Work Experience?

Now that you know that the first page is the only one that matters, you need to be asking yourself how the first half of the first page should look like?

Before I tell you what comes in here, I need to tell you what you should remove right away if it’s in your CV already.

Remove your passport picture (unless you are Fawad Khan or Priyanka Chopra). Remove your date of birth, address, sex, and every other information related to your biodata.

Basically, the top of your CV should only have 3 things: Your Name, Phone number, and Email address. That’s it.

Not even your Skype ID. Do you think the employer will randomly add you on Skype and call you? No. The employer will ALWAYS either email you or call you on your mobile. Every other piece of information in addition to these 3 pieces is irrelevant, unnecessary, and aesthetically unpleasing.

Once you are done with the header, you are now ready to fill the first half of your first page with either your education details or your work experience.

 

What comes first? 

Your trump card.

Instead of holding your trump card to play it later in the game, you open your CV with your trump card. Your trump card is your biggest achievement. The one that a few other people can compare with.

For instance, if you have several Dean’s Lists, or graduated with a Gold Medal, or a Double Major, or a Perfect GPA, your education can come first.

If on the other hand, you did an exclusive internship at a Multinational giant, such as Facebook, Google, Unilever, Rolls Royce, IBM, Uber, Amazon, etc, then your internship section should come before education.

And lastly, if you are already at a full-time job and your current experience is relevant to the next job that you are applying for, then your Work Experience section comes first.

 

If you are thinking that you neither have good grades, nor an exclusive internship or work experience, then what do you do? The answer is that you choose whatever is YOUR biggest achievement among all your credentials. Maybe the company that you did an internship in isn’t a known brand, but your work scope was such that you have gained invaluable experience through it. Or maybe that your GPA isn’t good enough, but you wrote a paper that was published in a national or an international journal.

Give it a deep thought. What do you think is your achievement or qualification that you can present in a way that it looks like your trump card?

We will go into the details of how to craft your education, internship and work experiences in a way that they stand out from the other 99% of the people, even if your achievements aren’t outstanding at all, in the video program.

For now, let’s move on to the last hack.

 

Hack # 3: Your Name Is Your Brand

This is my personal favourite hack. And it is so because almost no one does it. It operates on the deeper level of human psychology.

Your name is your brand name. And like every great brand, you need to think of what is the name you should use on your CV.

No one said that you have to write your full name. Your CV is not a legal document.

Our minds are programmed to create a certain visual in our heads when we hear or read names. What’s the visual that comes to your head when you hear Mercedes? Something luxurious. What’s the visual that comes to your head when you hear Suzuki? Something cheap or inexpensive.

This is true for human names as well. What’s the visual that comes to your head when you hear Rothschild or Rockefeller? Even if you haven’t read their stories, you know these guys must be rich and influential.

There is one more reason you need to be thoughtful about your name on your CV. All of us and all the employers are subconsciously racist.

Being non-racist takes a conscious effort. And it is rightly encouraged at workplaces. But intuitively, our minds create a certain image of a person when we hear or read their names.

This is even more true when you are from South Asia, and applying for jobs in Australia (or any other western country). Since Australians are not accustomed to traditional Indian, Pakistani, or Sri Lankan names, you need to be mindful of what name you write on your CV.

 

The rule of thumb is that your name should not be more than 2 words long, and each part of the name should be pronounced easily with a maximum of 2 syllables.      

Let me give you 2 examples to make it clear. One is from my male Pakistani friend, and the other from my female Indian friend… and both of them are going to kill me after this!

Name 1: Muhammad Mohsin Hassan

If you are applying for jobs in Australia (or any western country) this is really not the best name you should have, for obvious reasons.

So let’s make it 2 words: Mohsin Hassan

You see the imagery has changed already. Mohsin Hassan is a name that creates a totally different image than Muhammad in the name.

Although Mohsin Hassan is perfectly fine, you can further modify it to: Moh Hassan

Moh Hassan sounds like a very international name and it doesn’t even give the imagery of being from South Asia.

Either of the 2 name suggestions above is fine. Depends on how ‘adventurous’ you want to be with branding.

Name 2: Bhavana Balakrishnan

It’s a beautiful Indian name, but I can bet $100 that you can randomly select 10 Australians, and not even a single one of them will be able to pronounce it properly.

