Six Videos That Helped Me Get Hired

I recently got a good job offer. I didn’t get it by carpet-bombing every job board with the same résumé and hoping somebody eventually developed poor judgment. I followed advice from several videos, rewrote how I presented myself, and practiced how I would handle the conversations.

These are those videos.

They aren’t six versions of the same interview tips. Together, they cover the whole trip: make your LinkedIn profile easy for recruiters to find, give them a reason to keep reading, handle the first call, explain what you can do, and turn the interview into a conversation about the company’s problems.

Watch them in this order if you’re starting from scratch. More importantly, do the work after each one. Watching career videos without changing anything is just professionally themed Netflix.

1. Make your LinkedIn profile findable

6 LinkedIn Mistakes Keeping You In Your Old Job

Farah Sharghi · 6 minutes

This was the part that let me stop applying for jobs. Once my LinkedIn profile was set up properly, I started getting about one recruiter call a week.

Sharghi explains that recruiters search by combining a role, location, skills, tools, industries, and employers. Use the terms they would actually search for in your About, Experience, and Skills sections, then give them a reason to stop by describing results instead of listing duties. She also covers keeping your public activity professional: recruiters can see the argument you had with a stranger at 1:14 a.m..

One setting I would add is Open to → Finding a new job. Fill in the roles and locations you want, then set Visibility → Recruiters only. This avoids the public #OpenToWork photo frame. LinkedIn tries to hide the signal from your current company, but it can’t guarantee complete privacy.

Once the calls start, use them as feedback. Pay attention to the positions recruiters bring you. If they are close but not quite right, change one or two words in your headline, about section, or skills, then see how the next few calls change. Small adjustments make it easier to tell which words are steering recruiters toward which jobs.

Not every call will be worth taking. The important part is that the job search starts coming to you.

2. Explain what you do in 20 words

How to Introduce Yourself—and Get Hired

Rebecca Okamoto at TEDxNorthwesternU · 10 minutes

This is the cure for freezing or unloading your entire work history when someone says, “Tell me about yourself.”

Okamoto learned the hard way that a complete list of qualifications isn’t a good introduction. The listener is trying to figure out what you can do for them. Your first sentence only needs to earn the next question.

Her basic formula is:

I help [the people I serve] achieve [the result they want].

You can make it more specific by adding the problem you remove:

I help [the people I serve] achieve [the result they want] without [the usual cost or frustration].

If you’re changing careers, early in your career, or driven more by a mission than a job title, she gives three other starting points:

• I’m passionate about something I value so I can help create a result the listener values.
• I’m known for a strength that produces a useful result.
• I’m on a mission to do something specific so a group of people gets a useful result.

Write several versions because the right introduction depends on who’s listening. The goal isn’t to cram your life into 20 words. It is to say something clear enough that the other person asks, “Tell me more.”

3. Understand what the recruiter wants

Psychology Says You Can Land Any Job Once You Understand These 6 Principles

Career Growth With Lucy · 12 minutes

This video made the recruiter call feel less like a trap. By the time a recruiter talks to you, they have already seen something they like. They are busy, the open role is still a problem, and they would very much like you to make their job easy by being the right person.

Lucy explains that through six ideas:

1. Cognitive ease: Clear résumés, clear headlines, and direct answers are easier to understand. Confusion feels like work.
2. The halo effect: One strong early impression can color how the rest of the conversation is understood.
3. Likability: People want to hire somebody they can work with. Match the other person’s energy, respect their time, and don’t spend the first ten minutes complaining.
4. Authority bias: People trust someone who sounds like they have solved this kind of problem before. Speak plainly about what you owned and what changed.
5. Confirmation bias: Once an interviewer forms an early opinion, they tend to notice evidence that supports it. Start clearly, then back that impression with examples.
6. Commitment: Before the call ends, ask for the next step, the expected date, and permission to follow up if that date passes.

The percentages and sweeping promises in the video are sales copy, not laws of psychology. The useful point is simpler: the person on the other end is human. Don’t make them decode you, manage your frustration, or guess whether you want the job. Be clear, interested, and easy to work with.

4. Think like the hiring manager

The Interview Secret to Getting Hired

Farah Sharghi · 6 minutes

Sharghi’s main point is that the interview isn’t a trivia contest. The company has a problem, the role exists to help solve it, and the hiring manager is trying to decide whether you are a low-risk way to get the outcome.

