"You're hired!"

Hello again, my friend,

For the first time, I promoted this newsletter on LinkedIn, and my first post seen by 13,000 people (which is a lot for me). Why did people on LinkedIn care? Because I’m sharing how to get a new job, and crush your first 90 days.

By the end of this post, you’ll be crystal clear on what works in today’s economy (including what I’ve done myself), the differences between good and bad candidates, and what most people get wrong.

Now, to be fair, every company is different. It’s possible what’s worked for me my entire career (and what our team prioritizes at beehiiv) may not apply to you. I'll address those cases below.

Take my current role, for example. beehiiv was the first company I reached out to in my search. I’d never worked in the software industry, nor done the job I offered to do (there was no posting, I just offered to do the work). But I put an email together and sent it anyway.

I had an offer for a part-time gig in about a week, and that turned into a full-time role in about two weeks.

If there’s one thing I’ve always done well, it’s landing a job out of nowhere after taking terrible risks. I always say things just "worked out somehow," but that's not completely accurate. I've always downplayed my approach and the thought that goes into this. Not anymore. Now I'm sharing it with you.

It works. I believe it can work for you. This post is everything I have to share on landing a job. I really hope it helps.

Originally, it was one post in two parts, but this was long enough that I had to split them into two. This week will cover the getting job, and next week will cover the first 90 days.

I’ve never been more fired up to write to you, and I appreciate you reading.

Let’s lock in.

I’ll start with some good news: most people are terrible at getting a job. Your odds are actually a lot better than you might think. Sure, HR people love to complain about the hundreds of applications they receive, but remember that most of those applications suck.

It's also true that there are fewer openings. Job postings have dropped significantly since ChatGPT's launch.

What does this all mean? Nothing.

Ignore all of this and remember: great, serious candidates are still rare, and you can be one of them.

There's a catch, though. Serious candidates put in a lot of work upfront. So if you're not willing to put in the work, you should unsubscribe now.

But, before you do, consider this.

When you work hard on an application, you’re maybe giving up maybe 4-5 hours of your day, in exchange for being a top 1% candidate, and having a legitimately excellent chance at a job (compared to being one among a stack of 300 resumes nobody wants to read).

You might ask, "Why would I do all that work upfront, for free?" It's a good question.

Now consider this:

Employment relationships work because an employee's value to the business is more than they're paid. We’re never paid the full value. It has to be this way. If not, the business would pay more than it can afford and eventually go under (and that person's no longer employed anyway).

So before the idea of "leaving money on the table" or "working for free" to land a job stops you from trying, remember how it’s going to happen (in some shape or form) even after you get the job. So, you might as well put your best foot forward.

In many cases, the best founders and CEOs are learning that AI can cover small skills gaps, and people can learn where they lack experience. But nothing beats really wanting the job and showing it.

If you’re still here, let’s keep going.

This assumes you're in a non-technical field and can reasonably do the job you're applying to.

Researching a role has three parts:

So if you’re applying for the product marketing position focused on large customers at beehiiv, you might:

I'm not saying everyone has to do 100% of these. This is about being fully prepared before even starting the process. This is the "free work” that helps you stand out and shows off your skills better than a resume ever could.

But, that’s the thing. Your skills determine whether you can work at the level the business expects. For this example enterprise marketing position, you can create a presentation, but are you focusing on features or business outcomes? The latter is better. These are the things that are on you.

I've seen presentations and projects that were clearly rushed or half-hearted, and they immediately killed my confidence in the candidate.

Write a personal message and attach whatever materials you created during the research phase above. Notice how this section isn't called "Apply." That's intentional.

Many of the best jobs aren’t even posted yet. If you're in marketing but there's no marketing position "open," you can (and should) still do the same research and reach out and offer to do it anyway.

