Engineers, Apply to Jobs You Want…Not Just the Ones You Think You are Qualified For!

Intro

If you’ve been reading my articles on creating a sales and marketing mindset for going after jobs, which would include writing resumes and cover letters, you would know that the goal of making these documents is to use them as sales and marketing tools for the selling and marketing of multiple products. You would also know that the products you are selling, ultimately, represent your expertise, leadership/management abilities, experiences, etc. If you need to catch up on this philosophy, check out my articles on The Robert Kiyosaki, “Rich Dad Poor Dad,” Sales and Marketing Mindset for Success and The Sales and Marketing Mindset to Job Hunting to get up to speed.

In my article on How to Create Marketable Content for Your Resume, I state that focusing on content creation to capture your audience’s attention is the most important, and easily the hardest, thing you can do in the game of creating a marketable resume designed for success. Once you’ve dedicated the time to generating marketable, attention grabbing content for your resume, you will have a lot more leeway in how you present it, and can really apply mythbusting and stereotype breaking techniques to creating it. Let’s see how you can apply stereotype breaking techniques to busting the myth of only applying to jobs you think you are qualified for! 

The Myth of Only Applying to Jobs You Think You are Qualified For

This may be the biggest myth of them all. Just because you are a junior level engineer, it doesn’t mean that you can’t, or shouldn’t, apply to higher level jobs. If you fit many of the requirements of what the company is looking for, and show that you have potential, then it is very likely they would bring you in at the appropriate level, and change the requirements/expectations as necessary. The opposite of this is also true: you can be a higher level engineer, and apply to lower level positions. As a matter of fact, I did this THREE TIMES in 2020, and guess what…I used my three page resume to land all three jobs. Continue on to the next section to find out how I did this.

To give you some background on the previous section, I was looking for a slight career change in 2020, and put myself in the job market to find my ideal job. I was then, and at the time of writing this article, am still a level 3 engineer at Northrop Grumman Corporation (NGC); however, on multiple occasions in 2020, I applied to jobs that would likely be considered a level 1 or level 2 position. Why did I do this? To clarify, I also applied to my current level (3) and higher positions, but because I was very focused on a specific target market, I applied to all jobs in that market, which included positions at a lower level than my current level.

Throughout 2020, I ended up interviewing for multiple positions, and I received multiple offers. Three of the offers I received were for jobs I applied to that were at the level 1 or level 2 position. On all three of those occasions, I was offered to be brought in at the level 3 or level 4 position, along with appropriate pay and responsibilities. The best part about this is that there was no hesitation from the managers that this would occur, and this is one of the reasons for telling you this story. You never really know what a company actually needs, what else they might be looking for despite what their external job site says, what they can do in terms of making jobs for individuals they want to bring in, if they are in a desperate position, etc. The opportunity I ended up taking happened to be an internal position I applied to within NGC. The other reason for telling you this story is to show you shouldn’t consider yourself to be “over or underqualified” for a position that you really want. 

I was looking for a very specific position with very specific requirements, and was not willing to settle. Although I had a certain salary threshold that I was looking to meet/surpass, the pay was ultimately secondary to getting the kind of job I really wanted, working with a team I felt I would enjoy working with and learning from; I ended up getting exactly what I wanted from all of these perspectives. If you don’t go after what you want, you will never get it, especially if you never try. As the famous Wayne Gretzky quote goes, “You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.” Everything is a negotiation, and the worst thing that the other end of the negotiating table can say is “no.” Bottom line…go for what you want!

For more resume building tips and tricks, check out my articles in the Mythbusting Techniques for Creating and Using Engineering Resumes section of my website. Also, check out my very own engineering resumes that you can tailor, and start sending to employers immediately.