237: How to Break Into a Highly Competitive Job

0:00If we've been your job search besties and helped you in some way, there's a cool way you can support the show. Shout us a virtual coffee. We get a huge kick out of reading all of your success stories. Head to binyacoffee.com, forward slash interview boss, and shout us a cuppa. If you keep us caffeinated, we can keep the content coming. You've got that many applicants. Probably everyone is qualified. Like all of the people that they brought to that assessment day, all of those 180 are qualified for the role. Hey everyone and welcome back to interview boss. My name is Emma. I'm a radio journalist who's teamed up with my sister to give you advice, inspiration, and support when you're looking for a new job. Sarah is a HR and recruitment professional and together we're excited to give you all the tips, tricks, and behind the scenes knowledge to help you in your career. Hey, Emma and welcome back everyone.

1:01We are always telling you guys to shoot your shot so at the beginning of every episode, we tell you about a listener who's done exactly that. This app was shouting out Derby who bought us five coffees. She said, Google and tell us about yourself became the resource I never expected while navigating this interview process. That led me to best bits, interviewing for an internal position, applying for my first manager role, making a presentation, anything that I experienced in this process so far, Y'all had an episode for me to listen to. The only thing I couldn't find was something about full day interviews. I just went from 8.30am to 3.30pm. Phew, but I still had Y'all with me as I listened right before and right after. I was already on my way to get my treat with my family and I cracked up when I received Y'all's confirmation. It sounds wrong to read out Y'all in an Aussie accent. I know. I'm going to start putting it on from here on out.

2:01How are you going to say it? From the bottom of my heart, thank you. Y'all were the push I needed to become normal. No, no, no. You need to do a more casual, like Y'all, just like breeze past. It needs to be like, it's not even a big thing. Y'all were the push I needed to be comfortable bringing in notes. Even if I didn't reference my written best bits a lot throughout the day today, the process of writing them out had them top of mind. I ended up with 59 best bits to play with. I came to the table with a master's degree for this doctorate preferred position, but I met every other qualification and had experienced a backup, every piece of the job description. So I was confident that I would get my shot. I was debating on whether I should wait to share until I hear back, but that doesn't matter. I left that interview today with no regrets. I laid the best of myself out there and there's nothing else to do. Y'all's impact isn't in whether I get the job or not. You helped me have the best possible experience I could throughout these interviews.

3:06Thank you. Oh my God, I'm obsessed with that. That's so good. That's so true because we cannot guarantee that anyone gets the job and neither can the interviewers. They don't even know as soon as one person walks out whether they'll get the job or not. They might think, I hear we really, really liked that person. And then suddenly the next person is completely different and they have to compare. But making sure, hey, I did myself justice. I did a good job. But my interview skills didn't get in the way. I was prepared. I felt confident. I think if you're starting out, you haven't had an interview in a really long time. You're so nervous, you're prepping, you're dreading it. It can be hard to believe this until you experience it. When you actually experience for the first time, when you come out of there and go, you know what? I don't even care if I don't get that because I did so well. It is an unmatched feeling. And once you feel it, you will understand the power in it. It's the best feeling ever. Absolutely. I think that is incredible. 59 best bits.

4:06That is a lot. I don't think everyone should have that many best bits because maybe that could get overwhelming. But that's a whole lot of work. So Darby really put in the hours here, I can tell. That is one qualified cowgirl. Y'all. Y'all, it's just not in Elvenaculac. It's so hard to say. Y'all. I think I was pronouncing the L's too much. They kind of go like, Y-A-R, like Y'all. You don't really pronounce the L. Y'all. Y'all. I don't know. That's a bit piratish. I think it's just the A is different. It's too hard. It's just, you know, we have to, I have to butcher it. You're a bad American. It's great. Also, we debated and had to Google. The Yols were a good clue because if Derby was English, then probably her name would be Darby. Yes. In Australia, when they say there's a big local Darby between the two football teams, it's spelled Derby, but it's pronounced Darby. And I didn't know if that applied here, so we had to do some googling, but we landed on

