In our grandparents’ day and age, if you graduated high school you were basically guaranteed a job for the rest of your working career; with our parents’ generation, the same applied to university. But what about us? With higher education becoming the norm, and most jobs expecting a university degree and not to mention the years of work experience to even be considered, you might be struggling with a fear of getting lost in the crowd.
To help, we have compiled a list of ways to help you stand out from the crowd as a professional:
1. Find something you are truly passionate about:
As the old saying goes, you will never work a day in your life, if you love what you do. Today, this is more true than ever! Therefore, don’t see your job as a way of making money, see it as a rewarding hobby. Find what you love doing and pursue that. In all job applications and pursuits, being truly passionate about what you want to do will help you stand out amongst the crowd.
2. Create a captivating CV:
A job application always starts with sending a company a summary of yourself, both from a personal and professional perspective. This needs to be clean, concise and informative, but at the same time make you stand out from the competition. You want to make sure to highlight the important skills and experiences you have and cater these to each different application. A simple layout is often key to clearly communicating your personality and experience. Stick to a 1 page CV, as this is more than enough to show a company who you are. Focus on including a professional photograph, and a short summary of yourself. If you are not a pro at design, that is okay! Various pre-made CV templates can be found online, in which you can fill in your information and customize them to your heart's content.
3. Find your voice:
It can be difficult to find your own voice in a world where everyone seems to have something new and interesting to share. Don’t compare yourself to others and don’t let what you see online or on social media influence your confidence. People only share the best parts of themselves online, and often a lot of what you see is not the whole truth. Therefore, don’t feel the pressure to be someone you are not, just because of what you see others doing, if it does not resonate with yourself. It is easy to become another sheep in a massive herd, but it is a lot harder, but more rewarding to stand up and be yourself. Reflect on who you are, what you enjoy and who you want to be, and go from there. People prefer honesty and transparency, and can often see from a mile away if you are pretending to be someone you are not. Being authentic, finding your own voice, and not being afraid to speak up even if your opinion is different to the crowd’s, will definitely help you stand out and be remembered.
4. Focus on self development:
As the world around us continues to rapidly change, in order to keep up, we need to focus on developing and honing our skills and attaining new ones. Work on improving your current skills or find new ones to learn. Whether this is through learning a new language or learning how to code, the possibilities are endless. Reflect and review your current skills and look at where you want to be. If these do not match, work towards attaining your goals. You will stand out from the crowd by being self aware and well rounded.
Now that we have shared the best tips for standing out of the crowd, how about taking on a new challenge and focusing on your self development within one of our placements? Find paid work in the USA through the j1 visa! Click here to apply