So what do we do? We can play with the surname and shorten it up to just 1 syllable.

Balakrishnan = Krish

The full name becomes: Bhavana Krish

You can see now that Bhavana Krish has a very different brand image than that of Bhavana Balakrishnan.

 

What might look like a small thing to you is being practised at the top-level in every industry. Brad Pitt’s legal name is William Bradley Pitt. And Johnny Depp’s actual name is John Christopher Depp II. There isn’t even a Johnny in there!

Our names are the biggest brands we will be carrying all our lives. It pays to pay some attention to it.

—

 

In the post above, I have given only 3 Hacks to make your CV stand out, and it’s already more than 2000 words! This isn’t even 20% of what I cover in the full video program: Ultimate Resume Makeover

In it, I teach more hacks for Stage 1, but more importantly, we go into the details of Stage 2, that actually gets you the interview call.

Here’s the summary of both the stages again:

Stage 1 – How to get your CV to stand out in the pile so it gets shortlisted into the 10% of the CVs that will be reviewed in detail.

This stage has to do with the aesthetics of your CV. What is the image it creates in the employer’s head in 5 seconds? Does it scream that the person who has created it must be really smart? Is it even beautiful to look at and soothing to skim through? When do you write your GPA and when you don’t?

Stage 2 – How to construct your CV and word it to make your personality, qualifications, and experiences convince the employers that if they do not call you for an interview, they will be missing out on a great candidate.

This stage has to do with how you present your information in your CV. What words you use? How do you make your experiences relevant? How do you construct sentences to give full context? What details you give?

This program if for you:

• Even if you don’t have a lot of work experience
• Even if you are still in 3rd or 4th year of university
• Even if you don’t have accomplishments worth mentioning

Here’s the link to the full online course again: Ultimate Resume Makeover

 

 

He was a 52-year old actor who has performed in 100+ movies over a career spanning 26 years. He was in Melbourne to perform at a theatre. I was one of the many background dancers in his show. He was everything there. I was a no one.

But as we exchanged Facebook, added each other in our contact list, and decided to meet for coffee next week, I calmly walked away giving him room to meet and greet his fans who had come to see him.

He was not the only influential person I connected with in the first 3 months of moving to Melbourne.

I came here on my own. Did not know anyone. After using the first week to settle in, I started a very structured approach to build a network of influential people from scratch.

In the 3 months that followed, I received 3 high-paying job offers, 2 requests for being a co-founder in a start-up, and even a PhD offer at University of Melbourne. 

I also performed part-time gigs at a theatre, in a stadium, and even at corporate events.

All this without asking anyone for a favour, or even sending a CV out.

 

 

In this article, I’m going to deconstruct the exact method and scripts I used to build my network. So you can do the same – irrespective of whether you are in Australia or anywhere in the world.

 

Who are some of the influential people you will be adding in your network?

1) Decision makers in companies, organisations, and government

2) People with influence in digital world through their writing, instgramming, youtubing, etc.

 

For reference, these are some of the influential people I’ve added in my network since coming to Australia:

• Team leads and senior managers in a handful of large companies
• Founders and CEOs of small organisations working in a niche but high paying industries (such as independent consulting)
• Actors, writers, and directors working in theatre in Melbourne
• Singers and dancers with 100K to 1M+ views on their YouTube channels
• Entrepreneurs running 1-3 member start-up teams
• Media influencers – people running online magazines, TV channels, high-traffic blogs, or high-follower social media accounts
• Professor at University of Melbourne conducting research on topic of my interest

With all of the above, I’ve had at least one coffee session to develop deeper connection, and exchanged Email, LinkedIn, Facebook, or Whatsapp to stay in touch when needed.

Some of them are even good friends now, and we often meet-up for a social activity together.

 

Since it’s your network, you are free to choose one or many categories of influential people you want to focus on.

The important question you might be asking yourself, though, is:

Why do I need to have a network of influential people in the first place?

 

We are living in the NETWORK ECONOMY.

The days of submitting random CVs and hoping to get a job, keep giving auditions and hoping to get a breakthrough, and keep publishing content and hoping that the world will somehow magically find you, are over.

If you are reading this post, chances are you have encountered at least one of these situations:

– Sent your CV (after refining it for weeks) to 50-100+ different companies, and got exactly ZERO response. Even worse, someone you know who wasn’t as qualified as you, got a better offer than you because he knew someone in some company.

