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Jonathan Javier is the CEO and Founder of Wonsulting, a professional training and coaching organisation that’s helped hundreds of thousands of people land their dream job, as their mission is to “turn underdogs into winners”.
Jonathan has led 210+ workshops regarding LinkedIn, personal branding, and more, spoke at corporate companies like Talks at Google, LinkedIn HQ, Cisco, Lyft, Samsung, ALPFA, GPTW, TEDx. He’s also been featured as job search expert on Forbes, Business Insider, LinkedIn News, Daily Mail, Yahoo News, The Times, Jobscan, Brainz Magazine, Roar News, Yale Daily News.
We recently had the pleasure to interview Jonathan. Our Head of Sales and Marketing at Zopto, Stephen, discussed with him how LinkedIn networking and optimising LinkedIn profiles plays a crucial role in today’s job-hunting landscape.
Our interview with Jonathan
Today I’m joined by the wonderful Jonathan Javier. Jonathan is the CEO and co-founder of Wonsulting, a professional training and coaching organization that has helped thousands of people land their dream job. They’ve also amassed seven million likes on TikTok, with over 750,000 followers. Jonathan, thank you very much for joining us today.
Tell us a little bit more about yourself and Wonsulting
Well, first off, thank you so much for having me, I really appreciate it. My name is Jonathan Javier, I’m the CEO of Wonsulting, our mission is to turn underdogs into winners, so helping those who come from these non-target schools, as they say non-traditional backgrounds, and help them get into their dream careers. So far now we’ve done 200 plus events, helped millions of different students and professionals get into their dream careers by providing a lot of different insights, whether it’s in regards to networking, resume tips, interview tips etc., and our career consulting firm started about last year in 2020, when the pandemic hit. We saw that there was a need, with a lot of different folks who were getting laid off from their specific jobs, and we decided to step in and provide some insights and some tips. I used to previously work at Snapchat, Google and Cisco before moving to Wonsulting full time, and I’ve enjoyed every minute now, because I get to be on amazing videos like this.
Most people struggled with getting a job or they lost their job during the pandemic, and that created a lot of noise. How do you help your clients cut through that noise?
So I think what happens is when you go on LinkedIn jobs you see, for example, I was actually going through the LinkedIn jobs yesterday with one of our mentees who are part of the 20 and you can see all the applicants, a hundred plus of them, who are applying to only one role. And it gives you that imposter syndrome, you’re like “I don’t think I’m good enough for this because I think there’s 99 other candidates that could be better than me”, right?
But the thing is what we try to teach at Wonsulting is the unconventional methods you can utilize to get into those positions, because most people, Stephen, for example, will just apply to the role. Very simple to do, probably takes you less than 10 minutes, but what you actually have to do is you got to take in an extra step, so finding the actual hiring managers, the specific people who are on the team, those are the people that are going to be able to push your application. But also give you the insights which will allow you to be a better candidate to get an interview. And so we teach that a lot at Wonsulting, to take the extra step of not just simply just applying the roles but how do you make yourself an even better candidate, whether it’s through your resume, building a rapport with professionals and hiring managers which allows you to get your foot in the door in your dream industry.
How far would you go in order to secure that dream role?
Jonathan: I would say of course respect their privacy, definitely don’t call them, I would not recommend that. I think what’s very important for candidates to realize is that there are also, of course, other candidates that are also going for the roles you’re interested in. Another thing too as well, just because you graduated from school doesn’t mean that you are privileged to get a job, you have to be able to network, you have to be able to apply these different roles and you have to gain these experiences.
What I’d recommend people to do is – I know a lot of people say “oh it’s going too far” for some different strategies – what you can do is what I think is the most important piece about networking or getting a job, one of the most important pieces is: what value can you provide to that person you’re talking to?
Most conversations start with “can you get me a job?” It’s all about me, me, me. But when you switch it up and you ask the other person how can I help you, that changes the conversation dramatically, because you are providing value to that person, which then in turn later on, that person might just be like “oh yeah I can help you, what do you need help with?” “Oh I’m interested specifically in this company, how can I break into my dream company?” Then they’ll be able to guide you through those steps to get to where you want to be, so switch the conversation.
I guarantee you that most people will not put the other person first other than themselves.
In the last year, the dynamic of applying for a job has changed. What do you think applying for a job will look like five years from now?
I think that applying to a job is, of course, there’s going to be applications, but now we see a lot of different companies having these different functions that allow them to see even more of their candidate in regards to their personality and skills, how we can see this is actually with TikTok resumes, I we had the privilege of actually kicking it off with TikTok last week, where we had 144,000 people who attended to learn more about what TikTok resumes entailed, which was basically a video resume that could be given to companies for their specific positions that they’re recruiting for, and now why I mention this is because these different platforms are creating this space which allows recruiters and hiring managers to find their candidates easier, rather than people applying to the roles.
