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How to Attract Your Dream Job Without Applying Online, with Danielle Cobo

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Are you spending valuable time filling out online applications and sending in resumes to any open positions you see? If so, Find Your Dream Job guest Danielle Cobo has some advice for you. She recommends focusing on building out your LinkedIn profile and using that to connect with hiring managers and others in your chosen field. Getting hired is not a numbers game, but rather a strategic journey toward finding a job that fulfills your goals, considers your values, and meets your non-negotiables. 

About Our Guest:

Danielle Cobo is a career consultant who works with medical sales professionals. Her company’s services include resume writing, LinkedIn optimization, and interview preparation. 

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Transcript

Find Your Dream Job, Episode 486:

How to Attract Your Dream Job Without Applying Online, with Danielle Cobo

Airdate: January 29, 2025

Mac Prichard:

This is Find Your Dream Job, the podcast that helps you get hired, have the career you want, and make a difference in life.

I’m your host, Mac Prichard. I’m also the founder of Mac’s List. It’s a job board in the Pacific Northwest that helps you find a fulfilling career.

Every Wednesday, I talk to a different expert about the tools you need to get the work you want.

Many job seekers do nothing else when looking for work but apply for jobs.

And if this is all you do, you’re making your job search longer and harder than it needs to be.

Danielle Cobo is here to talk about how to attract your dream job without applying online.

She’s a career consultant who works with medical sales professionals.

Her company’s services include resume writing, LinkedIn optimization, and interview preparation.

She joins us from Tampa, Florida.

Well, let’s jump right into it, Danielle. Many job seekers – all they do is apply for jobs, and I want to talk to you about why that happens. Before we get into that, why can’t you rely on applications alone when you look for work?

Danielle Cobo:

That’s a great question. I believe that there are a couple of reasons why relying on just online applications alone can be an ineffective way of looking for your dream job. The first being that some companies don’t even post their jobs. Maybe they are expanding and they don’t want their competitors to know where their expansions are going and the different roles that they’re going to be bringing on board, and so they might not even post their jobs, and if they’re not posting their jobs, if you’re only applying to jobs online, then you’re missing out on that opportunity.

I believe second to that, a statistic by Job Fight, the average online job posting receives around 250 applications, and then it goes through the application tracking system. The chances of your resume actually being viewed by the human eye, in a lot of situations, doesn’t happen as often as we’d like to think. Just applying online, while it may feel like we’re being productive, it may not be as effective.

Mac Prichard:

Let’s talk more about that. You work with a lot of people doing a job search, what happens to candidates who put all their eggs in one basket and only send out applications?

Danielle Cobo:

If they’re only sending out applications, then they could be missing out on the opportunities when it comes to networking, and that could be networking with recruiters. There are some organizations where they may not post their job online, they may exclusively work with a recruiter. If you’re only applying to jobs online, you’re missing out on a subset of positions that could be the right fit for you but if you’re not networking and building that relationship with the recruiters, then missed opportunity.

In addition to that, if you’re only applying online, your resume may not be viewed by the right people, and when you utilize tools like LinkedIn, it’s another tool in your toolkit that you can use in your job search strategy.

Mac Prichard:

What would you say to listeners who think that it’s a numbers game? If I send out X number of applications, it might be 50-100 a month or even more, eventually, someone will contact me and offer me an interview. I just have to send out lots and lots of applications. What’s your reaction to that?

Danielle Cobo:

That kind of reminds me of the analogy when it comes to sales. The more cold calls you make, the more prospects you’re going to have, the more deals you’re going to close, and yes, it can be a numbers game, and you get to ask yourself, how much time are you willing to take to look for the job that you want, your dream job, and also ask yourself, how are you going to maintain the motivation and sustain the mental well-being throughout the process if you’re just playing the numbers game.

What I mean by that is, oftentimes, when I’m working with job seekers when they’ve been on the job hunt for 6 months because all they’ve been doing is applying to jobs online, and then they receive these automated, generated emails from the corporations saying, “We appreciate you applying to this position but we’ve chosen somebody else,” it can feel very discouraging, deflating, and frustrating through the process, and so that is going to affect the mental well-being of the job seeker, the candidate, which is then eventually going to show up in a sense of desperation, sometimes, and it’s going to show up in the interview process.