5:09Derby because of the Yols clue. Yes. Anyway, before we get into this episode, if you need more help than we can fit in a podcast, go check out our website for free templates, coaching services, and our interview academy. This week, Sarah, we are talking about targeting a really tough to land job. These are kind of like the dream jobs that people might say. They might have put them on a pedestal as well, but also they're really tough to land for particular reasons. Maybe there's literally only one employer that hires for this kind of job. Often, they're the types of things where recruitment happens in batches, so like they don't even really hire experienced people, like they're bringing people in to all train you together, so it might be once a year. It might even be less than once a year or only sporadically. Maybe there's only one way into this career. Maybe there's very limited or only one employer in your area. And there's a few different types of jobs that can be like this. One of the ones that I see that has come up before in coaching sessions is like a medical

6:12program where you're wanting to do like a residency or get accepted into a theme. Like everyone's got similar qualifications, but you have to be accepted in order to then do this specialisation that you want to do. It could be working for airlines, like working as a flight attendant, after coaching sessions for people going into that line of work. A really big one, popular with more men, I haven't done any coaching sessions for women trying to get into this space, but fire and rescue. Such a big like career change kind of thing that someone wants to get into. Often depending on where you live, there's only one opportunity to kind of make that career change. There's a big recruitment process. It's really competitive. It seems to be similar around the world as well. Same with conservation and like ranges and parks and things like that. National parks and wildlife service. Yes. Yes. And all these ones that we've listed so far, it's not like you can go and work somewhere else. Like this is the way in and it might be really, really competitive and it might be once a year as a process. There's other things like air traffic control, intelligence agencies, maybe even government

7:17graduate programs or other government type programs, maybe like a wildlife role or anything that's like people want it and it's super competitive. But it could also just be anything else. So we're going to talk about some examples during this episode, but I want you to try and think about how this advice applies to your particular job that you've got in mind. You're really tough to land role because I think all this advice is relevant for all these different industries and more. You just have to think about what does that mean for me in my situation. And some might not be relevant, but take it or leave it and apply it to you. Yes. I'm just inspired from our listener Rose who wrote in with this conundrum. She said, I just wanted to say I've loved listening to your podcast. I wish I found you both earlier. I'm a high school teacher who's been trying and hoping to make a career change into an international cabin crew role. I'm based in Sydney and there is only one company in Australia that offers this role. I'm finding this recruitment process absolutely bonkers.

8:20They very rarely recruit and after a long wait, I applied and made it out of five thousand applicants to the assessment day. 180 people and they only selected 40. I wasn't one of them rocked my world. I mid 40s and met all the requirements and thought I had it in the bag. I wish I had listened to your assessment day and best bits episodes before. They also asked a double pronged, ridiculous question in the one-on-one interview and I felt so much better after listening to your perspective on this, confirming what I thought, unfair and unnecessary. My fear now is that it will be years before they even advertise again. I'm going to prepare my best bits and be ready if there is a next time. If you have any tips for this particular company, I would be all ears. It seems to be quite niche in how they recruit. The assessment day is around Robin. One group goes into one-on-one interviews. The others in a comprehension writing test, one does paperwork, etc.

9:20Most of the interviewers are cabin crew managers and or in HR or even just admin roles. Kind of rogue. I feel like I would do better if I had prompts for my best bits in notes so I don't blank. But also think they may think it's not acceptable. Anyway, long rant over, it's my dream job and I can't quite take it off the pedestal as there's only one of them, but I'll keep trying. This is what kind of got me thinking about this because as Rose was talking about the way that they recruit and the fact that there's only one and you just don't know when applications are going to open again, it got me thinking this stuff's not just relevant for cabin crew because in different locations around the world there might be more than one company that high has for cabin crew in your particular area. But there's lots of other types of jobs that are exactly like this where what else do you do but wait for next time? There are no other options. You missed out this round. You missed out this round. You've got to wait until the next round. So I thought we would do a bit of an episode and go through some of our advice.

