Getting a job is harder nowadays. Let’s see how to trick an employer to hire you. After all, the job market is ultra competitive! Let me share a story.

“Sam, I absolutely hate my company and hate my job.  I can’t wait for some sucker to give me a big package so I can blow this joint and retire early.” January 17, 2011.

These are the words of an acquaintance who hit the jackpot when an upstart company in his industry decided to give him a two-year guarantee for 50% more a year. 

In the employer’s mind, they think they are getting an experienced person with a great attitude and a long term commitment of building their business for 5+ years. 

In my acquaintance’s mind, he’s jumping ship because he sees the dollar signs and plans to retire as soon as his two-year contract is over.

Hire You With Strategy

After 5-10 years of experience in whatever field you are in, there will inevitably be competing firms who will want to hire you away if you are a good performer. 

If you are a super high performer you will always have opportunities thrown at you. Employers will hire you no problem. Your biggest problem is deciding when is the right time to leave for the bigger bucks.

The sad part about the scenario above is that I’ve known the hiring manager for over a decade and think he is a brilliant business builder. 

Yet, even a brilliant man like him can get hoodwinked by a miserable guy with different intentions. How does this happen? Here’s how.

The dark pieces of you can sometimes shimmer.

Nobody is completely melancholy.  We all have things we get excited and happy about.  Those specific thoughts are what you have to concentrate on to pass a lie detector test.

Interviews are the only way for an employer to directly ascertain how you are as a person.  This is when you need to throw away all your disdain, and less than desirable attributes and start performing. 

You are the lead actor in a play, and your goal is to make your audience love you.  Don’t underestimate the importance of “looking the part”.  They do play huge parts in making good impressions.

You must smile and say sweet words of kindness.  You must pretend your motivations are pure, and that you are there for the long term.  All your intentions seem real, because you are thinking about things that will potentially make you happy if you get this job – a lot of money, an early retirement, and sticking it to your old firm.

Important positions need to be carefully vetted because once someone enters your organization, it is brutally difficult to get them out thanks to employment protection laws. 

As a result, you will go through multiple interviews over many months to make sure you are the right candidate.  You need to keep your game face on and replicate your happy enthusiasm consistently over and over again.  You must not break. You must make them hire you.

Even Ghengis Khan has allies.

The next vital step is having superb references.  Even if you are the most evil person on earth, you will at least have a handful of people who will sing your praise. 

Identify those people and feed them to your perspective employer.  Give your references a heads up that you have done so and be extra kind to them for at least a month before the process.  Take them out for lunch and help out anyway you can.

Five references is generally enough.  A lot of employers stop at three, so if you give them more, you will look like a credible person.

Sugar-coated donuts are unhealthy, but everybody still loves them.

You’ll undoubtedly have some weaknesses which are less than desirable with your prospective employer.  No matter, because you are smiling and demonstrating your fantastic fake enthusiasm about the hiring company.  You have implanted sugar coated donuts into the hiring manager’s head that you will be the perfect candidate for the job.

The interview process is exactly the time where you can over-promise on what you can do.  You make them salivate like Pavlov’s dog.  The more you promise them, the more they will want to pay you. 

Forget the sugar shaker, you bring out the industrial powder sugar machine that rains goodness 10 donuts at a time.  You know that once you are in, it’s too late.  You’ve got them by the balls because everything is in writing to hire you.

The more you think about waterfalls in a crowded place, the more you will need to pee.

People can’t help but follow the herd.  As soon as your prospective employer gets a whiff that someone else might be interested in hiring you, your stock will rocket to the top. 

You need to create that anxiety to hire you even if it might not be entirely true.  It’s easy to say have been approached by a competing firm, but nothing has transpired yet. 

Once your prospective employer hears that, they’ll start thinking about Niagara Falls baby!

Related post: How To Get A Job You Do NOT Deserve 

Also, check out, How To Get Revenge From An Employer Who Fired You! Ah, gotta love this pieces.

Underperformers Survive

You must master your own presence. Like an actor in a big Hollywood movie, you are able to turn on the charm once the cameras start rolling.  If you can do that, you will forever be employed because you’ll always be able to jump around. 

By the time your employer realizes they’ve made a mistake, it won’t matter because you’ve got that fat contract, or you’re already moving on to your next employer!

And when you want to leave your partner, make sure you negotiate a severance so you can leave with money in your pocket like I did. I ended up negotiated a severance in 2012 that paid for 6 YEARS of living expenses! It was the best gift ever as I sought to do something new.

Learn how to negotiate your severance by reading my book, How To Engineer Your Layoff: Make A Small Fortune By Saying Goodbye. The book is recently expanded to over 200 pages with new resources, strategies, and additional case studies thanks to tremendous reader feedback. Get your employer to give you a severance and learn how to get a new employer to hire you soon after.

Track Your Wealth For Free

Once you get an employer to hire you, optimize you finances. I recommend signing up for Personal Capital’s free financial tools so you can track your net worth, analyze your investment portfolios for excessive fees, and run your financials through their fantastic Retirement Planning Calculator.

Those who are on top of their finances build much greater wealth longer term than those who don’t. I’ve used Personal Capital since 2012. It’s the best free financial app out there to manage your money.