When people ask for career advice, the author almost always asks the same question back.
"So… what makes you special? Why should someone hire you instead of the other 300 applicants?"
More often than not, the answer is "I've been doing SEO for X years."
If we were accountants, lawyers or doctors, years of experience would carry much more weight. But the author has met SEOs with two years of experience he'd hire tomorrow over people with 15.
Ten years ago, simply knowing SEO made you valuable. Today, it's the minimum requirement. Companies aren't struggling to find SEO talent anymore. They're choosing between them.
And when there are hundreds of qualified applicants, being competent isn't what gets you hired. Being memorable is.
Someone inevitably responds with "I don't want to become a conference speaker."
That comes from personal branding often getting tied to an all-or-nothing proposition: either you quietly do your job, or you spend your life chasing followers, speaking engagements and internet fame.
The reality is much less intimidating. Standing out in today's hiring market doesn't require thousands of LinkedIn followers, keynote presentations, or becoming the next Rand Fishkin. It simply requires giving people a reason to remember you after they've interviewed twenty other candidates who all sound the same.
If you've ever been involved in hiring, you know how quickly resumes start to blur together.
None of those things is bad. In fact, they're exactly what I would expect. The problem is that they don't separate you anymore, because they're the baseline for getting an interview, not the reason you get the offer.
The same happens during interviews. Candidates have prepared, polished their stories, and can explain canonical tags, internal linking, or crawl budgets (and now a bit of AI) without missing a beat.
By the fifth or sixth interview, everyone begins sounding equally capable. At that point hiring managers aren't asking whether you know SEO. They're asking:
"What makes this person different from everyone else we've interviewed?"
This is where so many candidates swing and miss. Resumes are full of claims — people attach themselves to big client names and provide high-level tactics without demonstrating ROI, growth or other business success metrics.
What stands out is what you chose to build and test when nobody asked you to.
None need to become businesses or attract thousands of users. Their value isn't measured by popularity or even success (dollars or traffic), it's measured by what they reveal about you.
Projects like these communicate curiosity, initiative, and follow-through far more effectively than another bullet point on a resume ever could.
It's the same reason companies like to hire college grads — grades matter a little, but the four-plus year journey takes commitment.
For the author those are #SEOForLunch, SEOJobs.com, PPCJobs.com, writing for industry publications, and sharing observations (and criticisms) on socials.
None were created because I thought they'd help me get hired someday. Most started because I was curious about an idea, wanted to solve a problem, or simply enjoyed contributing to the industry. Ironically, they've become some of the biggest differentiators in my career.
He recently took on an SEO advisor role for a large job board — and asks you to guess what they liked about him versus others.
Maybe they've read one of my newsletter issues. Maybe they've used one of the job boards. Maybe they strongly disagree with one of my opinions. Honestly, I don't care which one it is. What matters is that there's something tangible attached to my name besides a list of responsibilities from previous jobs.
Please don't read this and conclude that everyone needs to start a newsletter or launch a business. If anything, that's the wrong lesson. Your differentiator should reflect your interests, not mine.
The project itself (or the results) isn't what matters. What matters is that you've created something that demonstrates genuine curiosity about your craft. Those experiences become stories you can tell during interviews, and those stories are often far more memorable than another discussion about keyword research or site audits.
Most hiring decisions aren't made while you're sitting across the table answering questions. They're made after you've left the room, when interviewers start comparing notes and discussing who they'd actually like to work with.
That's the moment you're trying to influence.
You don't want someone to describe you as the candidate who "seemed solid." You want them to remember the experiment you ran, the tool you built, the community you helped, or the project you were passionate enough to create on your own.
Today's hiring market is way different from what it was even five years ago. Companies have more qualified applicants than ever before, which means they can afford to be selective. SEO/AI competency gets you into the interview process, but it's rarely what separates the final two candidates.
The worst thing you can be isn't inexperienced. It's forgettable.
This isn't an argument for hustle culture. It's an acknowledgment that employers have more choice than they've had in years. Standing out isn't optional anymore.
Don't prepare "years of experience" as your answer. That is the article's starting point — 300 other applicants can say it too.
Show the choice, not the result. "What did you build when nobody asked you to" is the discriminating question. An experiment with no traffic and no revenue qualifies.
Don't judge by scale. The author repeats it: a project's value is the disposition it reveals, not its popularity.
Understand when the decision is made — after the interview, while notes are compared. The goal is leaving behind a sentence someone quotes in that room.
Don't copy someone else's differentiator. This is not an instruction to start a newsletter. A side project that doesn't come from your own interest won't survive.
Learn what interviewers are actually anxious about — the same problem for designers is covered in Stop Memorising Design Interview Questions, on the same logic about why rehearsed answers backfire.
Work in ways that compound — see Marketers Who Re-Explain Their Brand Every Time vs Those Who Don't.
Recognise that tool judgment is itself the differentiator now — as 86.9% of Korean Office Workers Use AI at Work shows, when everyone uses the same tools, what remains is how you choose them.
Ten years ago knowing SEO made you valuable; today it is the minimum requirement. Companies are choosing between qualified candidates rather than struggling to find them, so being memorable rather than competent is what gets you hired.
No. It requires no thousands of LinkedIn followers, keynotes, or industry stardom — just giving people a reason to remember you after they have interviewed twenty candidates who all sound the same.
What you chose to build and test when nobody asked you to — a small SEO tool, a testing site documenting experiments, a newsletter, a GitHub project, a case study, a Looker Studio dashboard, or nonprofit volunteer work. Value is measured by what it reveals, not popularity or revenue.
After you leave the room, when interviewers compare notes and discuss who they'd actually like to work with. The goal is being remembered for an experiment, tool or project rather than as the candidate who 'seemed solid.'
To apply what you just read to your own site, start with a free audit of where things are now.
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