10:22Now I think the very first thing to recognize is that how good she did. She got whittled down from 5,000 applicants to the final 180 and they only select 40. That's so, so impressive. It is. It is a huge deal to make it to where you made it to. And also you've already got part of the process down. Like you already had a good enough application to make it in person, which is awesome because the application part can be one of the hardest steps because you don't get any feedback or you don't even know where you landed or whatever. But you have information about, okay, what I did was enough to get me to the next stage. That's great to know. One of the things that's helpful before we go into the rest of it though is that when you've got that many applicants, probably everyone is qualified. Like all of the people that they brought to that assessment day, all of those 180 are qualified for the role, I would say, and probably more than that too. And so if it's popular and desirable, other people are dedicating their career

11:24to making themselves as high-rebel as possible. Maybe there are even people who've applied for this two, three, four times and they've gotten through various different rounds before and they're training and practicing and getting better each time. It's really, really, really common when you talk to people who've applied for these types of roles where they're like, this is my third attempt. The first time I got through to the assessment day, failed straight away the second time, I got through to the one-on-one round, and then I missed it there. And now this time, I'm aiming to obviously get the offer. But to go through three times, really normal. I don't know if that's normal in specifically Rosa's case, maybe nobody applies twice. But typically with this kind of, you know, this is my dream job, it's really competitive type thing. It's really normal to need to go through it a couple of times before you get through. Yeah, the bar is quite high in that everyone could do the job and is qualified at the minimum level, but maybe there are advanced candidates who've done way more bonus stuff.

12:24Or they've really practiced in going through the assessment centre. And so they've done it a couple of times, they know what to expect. So they're not going to get as tripped up by the questions or they understand it a bit better now. They've done more prep than last time. The first time they maybe just had no clue what they were walking into, like Rose. She kind of said, I wish I'd found your episodes about that because she maybe went in having never done anything like this before. It can be really hard to perform at your best when you don't even know what you're walking into. Now, the example I wanted to give for this is a government grad programme. So I imagine that this is probably the case in lots of other countries. But governments obviously, you know, hire a lot of public servants, typically have graduate programmes in all their different departments as well. And typically those graduate programmes, you know, hire people straight out of university. Some people might have postgraduate degrees. Some people might have a little bit of work experience in between. But mostly they're, you know, coming straight from their degree into a grad programme. Normal, right? The foreign affairs graduate programme though, used to have people who were mostly three or four years older

13:25than the rest of the people in the graduate programmes. Because they'd done another graduate programme and then applied for this one. They had targeted specific work experience and then applied for this one. They'd applied for this grad programme three times in a row and got in on their third go. And so they were coming into it with way more years experience and real little older. Which is crazy for the other people because it's advertised as a grad programme. And then you're going in somewhat entry level. And then there's someone else that's way older and got way more experience. But I guess that's just the name of trying to get in. But this is like if you didn't have your heart set on going into foreign affairs, then yeah, you should apply for all the other things that aren't as competitive and yeah. But I know it seems like on the surface it's unfair. But if you're doing the hiring and you get all these people applying and some of the most way super-experienced, you only want the person who wants to dedicate their life to the cause. And also who can come in at a higher level as well. Like they tended to pay more as well. Like there were all these other things related to it.

14:27It also demands a lot more from you. You kind of have to have your mindset on like, yep, I'm willing to work overseas like this whole life that comes with that. But it kind of comes from like the demand for that role and how excited people are to apply for it. Kind of leads to the expectation getting higher and higher and higher because if people come with three years, four years and they're comparing all the candidates, they're going to hire those people and then that just kind of becomes the standard. So I just wanted to throw it in there not to make it sound intimidating or scary. But just to kind of normalize the idea that you might get in on your third go or your fourth or your second. Leveling up your job interview skills is the kind of thing that will pay off for the rest of your career. When you prep properly, it's something you can use over and over and over again. Think promotions, unexpected layoffs, and when you're ready for your next move in a few years. Enter our course, interview academy. It's a clear, easy to follow interview prep structure.