She gives eight rules for showing that:

1. Study why the role exists instead of memorizing company facts. Look at the job description, company goals, public financial information, and the hiring manager’s work.
2. Explain what you delivered, not only what you did. She recommends Google’s XYZ shape: “Accomplished X, measured by Y, by doing Z.”
3. Structure stories with a framework such as STAR, CAR, or HERO so the interviewer can follow the problem, your choices, and the result.
4. Look prepared. Use a clean background, reliable audio, useful lighting, and a camera near eye level for a remote interview.
5. Arrive early enough to fix a microphone, connection, parking, or breathing problem before the interview starts.
6. Ask what exceeding expectations would look like in the first six months and which measurable outcomes define success.
7. Manage your energy. Calm evidence is more useful than pretending you don’t need the job.
8. End like a consultant. Summarize the problems you heard, explain what you would focus on first, and ask whether that matches the manager’s priorities.

You don’t need a number in every sentence. Some good work is hard to reduce to a percentage without making one up, and made-up precision is still made up. Bring numbers where they are real. For everything else, be specific about the before, your decision, and the result.

5. Stop auditioning and start consulting

Stop Answering Interview Questions (Do This Instead)

Career Growth With Lucy · 13 minutes

Most candidates wait for a question, answer it, and wait for the next one. Lucy argues that more senior candidates use the interview to diagnose. They ask what is going wrong, why it is happening, and what success would look like. Then they connect those answers to problems they have solved before.

The video builds this in three levels:

1. Use the in-demand frame. When asked why they should hire you, start with the problems you see similar organizations facing. Ask whether those are showing up here and what may be causing them.
2. Guide with calibrated questions. Get the interviewer talking about the business. Their answer tells you which parts of your experience matter.
3. Use calm assumptions. Instead of always asking a direct question, state your current understanding and let the interviewer correct it: “From what I’ve read, this role seems mostly focused on the domestic market.” People often give more detail while correcting a near miss.

That last technique is called elicitation in the video. It also covers bracketing a likely number and using mild disbelief to invite more detail. Practice it in ordinary conversations first. Used naturally, it sounds like a senior person checking their understanding. Used badly, it sounds like you watched a video about CIA tricks the night before your interview.

The point isn’t to dodge every question or manipulate the interviewer. Answer what they asked. Then be curious enough to understand the work and confident enough to decide whether the job is right for you too.

6. Don’t talk yourself out of the offer

Why “Lying” Gets You Hired

Farah Sharghi · 12 minutes

The title is intentionally provocative. The advice isn’t to lie about your experience, title, or plans. It is to stop volunteering information that creates doubt without helping the interviewer evaluate your work.

Sharghi walks through nine common moments:

1. “How are you?” Start with steady, positive energy. The interview begins before the first technical question.
2. “Why do you want to work here?” Don’t repeat the About page. Connect the team’s goals to a problem you can help solve.
3. “Where do you see yourself in five years?” Explain how this role fits the skills you want to build and the contribution you want to make. The interviewer is mostly checking whether the role and your direction fit.
4. “Why are you leaving?” Talk about what you learned and the challenge you’re ready for. Trashing an employer makes the next employer wonder what you will eventually say about them.
5. “How do you feel about your manager?” Keep it professional. Describe what you learned and how you grew, even if the working relationship wasn’t good.
6. “What do you do outside work?” Pick something true and specific. A small project, sport, craft, volunteer role, or subject you’re learning is more memorable than “watching TV and seeing friends.”
7. Your title and responsibilities. Claim the level of work you actually performed. If your official title undersells it, state the title and then explain what you led. Don’t quietly demote your own experience.
8. A résumé gap. The gap was visible when they invited you. Explain it briefly and without apology, mention relevant learning or work if there was any, and move forward.
9. “Do you have questions?” Always have at least two. Ask why the role is open, what success looks like in the first 90 days, and which immediate problem needs attention.

Some details depend on the job and on what matters to you. If remote work is a hard requirement, for example, hiding it until the end can waste everybody’s time. Strategic framing means choosing the relevant truth. It doesn’t mean letting a YouTube title talk you into actual lying.

Turn the watch list into a practice plan

Don’t try to memorize six videos. Build a small set of things you can use:

1. Rewrite your LinkedIn headline, About section, and recent experience with the terms a recruiter would search and the outcomes you delivered.
2. Write two 20-word introductions: one for a recruiter and one for a hiring manager.
3. Prepare five work stories. Give each one a clear problem, your decision, your action, and the result.
4. Research why the role exists and write down three business problems it may need to solve.
5. Prepare three questions about expectations, immediate problems, and what happens next.
6. Practice out loud with another person. Let them interrupt, ask a vague follow-up, or sit silently after you answer. Real interviews have humans in them, which is inconsiderate but worth preparing for.

You do not need to become a different person. You need to make it easy for a recruiter and a hiring manager to see the useful parts of the person who is already there.