Before you read the rest of this article, click on this link and watch the video. I’ll wait.
*whistling
*fiddling with my thumbs
*cleaning my table
Done?
Great.
Isn’t the video just awesome? It isn’t your TikTok quality BS. The level of professionalism is telling in the production and post-production.
Needless to say, a lot of effort went into creating this video.
If you haven’t watched the video, it is done by Marta Puerto and uploaded to her LinkedIn.
It is essentially her video resume. But instead of a talking head, single frame video one would typically expect from a video resume, hers looks more like a professionally done advertisement.
There is a storyline involved that shares why her video resume came about, to begin with.
My favourite part of her video?
It would be the montage of her talking about herself in different languages.
Because why tell when you can show?
Why go through the hassle?
Marta was most recently working at Xolo as a Product Marketing Manager but she was affected by the layoff exercise.
She then did what many others would do – apply for other available jobs.
Marta applied over hundreds of them but she isn’t getting even one single interview.
Then she has a eureka moment.
Why doesn’t she just showcase her skills instead?
Over a month, she worked on ideation to concept to publication and distribution.
The result is a video ad about herself which (at the time of this writing) has garnered 63,319 interactions, 4,030 comments and 2,438 reposts. (I contributed to one of the reposts).
In a seemingly competitive job search landscape as company after company are laying off left, right and centre, getting attention from recruiters who are screening hundreds (if not thousands) of candidates for a single job opening is increasingly tough—almost bordering on impossible.
Using the power of her creativity, and leveraging the network effect of social media and a bit of effort pulling this off, she managed to get herself in front of (my guess here) at least millions of eyeballs.
I believe she is anticipating a lot of interest too as her Call-To-Action in her video is to write to her on an email address that she created just for this: [email protected]
Other case studies
2 years ago, there was another Marta-like case study in the form of Mike Conley. Mike did not put a video together but he wrote a post about pulling from a job application.
He has already cleared 3 rounds and apparently, there will be another 4 – 9 rounds to go.
That post led to 40,003 interactions, 3,821 comments and 1,028 reposts.
Mike subsequently received hundreds of interests from potential employers.
What do these two instances teach us?
Firstly, the power of the internet is legit.
It can amplify your message to millions of people if done correctly.
Many years back when blogging was still a thing, I was writing weekly about HR Tech as that was a sector I was hoping to get into.
It helped in raising my profile amongst vendors and led to my first job in HR Tech. Others might have written about HR Tech, but the virality of my HR tech market map (which I shared on LinkedIn) put it at the centre of it.
Without it, perhaps (who knows) I might still be struggling with unemployment.
Putting yourself out there
From blogging to writing a LinkedIn post to putting a video together, the common thread that ties them together is virality.
And time has changed.
You can’t blog yourself to success in 2024.
Nowadays video is the way to go, whether you like it or not.
So whether you are a struggling freelancer or job seeker, have you exhausted all means?
Are you willing to put yourself out there?
Because success will no longer come just because you put out good work.
You need a story to tell and an engaging one, no less, to show your audience.
This is something many online fake gurus are good at.
If they can succeed by peddling snake oil, so can you.
P.S. Not sure where to begin your LinkedIn journey? Check out my self-paced course here. Use 20OFF to get 20% off the usual price.
