Success Hack #5: First is Worst, Second is Best

Improve your communication by shifting the focus from yourself to your reader.

First is not foremost

Throughout your job hunt, and even throughout your general life, you can often find great benefit by shifting the focus of your interactions from the first-person (I, me, myself) to the second-person (you, your, yourself) or first-person plural (we, us).

On some level, this is a general principle that can have great effect in many aspects of your life. Superior poker players win by reading other players’ hands rather than focusing on their own hand. Great writers always know their audience and write for what their audience wants. You’ll find that the ability to see things from others’ point of view is a general principle that can provide you strong benefits in your life.

Despite the benefits of writing for your audience, most people tend to focus on themselves. We often see two very specific parts of job applications that suffer from this:

Objective Statements

We abhor objective statements, and always advocate they be replaced with a professional headline where possible. When necessary, they always tend to fall into the trap of being focused on the needs of the applicant as opposed to the company. Consider:

Objective: My position will have pleasant surroundings, a reasonable salary, low pressure, not require me to bring work home and good benefits.

Your objective is always, always, to add the greatest value possible to the employer. If you are forced to write an objective statement and keep this in mind, you will craft a more useful statement.

Cover Letters

A cover letter can be a valuable opportunity to spin your resume towards a specific job. However, cover letters often read like extended objective statements, where the writer just blathers on about themselves for a page.

We see the best cover letters take the opposite approach. The writer will discern what the company actually needs, and write to position themselves as best suited to assist with these needs.

Specific Actions You Can Take

This is a fairly broad principle, but there are very specific actions you can take to make sure that you are correctly focusing on the reader and not yourself.

1. Research the hiring manager’s name for your cover letter

In the process of figuring out who has the hiring authority, you may learn other information about your target. How long have they been at the company? Are they more senior or more junior at the company? Are they in your generation? Where do they live? When you figure this out, you may shift your tone to better attempt to address them.

2. Outline the company’s needs

Instead of considering your needs, take a few minutes to learn what the company needs. They are often very good at telegraphing their intentions within their job posts or in public financial statements. If they have just announced an intention to launch a new product or improve sustainability in their supply chain, find ways to position yourself to aid these goals.

3. Search for pronoun usage

In general, using the word “I” and other first person language on your resume is improper, so this is an important step anyway. Yet when you do stumble across the word “I”, try to figure out how it snuck in there. Were you writing this for yourself or your audience? You’ll find that 95% of the time you were addressing yourself.

Cover letters are more flexible in pronoun usage, so this can be really powerful. Are your “I” statements actually reinforcing the company needs? Can you change them to “we” or “you” and add more meaning?

Using a “You” Focus Throughout Your Life

No person is an island, so most of life as we know it is about proper communication. In general in your life, the ability to step back from your perspective and see things from other people’s points of view can have powerful effects. Any chance you have to shift the focus from yourself to your audience will improve the effectiveness of your communication.

The next time you’re arguing with somebody, try stepping back and seeing if you are arguing with yourself or with the other party. You will often find that you and your opponent are actually arguing with your own imaginations. When you start to consider “what are they really saying” and “how can I address their needs” you will change the frame of the conversation.

We evaluate all our success hacks through our Framework for Success Hacks, and we find this success hack stacks up pretty well.

Compounding Benefits: 👍

When you start communicating more effectively with your target audience, you will absolutely deliver compounding benefits. Perhaps you can sell 10% more each month, or your team can deliver projects 10% more efficiently, or each of your job searches nets you 10% higher salary. Any of these effects will deliver greater benefits the longer you use them.

Diffuse Benefits: 👍

The benefits of improving your communication skills can have positive repercussions in many aspects of your life. You can improve your chances to get a job, to succeed at the job, and when you get home from your job.

Easy to Implement: 🤷‍♂️

The simple task of searching for first-person pronouns in your writing is not necessarily difficult. However, generally, people are inherently selfish and you cannot easily erase this tendency. Whether or not you can do this “easily” really depends on you.

For more information, see our comprehensive list of success hacks.

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