The 2026 Checklist for Landing a Good Job

01Fix your handshake.

I can tell everything about a candidate within the first half-second of a handshake. Grip, dryness, angle of approach. A weak handshake tells me you were raised on participation trophies. Practice on relatives until at least two of them wince. Then you are ready.

02Acquire a landline.

A mobile number on a CV says you might be anywhere. A landline says you are home, waiting, at a fixed address, like a serious person. Yes, they still sell them. No, I will not call it. But I will see it, and I will nod.

03Print fifty copies of your CV.

Ivory cardstock, 32 lb minimum. Anything lighter and the document flops when handed over, and a flopping CV is a flopping career. Keep ten copies in the car. You never know when you will meet a decision maker, and asking him to check your LinkedIn is the professional equivalent of asking him to do your job search for you.

04Visit the office in person.

Applications go into a system. People walk through a door. Show up, ask the front desk for the hiring manager by name, and refuse the offered seat while you wait, because standing communicates eagerness. Many buildings will tell you this is not allowed. That is a test. The candidates we remember are the ones security remembers.

05Follow up by telephone, daily.

Call between 7:40 and 8:05 in the morning, before the gatekeepers arrive. If the manager does not answer, leave a message stating your name, the role, and the fact that you will call again tomorrow. This is not harassment. This is cadence. There is a difference, and the difference is confidence.

06Do your homework on the hiring team.

Here is where I lose the entitled and keep the employable, so read closely. I am a busy man. I give each CV 1.3 seconds. I have timed it. In 1.3 seconds I can absorb a name, a font, and a general sense of moral character, and then I move on. A CV with a cover letter does not make you memorable. It makes you adequate, and adequate is the bare minimum everyone else is already doing.

The candidates I remember do their homework. Last autumn a young man found my personal Instagram, worked out my favorite bar from roughly three years of photographs, established through careful study which stool I prefer, and waited. When my boyfriend Marcus and I arrived on a Thursday, he sent over two Negronis and a small nod. He did not approach the table. He did not pitch. He waited, discreetly, until I waved him over, and then he spoke for ninety seconds about the role and thanked us for our evening.

That is initiative. That is discretion. That is understanding that recruitment is a relationship business. Is he employed now? No, the role was cancelled in a restructuring. But I remember his name, and remembering is the entire game. The drinks, for the record, were excellent choices. Marcus still mentions him.

07Dress two levels above the job.

Applying for a warehouse position? Wear a suit to the warehouse. Applying for a suit position? Wear a better suit. Nobody in the history of commerce was ever penalized for being the best dressed person in a loading bay.

08Delete your personality from the internet.

Before I read your CV, my junior colleague reads your entire online history, which takes her considerably longer than 1.3 seconds and puts her in a foul mood. Opinions, humor, photographs of enjoyment. All of it goes. The ideal candidate has the digital footprint of a well-maintained lawn.

09Practice gratitude, audibly.

At every stage, thank us. Thank us for the rejection. Especially for the rejection. A handwritten thank-you note after being turned down has gotten more people onto my shortlist than any qualification ever printed. Gratitude signals that you understand your position in the process, which is at the bottom.

10Take up golf.

You do not need to be good. You need to be present, at courses, on Saturdays, where hiring decisions are actually made. Every candidate under 35 tells me networking happens online now. Interesting theory. I have never once hired anyone because of a comment thread, and I have hired four people because of a nine iron.

11Be reachable at all times.

One ring. That is how fast you answer when an unknown number calls, because the unknown number is opportunity, and opportunity famously does not leave a voicemail. Christmas morning included. If this sounds extreme, ask yourself how much you actually want to work, and be honest, because we already know the answer. We can see it in your handshake.

12Lower your expectations, then lower them again.

You want remote work, a living wage, and to be treated with dignity. I wanted those things too, at your age, and my manager laughed so hard he promoted me. The candidates who succeed in 2026 are the ones who understand that a job is not something you deserve. It is something you are permitted, temporarily, to hold.