– Browsed through CraigList, Gumtree, or Facebook groups in desperate need for a part-time job but didn’t get many responses back. The ones who replied offered below average hourly rate. You concluded that life sucks!

– Published videos on YouTube or articles on your blog only to find out that no one is watching or reading them, even when your content is much better than someone else’s who is getting tens of thousands of viewers or readers.

 

The world we live in today has different rules.

Today, if you need an interview for your dream job, you need to have someone in that company recommend you to hiring team.

Today, if you want freelance independent projects or part-time work for side income, you need someone to refer you for the best gigs.

 

Building a network takes some work upfront. But the ROI (return on investment) for your effort is out of the fucking charts!

Moreover, once you develop a small influential network, it will introduce you to more influential people, and before you know it, you will be one of the influential person yourself.

Most people will never invest in building a network because they don’t know how to, or how much time it would take.

Building a network is a lifelong activity as there will always be more influential people than you. Through this blog post, however, I’m giving you hacks and scripts that I’ve used, and now you can use to kickstart your network building by adding at least 10 influential people in your network in the next 30 days.

You will never have to look for jobs and opportunities the common man’s way again!

 

Let’s divide the process into 4 Stages:

1. Mindset: The Subtle Art of Not Asking for Favours
2. Prep: Building your Personal Brand
3. Approach: Taking a Sniper’s Aim
4. Connection: A Coffee to Remember

Stage 1 and 2 need to be done only once at the start.

 

Stage 1 – Mindset: The Subtle Art of Not Asking for Favours

It’s true that your eventual goal of making a network is better opportunities in job, outreach, etc. But you have to ask yourself this first: Why would an influential person help you?

You might think you are so talented that you deserve a chance, but that influential person gets dozens of people asking him for favours every week/month. He is too occupied with affairs in his own life to even think about helping random people who are messaging him.

Moreover, let’s assume he likes your profile. Even then he will be hesitant to recommend you or do you a favour without knowing you because he doesn’t trust you yet.

Now visualise this alternate scenario.

You meet an influential person, and you don’t ask for any favours. And for some magical reason, that person himself offers to recommend you or connect you with someone because he feels that he wants to add value in your life.

 

This might sound too strange for now. In the next 3 stages, we will dive deeper into the ‘magical reason’ and understand how to develop a deeper connection such that you are offered opportunities without you even asking for them.

 

Stage 2 – Prep: Building your Personal Brand

In this stage, I will ask you to develop a small but a killer profile page showcasing your current work / projects / interests.

It can be your LinkedIn profile page as well. Here’s a useful article on creating a killer LinkedIn Profile.

I will, however, recommend having a webpage that showcases you. For example: thirtydayexperiment.com/about

 

Why is this important?

To create an illusion of a personal brand.

Influential people are receptive to meeting people who look like personal brands, instead of everyday common people.

 

If you write an email to an influential person asking her to meet-up over a coffee, and in your email you even describe yourself as best you can, by mentioning that you have 5+ years of experience in XYZ field, you are passionate about XYZ, etc, she will still ignore your email right away.

She receives such emails every week.

On the other hand, if you write her a similar email, but this time you add a link to your webpage or LinkedIn profile, she will open it for 2 seconds and immediately get a subconscious psychological tick that you are ‘personal brand’ with presence online.

She will be much more likely to respond back.

At this stage, it’s fine if you don’t have much meat in your LinkedIn page or webpage, but over time as you increase your network and accumulate more experiences, you must keep adding to your personal brand.

 

Stage 3 – Approach: Taking a Sniper’s Aim

If you read anything on the internet about how to build a network, chances are it will tell you to attend meet-ups in your city, look for events where entrepreneurs gather, or attend a talk by an influential person and then after the talk, try to head-burst your way through the crowd to reach the speaker.

It will also tell you to have a one-minute elevator pitch ready so you can pitch yourself purposefully in that magical minute of contact.

Now, I’m telling you to throw all that advice out of the window!

Not because it doesn’t work. It does… sometimes. That’s the common person’s way of building a network.

You might have heard this proverb before, ‘Hardest place to sell a book is at a bookstore.’

It’s also true in this situation.

