A lesson on attention to detail involving Van Halen and M&M candies

Sarah Doody [00:00:00]: Hey there. I’m Sarah Doody, host of the Career Strategy Podcast. Many professionals are seeking more impact, flexibility, growth, and let’s face it, getting paid what they’re worth. But how do you unlock this in your career? It starts with strategy. I’m taking you behind the scenes of what’s working for my career coaching clients. You’ll hear strategies and actionable, yet sometimes against the grain, advice for how you can be the CEO of your career and stop dreading Mondays. Ready to level up your career? Let’s get after it. Welcome back to another episode of the Career Strategy Podcast.

Sarah Doody [00:00:42]: Now one question that I’m asked all the time is, how do I stand out in the job search? What can I do to be seen in a sea of candidates? And I think a lot of people are looking for kind of a tip or a trick or just easy thing to do that will help them be more visible. And a lot of people aren’t thinking about other things that they might be neglecting that could help them stand out. So today, I wanna talk about why it is so important to really heighten your attention to detail in the job search because when you show people that you paid attention to them, they will pay attention to you. Now to make this point, I wanna start out with a story. And maybe you’ve heard this story, but it is all about how the band Van Halen had a clause in their contract. And in the contract, there was a sentence that literally said, there cannot be any brown M and M’s backstage, like M and M candies. No brown M and M’s backstage. What’s so bad about brown M and M’s? Nothing.

Sarah Doody [00:02:12]: The point of that clause was it was actually a test to find out if the people who signed that contract, who ran that venue actually read the contract. Because if the band or their manager showed up and in, you know, back stage, there was a bunch of snacks and candy and there were brown M and M’s, that would be a giant red flag that would tell them someone didn’t read the contract. And that’s important because if they didn’t read the contract, there are other things far more important than the presence of Brown M and M’s that the venue or venue employees overlooked that could have an impact on the quality of the show, the quality of the sound, the safety of the band, or or even the attendees. Right? And so the brown M and M story has always stuck with me because it’s such a great example of attention to detail and why it matters. And when you don’t pay attention to the details, what message that sends to people. In your job search and in your career, you know, if if you see someone on LinkedIn, for example, post that they are hiring on their team, and they link to the job description, and you don’t even read the job description. But instead, you post a comment on that LinkedIn post, and it says something like, hey. Thanks for posting this role.

Sarah Doody [00:03:57]: You know? And then you ask a question like, can you tell me if it’s remote? Well, guess what? If I’m that person who’s hiring for that position who posted that post on LinkedIn and you ask me that question of, hey. Is this remote? I’m gonna think to myself, that person didn’t read the job description. And then I’m gonna think, they’re, like, not that focused on attention to detail or maybe they’re a little lazy. Like, they coulda read the job description, but now they’re just gonna ask me if it’s remote or something like that. Your lack of attention to detail speaks just as loud as your attention to detail. So I realize that, you know, job descriptions are often not the most well written documents in the world, But this is just one example of where I think candidates really miss an opportunity to demonstrate that they paid attention to, in this case, the job description. And I’ve even heard stories of how in the job description, companies had their own version of a brown M and M. So they may have said something like, the secret word is bananas.

Sarah Doody [00:05:17]: We’re just making this up right now. And then on the application, it said, like, what is the secret word, for example? And if people didn’t put the word bananas, that is a sign they didn’t read the job description. And I actually did this for a couple of roles I was hiring for because I knew the nature of the job I was hiring for. I was going to be inundated with 100 of applicants, and I was. I think a couple of them had over 300 applicants. And I asked a question like that. It was amazing to see how many people did not fill it in or put the wrong thing or put something like this is a stupid question or something. And the people that did put the right answer, it showed me that they were paying attention and actually read the job description.

Sarah Doody [00:06:09]: We could kind of expand this a little bit and think about, you know, when it comes to your resume or your portfolio or what you talk about in interviews or what you might say in a cold email to a recruiter or a hiring manager before or after you apply for a job, the more you can mention exact specific things that they mentioned in the job description, whether it’s problems that they hope, you know, this new hire can help them solve, examples of how you’ve done certain roles, responsibilities, have certain skills or experience from past jobs and mention that in your outreach, that’s another example of how you can show someone, hey. I read the job description, and people will notice because the bar to stand out is really low because so many people don’t read the job description, and then their resume is not in alignment with an optimizer customized to really provide tangible specific examples of things that were mentioned in the job description. So if you are applying to jobs today, this weekend, whenever it is, I would really encourage you to think about this brown M and M story and treat the job description like the concert contract and look for clues of what you can mention to show people that you read the contract or the job description. Right? Because when you don’t and when you as the band show up to the concert venue and there’s brown M and M’s behind stage, that makes you realize, okay. If there’s brown M and M’s here, we probably have bigger problems lurking. And you don’t want that to happen in the mind of a recruiter or a hiring manager. So maybe you heard this story before, and if you did, maybe it helps you see it through a new lens regarding your job search. And if you didn’t, then I hope it kinda helps you realize the importance of attention to detail and what paying attention and a lack of attention communicates about you as a candidate.

Sarah Doody [00:08:41]: Alright. That’s all I have for you today. I will see you in our next episode. In the meantime, have a great rest of your day, and I will talk to you soon. See you later. Thanks for listening to the Career Strategy Podcast. Make sure to follow me, Sarah Doody, on Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, or LinkedIn. If anything in today’s episode resonated with you, I’d love to hear about it.

Sarah Doody [00:09:06]: Tag me on social media or send me a DM. And lastly, if you found this episode helpful, I’d really appreciate it if you could share it with a friend or give us a quick rating on Spotify or review on Apple Podcasts. Catch you later.