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goobster  ·  3309 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Question about E-Mail etiquette

Here's an angle that nobody else has considered: Do any reasonable thing to make yourself stand apart from the rest of the crowd.

I was unemployed basically all of 2015. The job market in Seattle is utterly INSANE right now, so every single position I was applying for (mostly writing jobs) had more than a hundred applicants. Some 10x that many.

Now think of the person processing these requests... these individuals quickly all merge into one incomprehensible mass. There are no individual monkeys any more... there is just a big group of clamoring, screeching, noisy, annoyances.

So when my resume came in at 3:am, it stood out.

I know this because several interviewers commented on it. "Wow. 3:AM! What were you doing awake then?"

And BAM! this is where I am now in a conversation with the person. They are interested in me. They have asked a non-standard question, and I now have the floor, and a chance to impress them with my response.

So I say, "3:AM? Wow. Oh yeah! I was working on the scripts for season 1 of a TV series a friend of mine and I are writing on the founding of Seattle. Kind of a "Deadwood in the PNW" thing. I'd really nailed this one scene, and was editing it down late into the night."

Suddenly I am now a monkey with a name, and a hat, and a personality... not one of the screeching horde.

So there are ways to leverage these things in your favor.

(Note: if you are not familiar with the Monkeysphere, it's a fun idea based around Dunbar's Number.)