Stop calling yourself “talent”: employers don’t care

Calling yourself talent won’t cut it. In today’s tough job market, it’s skills and grit that make you stand out to employers

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The job market is crowded with applicants claiming to be “talented.” What’s lacking are job seekers who provide concrete evidence of their skills and how their supposed “talent” has benefited their previous employers, rather than just making grandiose statements.

Claiming you are talented is egotistical boasting, as if you’re a God-given prodigy.

The word “talent” used to be reserved for artists. Today, many job seekers have adopted the feel-good trend of calling themselves “talent,” conveniently ignoring the fact that employers don’t hire based on self-proclaimed talent; they hire candidates with a proven track record of delivering results that positively impacted their previous employer’s bottom line.

Although believing, even imagining, that you are talented feels good, it can undermine your job search.

• It’s subjective: Calling yourself “talent” is engaging in an ego-boosting self-assessment that holds no real value for employers. Employers look for objective evidence of abilities, which few job seekers effectively showcase in their résumés, LinkedIn profiles and interviews.
• You sound conceited: Using pompous adjectives makes you seem arrogant and out of touch with what employers look for in a candidate.
• There’s no substance: Abstract labels don’t convey the specific skills, experience and dedication you bring to a role.

The problem is that believing you’re talented feeds the ego rather than showing value. An ego-driven view of talent assumes that if you possess it, then you’re somehow “above” others.

Assumptions about talent are often flawed. This contributes to the disconnect between employers and job seekers and makes the hiring process more frustrating. In his 2020 book The Practice: Shipping Creative Work, Seth Godin writes, “It’s insulting to call a professional talented. Skill is rarer than talent. Skill is earned.”

Acquiring skills requires effort and disciplined focus, which helps explain the shortage of skilled individuals. Skills development involves repeatedly practising and failing. Unless you embrace this cycle until you master the skill and apply it (the key) to produce results that employers need and want consistently, no one, especially employers, will care about your “talent.”

Leon Uris, the author of Exodus (1958) and Trinity (1976), understood that calling yourself “talent” without working hard to develop that talent is just fooling yourself: “Talent isn’t enough. You need motivation—and persistence, too: what Steinbeck called a blend of faith and arrogance. When you’re young, plain old poverty can be enough, along with an insatiable hunger for recognition. You have to have that feeling of ‘I’ll show them.’ If you don’t have it, don’t become a writer.”

Talent alone is meaningless—of no value—without continuous effort to master it. I’ve met, as I’m sure you have, many people who claim to be talented, some even occasionally show their talent, like the numerous paintings I have hanging in my home from artistic friends, but they never find success. Why is that? Because they think that their “gift” is enough. Take the countless job seekers who claim talent but can’t show employers how it benefits a business.

Achieving success in any endeavour, including job searching, has never been, nor will it ever be, about talent. The key to success, for the most part, is strategic hustle and resilience to create what those who don’t put in the work call “sheer luck.”

Was it Tiger Woods’ supposed talent, gift, inclination, propensity or aptitude for golf that created his extraordinary career, or his determination, which drove his intense practice habits, averaging more than 10 hours per day on the driving range? Wayne Gretzky, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Eddie Van Halen, Ernest Hemingway, Robin Williams, Philip Seymour Hoffman and Serena Williams are just a few examples of people who transformed their innate abilities into huge success by working hard and making sacrifices most people aren’t willing to make.

If you’ve jumped on the “Let’s call employees talent to boost their ego” bandwagon, talent still means employee, talent acquisition still means recruiting, so ponder this humbling thought: no company has ever gone out of business because self-proclaimed talented employees left. That’s why employers dismiss the veiled threat they’ll lose “talent” over their return-to-office mandate or refusal to give in to specific demands. Employers also rightfully dismiss the unsubstantiated claim that their hiring process overlooks “talent.” No job seeker, regardless of how talented or skilled they think they are, is an employer’s must-have. I’m a case in point; no employer has ever ceased to exist because they didn’t hire me.

The gap between job seekers and employers, which causes much of the frustration and anger on both sides of the hiring desk, stems from job seekers believing they should be hired based on unsubstantiated talent. Your skills are your superpower. Demonstrating, through your résumé, LinkedIn profile and interviews, that you have the skills and experience to deliver the results employers need and want is how you speed up your job search. Leave the word “talent” to the artists.

Nick Kossovan, a well-seasoned veteran of the corporate landscape, offers advice on searching for a job.