15:27Everyone loves the cheat sheet. Feeling in each box is super satisfying and helps you focus on the important thinking, not the process. Find out whether it's right for you, interviewboss.com.au forward slash interview dash academy, the link will be below. Yep, it's renowned in lots of fields, including medicine. People sit the med exam so many times, gam sat. If anyone from Australia has that trauma, so sorry. I had a best friend that went through that and just watching it from the outside. I was like, this is insane. It's expected that you don't get into a year in your late 30s, almost. Crazy. And I've spoken to people who've gone through fire and rescue kind of programs, two, three, four years in a row. I've spoken to people who have gone through, yeah, applying for a nithetist program a couple of times. And this was their next go and they're like, this is the last time I'm doing it. Like, if I don't get in this time, it's not going to happen. It's really common. And if you've never ever heard anyone say that before,

16:30you didn't even know that that was a thing. I just thought I'd put that out there. Our next tip is to learn as much as you can about the company and the role. So can you find online communities, Facebook groups of people going through the same thing, find someone who's already doing that role, reach out for a coffee chat, get a bit of camaraderie about their journey, you know, follow that company on all the different platforms, sign up for every single alert, just absorb all the information you can. It will give you more clues into their company, into what they look for, and might give you an advantage. Yep. Read everything you can find out about the role and the hiring process and have all your stuff ready as well. So that when you hear you get an alert, like you get an email to say, hey, this job's just popped up again. It's back that you know straight away. And also your stuff, your application is kind of ready to go. Yes. Also, fresh after you've come out of there, you should do a brain dump and debrief your experience.

17:30So write absolutely everything down. Remember every question that they asked you, every stage of the assessment, you know, who was running it, what surprised you, what you felt like you nailed, what task they gave you, where you panicked, where you went blank, you had three minutes to speak, any other candidates that you noticed doing well, what made them do well, just literally brain dump everything. And I would argue that if your job hunting, I am a fan of doing this in general after any interview, because if you're going for the same kind of jobs, especially if they're like public service or where it's very similar types, or types of interviews, it's so good to form your basis of the kind of questions that often pop up in these types of interviews that directly relate to the type of job you're going for. And a week later, or even if you wait a couple of months and you've got another interview, you can never remember quite like you can instantly when you come out. So definitely do a big brain dump. And I think, you know, we recommend that in our after the interview.

18:33I'm sure we talk about making notes and things about the questions they ask you. If you're applying for different types of stuff, I don't want you to hyper focus on exactly what they ask you, because what if the next interview or the next company is totally different? Like, I don't want you to go off on the wrong foot there, really great to write it down and make sure you don't, you know, not have anything for that answer again. But in this case, it's the same process. They might not use all the exact same questions, but those are really, really strong clues, where I've heard people say, okay, well, they always ask something about safety, and they always ask something about, you know, a situation. And normally it's to do with working with colleagues. And then there's normally three or four behavioral type questions about XYZ. Like, when you know that that's kind of the format, how helpful is that for your prep? Like, you can really whittle down what are my best bits, what are my things, what do I think I'm going to hear? Oh, yeah, they normally ask this question. Are they always double prong us? I'm at least prepared for that, even though it sucks. I've got my notebook ready to write down what the two bits were so that I don't get, you know, I don't answer one and forget the other part.