When I applied for support, I saw there was no knowledge base, so I sent Tyler a doc with about 15 support articles to show I understood self-service support and could write quality support replies. I posted them to our knowledge base a few weeks later.

beehiiv’s first product manager reviewed the marketing and PR around beehiiv (and probably Tyler’s interviews) and wrote an entire roadmap for the company. It was very close to the roadmap Tyler had created himself, demonstrating her chops. This is called overdelivering so hard there’s no choice but to hire you.

beehiiv's first salesperson did what all great salespeople do: he followed up relentlessly until Tyler was sold. He went on to close deals with all of the initial enterprise customers, including Arnold Schwarzenegger and TIME.

All of these examples included a lot of work before we even knew if the manager would respond. It could've all been for nothing. But it wasn't, because we were all serious and we showed it.

Sometimes the submission is so good that the manager won't even look at the resume and will just hire right away. But that's rare. Unless you're very senior in your career or you're getting an incredible referral, you'll likely need to include more than just nice words and a resume when you reach out.

And for this reason, it’s no longer about applying to 200+ postings a month. It’s about focus. Picking and choosing maybe 5-10 companies/postings, taking a day or two to finish this work, and sending out more thoughtful, personal messages. This also helps you get past the AI bots that do not care for “generalists.”

The objective here is to show the manager you’re serious, you’ve thought about the role and the company, and that you’re on the same page. That you know what to do, you've done it before (with success), and that you're ready for feedback as if they were already your manager.

The work doesn’t have to be a 10/10 (you haven’t even spoken to them yet). But the hunger must be obvious.

Here's what I do to prepare for an interview:

Interviews are tricky because a lot of it comes down to fit. But I can highlight a few places where I've seen people really mess up.

We had a candidate answer some questions, but the answers just weren't very good. As they answered, I asked the same questions to Grok.

Grok gave me such better answers that I was immediately convinced this candidate hadn't done any research before the interview. It was a group interview, and I wasn't the only one who noticed.

I didn't have access to AI when I applied to beehiiv, ChatGPT came out the month after I reached out. But if I had, I would've used it to help me prep. Using AI to answer questions during the interview feels like cheating and would be pretty obvious.

If you're given a project to do as part of the process, ask questions to clarify details. It's always a bad look when candidates have a week of prep time but don't ask any clarifying questions.

Their take-home project completely misses the mark because they didn't have context, and we realize that if they'd just shown a little initiative to ask instead of assume, they might've had a real shot.

Don't wait for someone to say something. Ask for it. Ask AI. Do your homework. But whatever you do, don't show up with outlandish assumptions.

If they don't reply, clarify where you made assumptions and that you had no other choice since they didn't respond.

This is probably where I’m weakest in the process. I usually ramble a little and go way deep too into details nobody cares about. But if the effort shows before the interview and it's clear you're serious about working at the company, you don't necessarily need to be the best interviewer in the world.

Here are a few strategies I use in my interviews that help a lot.

The one I use is

I describe the result first because it makes them care about what I have to say. If someone asks about getting enterprise leads and I start with "Well, we wanted more money so we prioritized getting more leads," the manager will say, "Well, duh."

But if they ask me about getting leads and I say, "We went from dozens of leads to hundreds by doing x, y, and z," (in that order) they're less likely to tune out.

Anybody can read an AI-generated answer on a screen, but getting into the details, the stories of the work you did, how it impacted the business, how colleagues felt, goes an especially long way.

The details matter in this job market more than ever.

It's easy to ramble. I do it often. More words can feel like more value, but it couldn't be further from the truth. Avoid being someone who talks a lot but says nothing.

I mentioned this earlier, but asking questions is a huge part of setting yourself up for success. It shows you’re thinking through your first days, weeks, and months. It helps the manager see that you understand the role well enough to ask the right questions. It's also important for the next big priority beyond just getting the job: crushing your first 90 days.

Getting the job is only half the battle. Once you're in the door, the real work begins. In my next post, I'll share exactly how to crush those critical first 90 days, the strategies that turn a new hire into an indispensable team member.

They’re the same methods I used to get promoted a few times in a couple years (at beehiiv and other companies as well). I hope you stay subscribed so you can read that too.

Again, I really hope this helps. If you have any questions, feel free to reply and I’ll get back to you as soon as I can. Also, let me know if this helped you.

All the best,

Darwin