It’s official: I’m quitting my job as Global Social Media Manager at Björn Borg in Stockholm in to start as Social Content Marketer at Mag+ in New York, where I will be telling the story of Mag+ and the clients and e-publishing and all things related using digital channels. This is a story about the (very unorthodox) application process, and what I learned from it.

I had been thinking about  imagining moving abroad for almost a year when I saw Magplus’ ad for “social content marketer”. It was an interesting job description, matching my profile perfectly. I am a story teller at heart, and content creation is to me about telling stories. No matter if it’s a tweet, a photo, a video or a blog post it is a story, or a part of one. To be a good content creator you need to be versatile in both skills and knowledge, and  I wanted to apply in a way that proved that I am.

Looking for a new job is like cheating on your partner before going to the next committed relationship. You meet the new potential employer on the down low until you’re certain, then you commit to the new relationship before ending the first one. This doesn’t work if you’re applying for the job using only public social media, like I had decided to do. No e-mails, no resumes in old school formats like Word or PDF. That meant that before applying, I had to resign from my job at Björn Borg. This was the scary part: quitting your job without knowing what to do next is a big step, at least in Sweden.

However, I had done it before and that was one of the five best decisions in my life so far. If you want to win big, you’ve got to take a chance.

As soon as my resignation was accepted, I applied for the new job using Youtube, my (Swedish) blog and Twitter.

Instead of sending my resume, I posted a video on Youtube where I apply for the job. I sent the link in a tweet to Björn Alberts, the person responsible for this recruitment.

On my blog and on Twitter I posted a request for endorsements from all my readers and followers (link in Swedish). Either by commenting on the blog post, or by sending a tweet or an e-mail directly to Björn, saying why (or why not, should someone think I’m inappropriate for the job) I was perfect for the job at Mag+.

Then I waited.

Within 36 hours, I had some 80 endorsements in comments, e-mails and tweets. (On a side note, I wanted to thank my network for their engagement and in this case I chose to contribute to Médecins Sans Frontiers with 5 SEK for each retweet and 10 SEK for each endorsement. However, I was careful not to announce this beforehand as I didn’t want it to look as if I was buying endorsements.)

I met with Björn, whom I had interacted with in digital but never met afk . I liked the way Björn thought, I liked that the organization is a start up and that there’s an entrepreneurial spirit, and I liked the people I met when visiting the New York office. Björn obviously liked me, and the rest is, as they say, history.

Here are a couple of things I learned from the process, learnings that can be applied both to organizations and individuals:

• Transparency can’t exist without honesty. If your ideal self (how you think and say you are) is consistent with your real self (what others see you do), transparency will be one of your most useful tools
• Do things your own way, even if you’re going against all conventions. If you’re doing good shit, it’ll work, if you’re not you’ll learn something valuable in the process
• Follow your heart/gut feeling/instinct (or whatever you choose to call it). When I did this, I had no idea whether it would work or how well it would work. It could backfire. But my gut feeling said it would turn out well.
• You can’t have the cake and it eat too. I really wanted the job at Mag+, but I had to sacrifice the safety of my job at Björn Borg in the process. I might have gotten the job in a more conventional way, but that would have lost me this process of learning.
• Grow your network now, when you don’t need it. Once you do, it’s too late to start. Growing your network to me means interacting with people and nurturing (digital) relationships. Don’t leech. Pay favors back, or pay them forward.

2012 will be very interesting. If all goes well, I’ll spend most of it in New York. This is my theme for this year:

It’s official: I’m quitting my job as Global Social Media Manager at Björn Borg in Stockholm in to start as Social Content Marketer at Mag+ in New York, where I will be telling...