Why? Because in each of these situations you are one of the masses.

If you do anything the masses way, then your return on investment of effort and time will be laughable and you will most likely burn out soon.

Mark Twain famously said, “Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect.”

Instead, if you build your network the uncommon way, you will have 70-80% return on investment. Meaning, for every 10 people you reach out to 7-8 people will end up having a meaningful conversation with you.

 

Let me give you examples of 10 ways I use to scan for influential people (take a sniper’s aim).

You can use these and many more.

Examples in Digital World

1) You might be reading a few shared articles on LinkedIn everyday, or following job posts by different people.

Tomorrow when you do, see the name of the writer of that article/post and copy/paste it in your LinkedIn’s search bar to find out who that person is.

2) Your Facebook newsfeed might be showing you posts everyday from current affairs, to tech magazine articles, and anything you are interested in.

When you read any article / post next time, see the name of the person who has written it. Copy/paste it in your Facebook search bar and find out who is it from.

3) You might have subscribed to your local digital newspapers as well (The Herald Sun, etc) and have a few favourite sections to read.

Do a quick Google search to find out the writer of an article you particularly enjoyed.

4) You might be following some Facebook groups in your city that regularly feature profiles of people in your city who have achieved something, such as entrepreneurial ventures, medals, research breakthroughs, etc.

Search these people on Facebook as well.

5) You might be watching YouTube videos everyday, or following some content creator on YouTube.

Click on the uploader’s name and it will take you to his profile where you can message him.

 

Examples in Physical World

6) You might be attending social dance classes in your city.

Greet your fellow dancers and trainers to find out what they do. Some of them might be influential people in their companies / fields, etc.

7) You might be attending sports sessions or yoga classes in your city.

Who are some of the influential people among your fellows?

8) You might be volunteering at an event.

Who runs the organisation you are volunteering for?

9) You might be attending a friend’s birthday party.

Go around the room, greeting people to scan for some potential influential targets.

10) You might be signing up for few networking events.

There’s bound to be some influential people among your audience.

 

These are just some of the situations for reference that I’ve used. You can have many more. 

 

So far we have defined who are the influential people you are going to target, why you need to build your network, and how you can possibly find them.

Let’s now see the exact scripts I use to send a message, or initiate a conversation in a physical encounter.

 

Digital World First-Contact Script

Hey [First Name],

I’ve come across your post/article/video in [name of newspaper / name of Facebook group / LinkedIn / Youtube]. Really inspiring to hear your story/views/opinions on the [mention subject matter]. I’ve particularly resonated with [explain one point further in a sentence].

I’m currently working on XYZ project / living in XYZ city for X number of years. You might have come across some of my work on [topic] / You might have heard of XYZ company where I’m working on ABC project.

I’m writing because I was wondering if you’d be up for a quick coffee sometime this week. My favorite moments are listening to stories of people doing uncommon things / creating an impact.

I would absolutely love it if you can take 30min out of your schedule for a quick coffee meetup. Getting a glimpse about your personality from your post/article/video, I’m sure we’ll have a lot to talk about.

p.s. Here’s a link to overview of my profile / work in 10 seconds: [LinkedIn URL / Webpage / Video URL]

…

What is going on in this script?

Many things. Let’s dissect it.

1) I’ve created a strong reference point by mentioning that I’ve come across the person’s work. This has already made him feel emotionally elevated and receptive to my message. Everybody loves to hear that their name is flying high on the planet internet.

2) By explaining one point further, I’ve differentiated myself from random fans who might be sending generic messages like ‘good work / good post / good video’.

3) In the second para, I’ve created myself as an authority by highlighting my work / project.

Note: Even if you are in a desperate situation, never say things like, “I’m currently unemployed looking for job / I hate my current job, etc”. Influential people only meet people who come across as authority and doing something important. If you aren’t yet, fake it.

4) I’ve declared the reason for meet-up as hearing his stories. How much simpler can it get? This is the most powerful line in the entire script. You never ask for favour, or say that you want to tell them more about you. Instead, you show genuine curiosity in listening to their stories.

Every influential person in the world wants more people to hear his story. Classic human psychology!

5) At the end, I’ve provided a URL that will make me look like a personal brand with a strong presence / profile on the planet internet as well.

