Recruiter Reveals Her 5-Step Secret To Getting Six-Figure Remote Jobs
Her biggest lesson? The entire process is "fake," and so are all the rules.
sturti | Getty Images Signature | Canva Pro When it comes to navigating the job market, the whole thing is a game with rules that are often opaque at best, especially if you don't come from the same demographics as the people running everything.
There's tons of advice out there, of course, but it can often seem like no amount of doing everything right can ever get you ahead, while all the wrong people seem to have no trouble at all. So what's the deal? That's where one headhunter on TikTok comes in.
A recruiter shared her five-step secret to the 'fake' game of getting a six-figure remote job:
Andrea Logan is a writer and career coach who assists job seekers with everything from resume writing to salary negotiation. In a recent video, she shared her simple motivation for getting into the recruiting and HR industry: to learn the secrets of how getting hired actually works and share them with those who need them, especially Black and Indigenous workers who are all too often shut out of the process.
The truth is that much of how the business world works is in a sort of code, and if you weren't born into the groups of people who tend to be in the upper echelons, you often learn nothing about how to even recognize it, let alone crack it.
For example, in his book "Outliers," which examines how high achievers actually tend to rise to success, author Malcolm Gladwell examines a landmark study which found that poor parents and rich parents tend to raise their children with entirely different attitudes toward authority: The former's is nervous and fearful, while the latter's is assertive and even manipulative. Therein lies just one reason why the children of the wealthy tend to excel no matter how unqualified they may be.
To that point, Logan summed up what she's learned with one simple statement: "It's all a pump fake. People do not actually tell you the truth [...about…] what you need to do and say and how to say it to get a job." Using that perspective, she's laid out a five-point plan for breaking through the noise and playing the game the way those who run it tend to play it.
1. Pick a job title — no generalizations.
Step one is to figure out the job title you want and structure everything around that title. No applying willy-nilly to whatever, whenever, and no generic resumes with generic skillsets. Specificity is key because the nature of that job is going to shape all the ways you play this "fake" game from here on out.
"You need to pick a job title that you actually want to procure," Logan said. "Who do you want to be? What do you want to do? Show up as that and associate yourself and identify with that."
2. Make your resume match that job title, even if you don't have the experience.
Remember, this whole game is fake! You've probably heard the well-worn statistic that men tend to apply to a job so long as they're at least 60% qualified, while most women will only apply when they are 100% qualified. Let that be your guiding principle.
Logan said to tailor your resume to match that job title you've chosen, using a typical job description for that title. So what if you don't actually have that experience? Yes, you do: Comb through your job history and find aspects of your previous work that align with your target job description. Then, hone and spin your resume credits accordingly.
3. 'Show up as' that job title and fake it till you make it.
Once you've honed your resume, Logan said to think of the job title as an acting role and the job description as a script. "They described a thing, and you're going to show up as that," she said. "You are acting like that every single day."
Whether it's online on platforms like LinkedIn or in an actual interview, you are always playing this role no matter what your actual experience is. Logan likened it to sales. "You're selling a skill set. You're selling labor to a buyer," and what that buyer wants is the job title you've adopted as your new persona.
She acknowledged that to some, this may seem dishonest, but this is simply how the game is played. Have you ever wondered why it often seems like the majority of people in leadership have no idea what they're doing? Well, now you know. It's called "failing upward" for a reason!
4. Know that most job descriptions are not truthful.
"They're not telling you the truth on that job description," Logan said, "so you need to learn the truth in that interview." Job descriptions are usually written to attract "unicorn" candidates or to get applicants excited about the opportunity. The reality of both the on-the-job experience and what the employer is actually looking for are very different.
You are prepared for this, though, because you've already done the work of constructing your performance! You've done the research and honed your persona, so now it's about listening and adjusting on the fly so you can tell them what they want to hear — which is exactly what they're probably doing to you.
5. Ignore all the rules, most of which are fake anyway.
There is so much advice on the internet for job seekers, but Logan boiled most of it down to one simple truth: gatekeeping. "Nobody is actually giving you actionable steps to use because they don't want you to go above them," she said. "They have an inferiority complex."
This is especially, exponentially true if you are from any kind of marginalized group, and it's also central to why there is so much crying and caterwauling about "DEI" these days, by the way.
"You don't have to follow rules to get you into a better life," Logan said. "You have to fight them with the exact same things that they're fighting you with." And they're mainly fighting you with heaps of BS. So pick your path, put on a show, and BS them right back, all the way to the bank. That's capitalism, baby.
John Sundholm is a writer, editor, and video personality with 20 years of experience in media and entertainment. He covers culture, mental health, and human interest topics.
