How to Get Any Job You Want

Gabriel needed a job. Fast. He had applied to a work-and-study program, and the people there had failed to do theirs: match him with an employer.
After months of follow-ups and empty promises, the fall college term had begun — no company to support his studies insight.
Gabriel is my sister’s boyfriend. We brainstormed ideas and decided to scratch college for now: Get the job first, then ask for the money.
Gabriel likes marketing. He’s funny, creative, and a good thinker. We knew people would love him once he got his foot in the door, but there were only so many roles in his area. How could he stand out to get an internship?
Thinking back to the hundreds of pitches and failed applications in my life, to the frustration of waiting and ultimately being disappointed, a hammering thought roared louder than all the others in my brain: Do it. Don’t ask for permission. Do it. Just do it.
This idea is the only one that has ever worked for me in finding meaningful, satisfying work: You can get any job you want if you do it without asking. Don’t wait for permission. Do the job, and it’s yours.
The companies with open roles in Gabriel’s city all wanted someone to handle digital: Wordpress, basic design, social media. In Germany, most small businesses still struggle with these.
We could have added “Wordpress” as a lost, lonely keyword somewhere on Gabriel’s CV and sent a standard cover letter, praying for a response. This is what most people do — and why their application lands right in the “Rejected” pile, along with a million others.
We set up an actual Wordpress website. Instead of telling them Gabriel could handle Wordpress, we showed them. He bought a domain in his name, installed a basic editor, and got to work.
This is what he came up with:
Screenshot via the author
It’s neat, right? Simple but efficient. You can download his CV, his references, and get in touch. Now, all he needed was a pitch. That too would go on the page, and I suggested we follow two rules with it:
  1. Adjust to the needs of who you’re pitching
  2. Start with why
We copied the page and customized the title to include each company’s name. Below, we answered three questions in 50–100 words each:
  1. Why me?
  2. How can I help [Company X]?
  3. Who am I?
We ended with Gabriel’s philosophy in a single line, a quote by Christopher Titus: “I don’t fail. I succeed at finding what doesn’t work.”
Then, we emailed the link to three companies with a dead-simple pitch:
Dear Ms. X,my name is Gabriel, and I'd like to apply for an internship with your company.Instead of the usual, dry application procedure, I chose to make a little website for you:https://gabrielsdomain.com/company-nameIf you like it, I'd love to hear from you.Kind regards,
Gabriel
Within a week, Gabriel had a paid internship, which led to more paid work. With the experience of both, he applied to another company, which now pays for his studies.
Great jobs don’t fall from the sky, but you can still pull a good one out of thin air — you just have to know where to pull.
Nina Mufleh landed a job at Airbnb in 2015 with a similar tactic. Josh Fechter scored an interview on Facebook by promoting an ad about himself to its employees.
If you can show business you can solve their problems, there’s no need to tell them. They’ll understand when they see it.
Six years ago, I wanted to be a writer. So I wrote. I wrote everywhere. I had no formal training, and no one would have given me permission. I did the job I wanted to have, and thus I made it so. From that day on, it was mine.
You can have any job you want if you do it without asking. Don’t wait. Do it. Do it, and it’ll be forever yours.
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