 

Physical World First-Contact Script

I’m going to assume here, you’ve already figured out what the person you are going to approach does.

If not, then you’ve to first find that out. Just approach the people you are meeting at dance class, fitness session, university, event, party, etc, and do the general greeting.

Hey, I’m Hassan

Nice to meet you!

What brought you here?

What do you do?

Now you are ready to use the script.

….

Hi, how’s it going so far? I was thinking to myself that it’s not an easy thing to do day-in and day-out that you are doing, I’m amazed how you still keep the energy high.

[Wait for the response]

[Comment on the response] It’s admittedly tough! How many years since you’ve been doing it now?

[Wait for the response]

[Comment] Incredible! I’m just so happy that I bumped into you. These days I’m working on a project / working at a firm, but my favourite activity really is listening to stories of people doing uncommon things / creating an impact.

I was wondering if after this session/event/party/meeting, you’ve got 30 minutes to catch up for a quick coffee? If not, we can always do it later this week, when your schedule allows. I’d absolutely love to hear your stories. It will not just make my day, it will make my year.

[Exchange Facebook, Email, Number, or LinkedIn]

…

Now, what’s going on in this script?

Somethings are similar to the previous script, i.e, not asking for any favour, instead focusing on hearing stories.

Let’s dissect what’s different.

1) Common people on approaching influential people, start acting as fans and idealising the influential person. Instead, when you will approach and say the first line in the script, you will empathise with them making them feel human and understood.

In the same sentence, you will also give their self-esteem a little boost with an uncommon compliment that no one else focuses on.

Very rarely influential people are approached by random people who seem to understand that it’s a tough job that they are doing; one that requires a lot of effort day-in and day-out.

2) You also create a spontaneity element by mentioning that you bumped into them. This keeps their psychological wall of defence low.

3) Don’t stop by asking for a coffee meet-up. That would give them a chance to say, ‘Oh, I’m busy after this’. Instead, in the same breadth, mention that ‘we can schedule it later this week’. This leaves them with no room to say NO.

It’s extremely hard for people to say NO to someone straight in the face. I’ve never received a straight NO, and I’ve been in such situations a gazillion times.

 

Stage 4 – Connection: A Coffee to Remember

Congratulations! You’ve already reached this stage. There is no script here, just enjoy your coffee with your new influential contact.

I will just say one thing though.

Don’t try to pitch yourself up front or start asking for favours. Instead, focus on asking questions out of genuine curiosity about their lives, work, and interests.

However, when hearing their answers, you will often feel that you have a similar experience, interest, or thought that you want to share. That is when you speak about yourself in between the conversation.

Moreover, like every normal conversation, they will also ask you about your life, interests, and plans. That’s when you tell them more about you.

By now they already like you, and most often they will offer assistance, advise, and even volunteer to connect you or refer you to someone.

 

You see what has happened here? Instead of you reaching out to people and begging to get a referral or an opportunity, influential people are offering you referrals and opportunities without you even asking.

And here’s the best part. In doing a favour to you, they will feel good about themselves as they have been able to help a young passionate person like you.

Talk about WIN-WIN!

 

What happens if during the coffee meet-up, they don’t offer you assistance or opportunity?

Don’t fret. You have successfully built a deeper connection. Now you can always email or message them a week later, mentioning that you are looking for XYZ role / performance opportunity, etc, and would love it if they can be of any assistance.

Since they feel like a mentor to you now, they will be more than willing to do what they can.

 

In this post, I’ve dissected the entire process in detail and it might look overwhelming at a glance.

Over time, these steps will become second nature to you and you won’t even be thinking about them in separate stages.

Also, once you have a network of about 10 influential people, you will start to feel a snowball effect in your life.

Your existing network will start introducing you to more influential people.

You will start feeling that opportunities are coming to you, rather than you reaching out to them. That is a beautiful state to be in.

 

Once you get a great opportunity, or even when you add the first influential person in your network using this uncommon process, do write me an email at hassan@australiayours.com sharing your story.

You know by now how much I love listening to stories 😃

For Live Q&A regarding CDR, IELTS, Jobs, and staying up to date with new awesome blog posts: Follow AustraliaYours on Facebook

 

CALL TO ACTION

In this FREE Ultimate Guide, I’ve detailed Step-by-Step process in easy words that I did to apply and get my Australian PR.