You really get to look at, your time is your most valuable asset. It’s the most valuable piece that you have in your life, and so you can either do the numbers game, where you sit there and you apply to positions online, and just play the numbers game, or you can take a step back and you can really put together a job search strategy so that you’re insuring that you’re setting yourself up for success. Not only in being efficient with your time but more importantly, finding exactly the type of role and company that is perfect for you.

Mac Prichard:

I want to talk about that strategy because I know that you have strong opinions about that, and helping people create and make those strategies work, but one last question about focusing on applications alone. In your experience, Danielle, when you talk to job seekers, why do people choose this? Why do they go down this road in the first place?

Danielle Cobo:

That’s a great question. That’s always been the standard approach when it comes to looking for a job. It’s always been going on job boards and going to company websites, and that’s been the way that we’ve always done it, and I believe that a lot of people don’t know of the different approaches that one could take to be more effective in building a job search strategy.

Sometimes, it’s just a lack of awareness.

Mac Prichard:

Let’s talk about what you should do instead, and you’ve had great success helping people follow strategies to attract jobs and uncover jobs that aren’t advertised online. Let’s talk about how to do that.

One of the first steps you recommend is to treat your LinkedIn profile like a digital resume. What does that look like and how does that help you attract and find jobs without sending out applications?

Danielle Cobo:

Great question because your LinkedIn profile is your digital resume, like you mentioned, and statistically out there research shows that 87% of recruiters are using LinkedIn to search for top talent. However, if you don’t have a LinkedIn profile, or if you don’t have your LinkedIn optimized to really showcase your experience and the value that you can bring to an organization, a recruiter may not even know that you exist, and so it’s so important and valuable to have a LinkedIn profile.

One of them being if you have a comprehensive LinkedIn profile, when a recruiter is using the program, Recruiter Light, and they’re putting in the search filters saying, “Specifically I’m looking for a candidate with this many years of experience, and these skillsets.” You want your profile to come up on top. Second to that is, you want to be able to use LinkedIn as an opportunity to start nurturing relationships with the potential people that might be hiring you or interviewing you in the future.

A lot of times, there’s been situations where, maybe a position isn’t open right at this moment, however, the hiring manager knows that the person who’s currently in the position that you’d be a good fit for might be in the interview process for a promotion up. If you start to nurture a relationship with the hiring manager through LinkedIn and they’ve got your resume because you’ve nurtured that relationship, when that position does come available, you’re now seen as the top candidate and you’ve bypassed going through the applicant tracking system.

Mac Prichard:

Two steps there. One is to optimize your LinkedIn page as a digital resume, and the second one is to use LinkedIn to build relationships with hiring managers and recruiters. Let’s talk about the first step and how you do that.

What’s your best advice, Danielle, about how to take your existing LinkedIn profile and update it and change it in a way that it does become a digital resume?

Danielle Cobo:

The first thing mistake that I see with LinkedIn profiles is a lot of profiles that lack attention to them. Sometimes, it’s the lack of a profile photo. So the first area that people see on a LinkedIn profile before they even click the profile is the profile image. You want to have a professional headshot. Next would be your headline. You can have up to 220 characters. You want to make sure your headline clearly communicates what you do, who you serve, and the value that you bring. You want to have those optimized with keywords.

Then, you have the opportunity to customize your background photo at the very top. That’s an area that you can highlight some accomplishments or you can highlight specifically what your role is, or maybe it’s your mission statement.

Next, you want to go to your About section. Your About section, you can have up to 2600 characters and it’s really an overview of your career but it’s also an opportunity to let your personality shine and let people get to know you beyond just how you are at work because really where you’re going to be talking about skillsets that you have is in the experience section and that’s where you’re going to break down every role you’ve had.

What your roles and responsibilities were, what the skillsets are that you developed in those roles, and how they translate into the roles that you’re going to be applying to, and then also results. People want to look at specific results that are related, and then also you can have up to 100 targeted skills as well.

