How to make your job application irresistible

Recently, I put out a call for a technical writer with 3-5 years of technical writing experience. I received over 200 applications in response. More than a month later, I'm still struggling to fill the position. Sadly, among the 200 applications, not one jumps out and screams, "Here I am. Talk to me."

Applying for a job is akin to trying to find a long-term partner through a dating app. You want to tell a compelling story to get the person interested in giving you a first date. While the app lets you create a profile, it is not sufficient. You must expect that any prospective partner is going to look you up on other social media sites. So you put just the salient points in the dating app and let the other social media apps fill in the gaps. For instance, studies have shown that animal lovers stand a better chance of getting a hit. So you might think it is a good idea to put that one pic you with your friend's dog on your profile. But if there are no more pics of you with the dog on Instagram or Facebook, you've broken the illusion.

In the same way, every job application should have three components.

Resume

Look at this as the introduction you put on the dating app. It must be a preview to the kind of person you are without being long and tedious. Focus on the roles you had earlier that align most with the role you are applying for. Let them know that you've been there before. Don't let your resume be a list of jobs and tasks.

Three different people, but there is almost nothing to tell them apart. Any technical writer with any sort of experience would have a similar profile. If you were given these resumes without the dates of their employment, it would be impossible to guess their total experience.

Your resume is your calling card - such a cliche, isn't it? But it is a cliche because it's true. Your resume should be screaming out to the reader to call you in to have a conversation. For that to happen, there must be context. Here's what's missing in these profiles.

• What sort of product did you document for?

• What was the impact of your documentation?

• Did you add any value to the team, product, or company?

Your resume must be a story but not a novel. Like a good Economics graph, it should show enough without being revealing. The focus should be on how you fit the role on hand.

What it should not be is a list of activities you performed in various roles.

LinkedIn profile

This is where you complete the story you started in your resume. Expect that the recruiting manager will visit your LinkedIn page. Here she should find details about all your previous roles. Your posts, likes, and shares will give her an idea about the kind of person you are. Sadly, LinkedIn is going the route of Facebook. But you don't need to follow the trend. Keep your LinkedIn page professional. This means professional posts, professional likes, professional comments, and professional reposts.

Use the different sections in LinkedIn to fill in the information that you left out from your resume. For instance, keep detailed information about projects in which you were involved. On most profiles, this section is almost always empty.

Portfolio

When we are in a job, it is easy to forget that we will have to search for another in the future. Don't forget that today's work is tomorrow's portfolio. Save anything that you did that was particularly good to a personal drive. If there are security or PPI concerns, make it generic. You must be able to share samples of your work with prospective employers. If it's difficult to get samples of actual work, build a portfolio for yourself. Write articles on features in your phone, television, computer, motorcycle, mixie-grinder.

Blog

This is more a good-to-have than a must-have. There is no better way to demonstrate your "passion for writing" than having a blog where you publish regularly. Apart from showing that you enjoy writing, it also improves your writing. The more you write, the better you get at it.

Remember a recruiter is as desperate to hire you as you are to join. As a recruiting manager, I assure you that I am always under tremendous pressure to close a role. Failing to do so could mean I lose the headcount. No manager wants that.

Give me a reason to recruit you.