Are you entitled to a job?
You said no, right? I hope so. No one is entitled to a job.
Yet when we apply for a job, sending our resume and our cover letter, we are, in a way, signaling that we feel entitled, at least to an interview.
You’ve provided 0 value to the company at this point. Yet you’re saying “Hey, here’s my resume and my cover letter. Read them, then email me and tell me you want me to interview with you.”
This “old way” of doing things is broken. That’s why before you even send your application, you should send a value qualifier.
What’s A Value Qualifier
A value qualifier is a mini-project to signal your value to your potential remote employer. The role you want will dictate the kind of value qualifier you make.
Here are a few examples of value qualifiers from different functional areas:
A Product Requirement Document for a feature you think would be useful for the product. Good if you are applying for a Product Manager role.
An blog article about a topic you think the content team would be interested in writing about.
A list of prospects in a specific niche for the sales team to contact.
Any one of these would be valuable to the company and if done well, would signal that you have researched them and understand their needs.
Now let’s look at some generic steps to create a VQ.
Steps for Creating A VQ
This process can be used for any type of role, though there are some internal-facing roles (HR, Operations, Finance) where it may be a bit less effective. If you’re applying for an internal role, make sure you do everything you can to learn about the challenges in the org before following this process.
Make sure you understand the company’s current set up for the functional area you are applying for. If it’s product, that means checking out their product and any public-facing documents they have about it. If it’s sales, that means looking through their website to identify who their target customer(s) are and trying to get a sense if they are doing inbound or outbound sales.
Look for an area of opportunity. This will be something you think is missing from the current functional area. Again, if it’s product, look for a point of friction in the product experience, or a new feature that could be added. If it’s content marketing, look for a topic the company hasn’t written about, but you think they should.
Follow a process to create the VQ. There are 100s of blogs online about how to write a blog article, or create a PRD, or create a prospects list. Read 1 of them, follow the process they document, and create the VQ.
Finally, it’s time to send the VQ. You’ll want to send it to the person who might be your manager, as well as to your potential team mates. Make sure when you send it you also send something documenting your process. Documenting your process should be simple (a Loom video explaining the process you followed, or a 1 page Notion document).
And that’s it!
I personally followed this process to get my most recent job. It works.
Thank you so much for reading. If you’ve been reading every day til now, you might be thinking “When is he going to talk about actually applying?”
Saturday. I want to make sure you’ve got a solid foundation of practices first.
With that, tomorrow I’ll review each of the remote job boards to help you know which is most likely to help you get a remote job in your field.
If you liked this, please leave a like. If you have a question, please leave a comment!