So for example on LinkedIn, this is why I encourage everybody to have a great LinkedIn profile, recruiters are reaching
out to you because they need to fill their roles, right? And so when you reach out to them, or reach out to the hiring manager specifically, you are helping them do their jobs for them, because they don’t have to go source. So I think the future of recruiting, the future of applications, is that resumes of course will be great, applications will be great too, but other unconventional methods and having a personal brand is going to be even greater.
If you were an applicant and you’d never really been on Linkedin before, what could you be doing to improve your LinkedIn profile?
So what I’d say is, of course, optimize your LinkedIn profile.
We actually have a profile called Wendy Javier which was before Wonsulting Wendy, but you can go to that profile and you can see exactly what you need to put specifically in your resume – in your LinkedIn. So I would recommend having a clean LinkedIn, number two, making sure that the companies that are on your experiences are linked. Everyone who’s listening into this today, think of LinkedIn as a SEO tool.
Why I say that is because when you search something on Google, the first ones in SEO will pop up. It’s the same thing for LinkedIn, so what I would recommend people to do is actually searching the specific position you’re interested in, let’s just say marketing specialist, and then going to the top people who are on marketing specialists. When you search and go look at what they have in their profile, if it’s relevant to your own profile put those specific skills and experiences, if it’s relevant, I’m saying if it’s relevant, on your own profile, so it’ll help your profile stand out.
So that’s the second part, the third part is engaging with content on LinkedIn, and why I say this is because I actually did a poll on this recently, 59% of people do not ever post on social media, which I find is crazy, right? And I think my assumption is, the reason why people don’t post, this is an assumption, is number one because of imposter syndrome, number two because they’re afraid of people being judgmental, which happens, but it’s totally okay. And lastly, like I said, just being scared to post, be a part of the individuals, the content creators, who are making content. Because you never know who’s looking at your content, which will allow recruiters and hiring managers to see you before other candidates, and that’s how you can build a brand, through content creation.
One more actually, add one more, if you do not like making content, for example, let’s say Stephen makes content, all right? What I would do is comment on his posts now. Why would I comment on his post? Because I built my brand off other people’s brands, and why that’s important, is because what happens is when you’re able to do that, and the other person has a bigger following and they’re in your niche, let’s just say job search or marketing, who else is their connections, it’s other people in the same field, so you’re growing your brand off other people’s brands. So I would say those different tips and hopefully that’ll be helpful especially for those who are interested in getting into their careers.
How long should somebody be spending per week trying to get that perfect job?
I think that a lot of people consider it like a full-time job, right? When in fact it doesn’t have to be like that. I think a lot of times is people who are seeking jobs, spend time on things that don’t need time. So for example, tailoring a cover letter. Now cover letter is very obsolete now, I think it’s going to be dead in the next few years.
Cover letters are basically kind of the same thing as resumes, that’s my personal opinion, a lot of different people might have different opinions about it. I think the most important concepts are networking and your resume. Networking and resumes go hand in hand, I would spend let’s say an hour a day with networking, it’s very simple yet effective.
How I do this is the following: a lot of people will spend time making the perfect message to someone and then what happens, Stephen, is they get rejected by that person. The person doesn’t respond, and then they don’t feel good about themselves, and then they stop reaching out to people because they base it off one person. In all transparency, it is a numbers game when you’re reaching out to people. What you can do is literally reach out to people, mention something that was significant about their profile or something that stood out, build that connection. It’s like making friends.
When you’re able to make friends, that allows you to get these opportunities and spend less than an hour a day on it, you don’t have to spend more. I think a lot of people get distracted when they’re on LinkedIn, they go scroll through their feeds. I know a lot of people do it on TikTok, Instagram, all these different things, so focus, and if you’re able to do it, I would say less than one hour a day.
How do you feel about candidates automating their introductions to these hiring managers, or even their outreach?
They should be using tools like yours, honestly. I think automation is the way to go, the reason why is because, for example, a lot of people will be, like I said before, spending so much time typing up, what should I say to Stephen, oh what should I say to xyz, right?
They’ll be spending so much time typing up their different responses, when they could be utilizing different tools which allow them to automate these different responses, but also pull things from their profile which they can put in a personalized invite. I think that’s very recommended, I would recommend it immensely for people to utilize because if you’re able to do that that saves time. Which is what’s extremely key, a lot of people will consider these automation tools for sales, right? But in fact it’s for job seekers too, just people don’t realize it. You should use these tools which will allow you to reach out to more different people, and let’s say only five people respond out of fifty, it’s ten percent, that’s totally fine, focus on the five people who reached out back to you, rather than 45 people who didn’t.
Thank you so much for having me Stephen, honestly Zopto is an amazing tool. Everybody, definitely utilize it to automate your different responses etc., it’s not just for sales, it’s for job seekers too. A lot of my people who are listening
in today are students, new grads, etc. – if you’ve not not heard of Zopto, check it out right now, go to zopto.com.
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Can I delete LinkedIn account and create a new one with the same email?
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