19:34The more prepped you can be, the better. Definitely. Now, decide in advance what you're willing to trade for the dream. How much are you willing to change and alter your life for this? So if this really is your absolute dream, if we go to Rosa's situation where she's currently a teacher, is she willing to quit being a teacher right now and find a new job that is like a cabin crew, cousin role that's a bit more aligned, move overseas where, you know, there's more than one job opening each year. Or, yeah, take a pay cart. Like, you have to be honest with yourself to go, is there anything more I could be doing to get myself closer to where I want to be? And if there is, am I willing to do it? And at what point? Yes. We might do a different job for a few years to get me the chance. Or am I not willing to do that? Do I just want to go straight into this? And it's okay to say no to all those things. I just think it's helpful to have that conversation with yourself upfront of,

20:36like, what does this actually look like? Like, if it's not this one company that's in Australia, well, is it a non-international cabin crew? Or is that not, but that doesn't work? It has to be international or nothing. Get really honest with, like, what are we giving up here? Is this like, I'm going to do whatever I can to get this role? Or am I not relocating? And if it doesn't work out, or come up with something else? And the reason that that is really important, you touched on it, it's because there might be things that you can do to help you get closer next time. Now, you can apply with the exact same background, similar experience, but you've just more prepared in terms of the interview. And that could work next year. You don't always have to be doing more and more and getting more experience and, like, thinking of the next thing. But if it wasn't enough last time, it might also not be enough next time. There is always that chance. If you, like, hardcore on going, I'm going to do everything I can, and there's a few things I'm willing to change about my life or sacrifice, cool, well, then there's maybe more options that you have.

21:36Maybe you could work in a similar industry. Like, maybe Rose could work for, like, you know, she could be ground crew or she could work in airport operations or something like that. Trains, planes, cousins, buses. Other types of transport. Maybe she could work in a safety-related type industry. Because I know there's a lot of, you know, safety focus in cabin crew kind of roles. Yeah. Mining safety. Like, there's a bunch more things that would get her just, like, that one step closer. Lollipop lady crossing. Yeah. Maybe crossing. Absolutely. Maybe working on a construction site. I don't know. Like, getting you one step closer, even a casual gig or some kind of experience could really help, but maybe that's not something you're willing to do. And that's okay. I just think once you work out what you are willing to do, then you can look at some options. Hear me out. She should work at a fishing and boat paraphernalia store with life jackets. Because they always tell us that we have to put out their demonstrator. Use the life jackets. She's like, I've been demonstrating life jackets.

22:38I sell them all the time. Just you wait until you see my life jacket demonstration. It's the best you've ever seen. You know what else she could do? Do a quick side quest into being a conductor at an orchestra. Because the people on the plains point where your exit rose. I was going to say an Aasha directing people to their seats just down there on your left. Like, we're obviously being a bit tongue in cheek here. But that's the kind of way that we're brainstorming and thinking. Like, what are the things that get me closer to this type of work? Because we know that probably with these types of really tough to get roles. You're not going to be able to do the exact same thing as that role. To get direct experience as cabin crew to help you get the cabin crew. But maybe she could get domestic cabin crew experience. If that's something she's open to, I bet people from domestic cabin crew apply for international for sure. Yeah. And is it fair to say I knew a guy who applied for fire and rescue and was missed out a couple of times in a row?

23:38And he kind of was under the impression whether he'd been directly told this or otherwise, that they actually want more life experience. Sometimes when you're young and I don't know, maybe you haven't done that much. So even sometimes it might not be like, oh, go and do this course or climb this career ladder. Just like simply being older or having done different life things. Go pursue something else and then come back to it later. Yeah. It's going to be a little bit different with every type of this role. Look at the pathways that other people have taken to get there if you can. Like if there's people on LinkedIn you can look up. If there's people making videos about it, like I've definitely seen just in the cabin crew kind of area. I've definitely seen people who talk about on TikTok. He's how I got my role at this and he's what my career looked like and whatever. Typically they don't work in the industry anymore because sometimes they wouldn't be allowed to make that content if they still worked in that space. But that can be helpful just to learn from like, what did they do first? Who did they work for first? Did they talk about, oh, well, yeah, I tend to find that the new starters that they hired