One of the things I do when working with job seekers is we will run what is called our LinkedIn Social Selling Index, which is a way that LinkedIn measures your brand presence online. We will take that score and we will build out a comprehensive profile, but when it comes to building a comprehensive profile, I first work with somebody in saying, “What are 5 potential roles that you want to apply to that align with the experience that you have.” Let’s identify some of the keywords or the skillsets that they’re looking for in those roles and how does it relate to the experience that you have.

That way, we’re clearly communicating the transferable skills, and we’ll build out a comprehensive profile, then we will run their Social Selling Index score again and see the continuous areas that we can improve to continue to develop their brand presence on LinkedIn.

Mac Prichard:

Okay, hold that thought. I want to talk more about optimizing your LinkedIn profile.

Stay with us. We’re going to take a break.

When we come back, we’ll continue our conversation with Danielle Cobo.

We’re back in the Mac’s List studio. I’m talking with Danielle Cobo.

She’s a career consultant who works with medical sales professionals.

Her company’s services include resume writing, LinkedIn optimization, and interview preparation.

Danielle joins us from Tampa, Florida.

Danielle, before the break we were talking about how to attract your dream job without applying online, and I loved the points that you were making about how to use LinkedIn to create a digital resume, and your specific advice about how to do that.

One point that you brought up in the first segment that we didn’t have a chance to address was building relationships with people that you connect with on LinkedIn. Tell us more about what you have in mind there and how to do it well.

Danielle Cobo:

LinkedIn has a lot of really great features when it comes to being able to search certain people that you want to connect with on LinkedIn. Perhaps there’s a company that you want to work for and you can go to that company’s profile, you can search employees, and maybe you want to pursue a position, like I mentioned, I work with a lot of sales professionals, and so you can actually search by sales professionals, or the VP of Sales, or the District Sales Manager, and then you can also search in from there a specific geography.

If they work in a particular office location or live in a certain area or you’re pursuing a role in a certain area, you can add different filters so that it’s sure that you’re narrowing down and connecting with the right people that you want to connect with.

Mac Prichard:

To do this, Danielle, do you have to have a monthly membership, or can you do this with the free service?

Danielle Cobo:

You can do it with the free service, however, when you have LinkedIn Premium, there are so many more benefits with a LinkedIn Premium that allow you to have more search filters and also more connection requests, as well as more in mail messages that you can send as well.

There’s a lot that you can get, there’s a lot of features that are available on the free version, but there’s so much more in the premium version. If you’re actively looking for a role, I highly recommend the premium.

Mac Prichard:

Terrific. The idea here is you know the job that you want or the jobs that interest you, you might have a list of target employers, and you’re using these tools that are especially easier to use with premium to find potential employers and hiring managers that you want to connect with.

Once you do that research, that legwork, Danielle, what happens next? What do you do with that information?

Danielle Cobo:

What happens next is, then, it’s about fostering the relationship. Now, with fostering and building the relationship, one mistake that I see a lot of people do is they’ll send a connection request with that individual and just basically say, “I’m looking for a job.” That is one approach, but where you can really take it a step further in nurturing a relationship and ensuring that they’re going to accept the connection request is find some commonality with that individual.

Perhaps if it is, “I was looking at your profile and it looks like we went to the same school.”  “I was looking at your profile and it looks like we worked at the same company together,” or “We worked in the same industry and I wanted to connect.” That at least creates, they know that you’re not just a bot sending a connection request, you’re personalizing it a little bit, and then once they accept the connection request, then, from there, you can start to inquire about the possibilities of asking if they do have an open position available on their team, or perhaps you’ve seen a position on their website that you’re interested in and are they the right person to speak to or would they recommend that you connect with somebody else within the company?

Mac Prichard:

Another idea that you recommend people follow in order to attract jobs without applying online is to build a strong personal brand. Why is it important to do this and how does this help you attract offers or at least learn about opportunities without sending out applications?

Danielle Cobo:

Absolutely, building a personal brand on LinkedIn is so valuable, and so, when I’m working with job seekers, what we do is we kind of identify, what are the top skillsets that they want to be known for that are in alignment with the positions that they’re going to be pursuing. If they’re going to be pursuing a leadership role, then we really want to hone in on, what is leadership to them. Ways that they can build a strong brand presence on LinkedIn is to actually share content, share posts about what leadership means to them or share articles about leadership or share any content related to leadership.

Then, what happens is, when people start to comment on those posts, your posts then show up in anyone who’s following them, their newsfeed. It’s a way of expanding your reach and building a strong personal brand, clearly communicating your experience and the value and expertise that you bring on LinkedIn.

Mac Prichard:

I can imagine a listener saying, “Well, that sounds great, but how is that going to help me attract offers or learn about jobs that I might not otherwise know about?”

Danielle Cobo:

You know, I did have a client who was looking for a job kind of passively, they weren’t actively applying for jobs online, however, they did update their profile, and what we started to do was we started to build a content strategy for them, sharing their expertise on leadership and what happened is people started, in their industry, and their colleagues, started to write comments on their posts and then it happened to be that a recruiter saw one of their posts and they had reached out to this individual and said, “Hey, you know, I saw one of your posts. I’ve had the opportunity to look at your profile. I believe that you’d be a really good fit for this potential position that we have. Do you have time to talk today?”

It’s a matter of taking a creative and strategic approach, it’s not just a matter of building up a profile and hoping that somebody sees it. It’s really utilizing that platform in various ways to build your brand, show your expertise, and position you as a thought leader in your industry.

Mac Prichard:

Well, let’s close with that because I know another strategic choice you recommend people make is to network with industry recruiters, talent acquisition managers, hiring managers, and employees at organizations that you might be interested in working in. Why is it important to do that, Danielle, and how do you do it well?

Danielle Cobo:

If you want to connect with a talent acquisition manager who’s often responsible for reviewing the resumes before sending them to the hiring manager, when you have LinkedIn Premium, a lot of jobs will actually, a lot of job postings, will show who the person is that’s responsible for hiring for that position and that’s a way that you can connect directly with the talent acquisition manager.

Second to that, a lot of companies will offer a referral bonus if an internal employee refers a candidate and that candidate is hired. That’s why it’s also beneficial if you start to build relationships with people that work internally within the company, they’re incentivized to then pass your resume along to the hiring manager.

Mac Prichard:

Terrific. Well, it’s been a terrific conversation. Tell us, what’s next for you, Danielle?

Danielle Cobo:

What’s next for me is to continue to show up on LinkedIn. I work with organizations and individuals to attract their dream jobs, boost their sales, and build a career and life that they love.

Mac Prichard:

Great. I know that listeners can learn more about you, not only by connecting with you on LinkedIn but by visiting your website. You’ve got a special section set aside for career coaching. That URL is daniellecobo.com/careerconsulting.

We’ll be sure to include links to both your LinkedIn page and your website in the show notes. As always, I hope when listeners do reach out to you, they’ll mention that they heard you on Find Your Dream Job.

Now, Danielle, given all of the great advice you’ve shared today, what’s the one thing you want a listener to remember about how to attract a dream job without applying online?

Danielle Cobo:

The best advice that I give is that you can either be in a position where you’re playing the numbers game, or you can be strategic, highly effective, and use unique and creative strategies to attract your dream job, utilizing LinkedIn.

Mac Prichard:

Next week, our guest will be Liz Bronson. 

She’s an HR leader with more than 20 years of experience as a talent acquisition and business partner.

Liz also co-hosts the excellent podcast, Real Job Talk.

Remote and hybrid workplaces were almost unknown before the COVID-19 pandemic.

Instead, employers generally require you to work on-site Monday through Friday.

Since then, working at home every day or several days a week has become common.

Which model is best for you and how do you find a workplace that offers it?

Join us next Wednesday when Liz Bronson and I talk about in-person, hybrid, and remote: what works for you?

Until next time, thanks for letting us help you find your dream job.

This show is produced by Mac’s List.

Susan Thornton-Hough schedules our guests and writes our newsletter. Lisa Kislingbury Anderson manages our social media.

Our sound engineer and editor is Matt Fiorillo. Dawn Mole creates our transcripts. And our music is by Freddy Trujillo.

This is Mac Prichard. See you next week.