24:40were always from this type of background or this was really helpful or hospitality experience was really useful or something like that. I think looking for the patterns and the indicators from people, if you do know anyone, if you can get a friend of a friend of your mum's dog walker's sister who used to work in the industry, find out how to speak to them. Get their number, call them, ask them, hey, what do you think is the way to go? What's the advice? What have you heard? Because I bet that person who said, are they tend to hire people who have more life experience? Was talking to someone who'd worked in the area and was like, oh, look, they don't bring on that many young people. So it tends to be people who've come from other careers. Why don't you try again in five years and go do something else instead? Yeah. And Rose could think about applying for a company outside of Sydney, even outside the country. Look, and maybe that's not an option for her. Fully understand if that's not the case, but the goal doesn't have to be, okay, now I'm international, you know, cabin crew, your goal can still be to come back and work in Sydney in Australia.

25:42But maybe that's a longer-term view. Maybe that's your five, six-year plan as opposed to your one or two-year plan. Yeah, definitely. And lastly, work out a backup plan. This can be tough to think about. And it can be really horrible being in limbo mode where you feel like life's on hold until you reach this goal, this thing you want. Life's just passing you by until you get to another opportunity to possibly land it. So you have to be honest with yourself and think, how many more times can I withstand this? How many more times will I apply? Maybe there's a number where you're like, hey, when I get to 50 years old, I'm done with that. Or maybe it's two more years or two more windows of applications, however frequent that is, decide what your limit is. And if you're working in a career that you don't love, currently, are you going to stay there whilst you're trying to make this pursuit? Are you like, yeah, look, I don't love it, but I like it enough for just to keep doing it while I'm, you know, trying to do this for the next couple of years.

26:45Or do you have to get out of where you are while you're working towards this next thing anyway? Is that part of the equation as well? Yeah, definitely. So a lot to think about. I think we have definitely helped out Rose and any other people that come after her about some good things to think about. Yeah, I hope we've got your mind ticking. My vision for this episode is you're out there thinking of your particular industry. Plenty of the stuff that we mentioned might not be relevant for you, but hopefully us discussing it has had you say, oh, I could actually do this or I could look up this or that industry might be good to get me experience to help me get there. Great. All of that is you know more about your industry than what we do, probably. I always think, like, bless some of our listeners for thinking that we are so wise. And like, wise beyond what we actually are to say, what do you know about this particular company in this country? Like nothing, nothing. I don't know anything about that company and how they like, I'm not sure. You would know more than me on what exactly they do.

27:47I can tell you what strategies you can take to learn more, but you and the people who are already in there are going to know better about exactly what the right way you is. You've just got to start working it out and there are plenty of people who get in second time, third time, fourth time. Some people even get in the first time. It can be done. Don't give up. Unless, yeah, decide when you want to give up. Don't give up unless you really want to. Godspeed. Don't give up, but maybe do give up. Maybe that's the best thing for you. Thanks for listening to interview boss. If you want to request an episode on your specific conundrum or industry, send us the details. Email us, slide into our DMs. But if you DMs on Instagram and you're not already following, Emma won't be happy and she might judge you. I really will. We believe in paying it forward, so if we've helped you, spread the word. You know the drill. Follow, review, find us on Instagram, linked in, click all the buttons.

28:48It all helps or go the old school way and tell someone else about the show. And can you believe we started interview boss in 2021? Not really. It's insane. That's a lot of episodes and a lot of hours of talking. Oh my gosh, it is. And if you're scrolling through all of our episodes, you might scroll straight past something that you really, really needed. Yes, we're always getting messages from people asking us to do an episode on something. And I'm like, we already have. So we've put together playlists to help you find the episodes that are exactly what you need suited to your situation. They're all categorized. If you're applying for jobs, we have episodes about resumes, cover letters, job ads. If you've been offered your dream job, we have episodes on resigning, exit interviews, and how to impress at your new company. And we even have a very special playlist that's very popular.

29:50If you have an interview coming up immediately and you need just our most recommended hard-hitting episodes between now and then, for all our last minute listeners, it's all there for you. You can browse by category and check out all the playlists at interviewboss.com.au forward slash podcast.