In this solo podcast episode, host John Jonas addresses Filipino workers who use OnlineJobs.ph, outlining eight practical rules to improve their chances of landing a remote job. He begins by highlighting the marketplace imbalance – roughly 80,000 Filipino job‑seekers versus 20,000 employers each month – and explains why most applicants fail to get noticed. The core advice is: 1. Stand out – the overarching goal; without standing out, an application is ignored. 2. Avoid mass applying – sending the same generic cover letter to many jobs signals low effort and leads to rejection. 3. Follow the employer’s instructions – job posts often contain specific steps (subject line, form links, required apply points) that weed out careless applicants. 4. Research and personalize – spend a few minutes learning about the hiring company and tailor the application to show genuine interest. 5. Use more apply points – allocating a higher number of apply points signals seriousness and makes the application more likely to be reviewed. 6. Stay within your skill set – don’t claim experience you don’t have; misrepresentations lead to negative reviews that damage future prospects. 7. Use AI responsibly – AI can help draft materials but must not be used to fabricate skills or experience. 8. Be yourself – be honest in cover letters, tests, and interviews; authenticity builds trust and avoids the pitfalls of fake personas. Jonas reinforces each rule with anecdotes from his 20‑year hiring experience, warning that negative reviews linger on profiles and can cripple future job searches. He ends by urging listeners to adopt these habits to secure higher‑paying, stable remote work.
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Mass applying just doesn't work. It never has worked. And I know it's like the easiest way to apply, but if you're mass applying to jobs in onlinejobs ph, it's super unlikely that you're gonna get a job. It just does not work. Welcome to the Secret Sauce of Outsourcing podcast that's dedicated to making you better at outsourcing to the Philippines. This is episode 466, eight golden rules when applying for jobs on onlinejobs. Ph, yeah. Today is the first time I've ever done a podcast episode that is not aimed employers. This is aimed at workers on onlinejobs. Ph, I want you, I want to welcome you guys to the podcast. I've never had you as a, as my audience before and today I'm going to talk to workers. If you're an employer, this is probably going to be really good for you to understand what we're asking people to do and it'll be indicative and probably helpful to you as you, as you go to hire people in online jobs as you're looking to write a job post. So workers in the Philippines, welcome. I'm super excited to talk to you. I have never done this and it's kind of different for me and I did it recently on a podcast. I was a guest on a podcast with someone else and found it very eye opening to myself to speak towards you, the workers. I'm hesitant to say the virtual assistants because I hate that. I hate those words, virtual assistant. But it was also really good for me to finally put into words the things that I've seen for the last 20 years in hiring people in the Philippines. Yeah, I hired my first person in 2005 and yeah, I mean, that guy still works for me today. It's been 20 years. So let me, I want to cover today eight golden rules when you're applying for jobs to help you get a job because that's the end goal. Get a job, find a job online, work for a foreign boss. So first, before I get into the eight golden rules, let me give you some numbers. We have about 80,000 people in the Philippines registering for accounts on onlinejobs. Ph every month. 80,000. Then we have somewhere around 20,000 employers on online jobs every month. So that means there's four times and the number has varied between four and five times the number of people in the Philippines versus employers or there are five times more people in the Philippines than there are jobs. And so if you're just going out and spamming stuff, then yeah, it's really hard to find a job. So just, I just want you to know what you're up against or what you're up, what your challenge is or what you can do to make this a really good thing for yourself. Online jobs tend to pay higher than jobs locally in the Philippines. They tend to be more stable if you, if you handle it well. They tend to be easier, less, less demanding. Like where in the Philippines, often you're going to work six 10 hour days. Working online, you're probably expected to work five, eight hour days. You get a lot more flexibility, you get more time off, the whole thing is generally better. But employers still expect a lot. Online employers, Americans still expect a lot. So let me go through. I wrote down some notes ahead of time just so I know the direction I want to go and I ordered them in order of importance. So I'm going to go through my eight golden rules when applying for jobs in onlinejobs ph and you'll see that like numbers two through seven apply are directly related to number one and numbers three through or number two through eight number two. Numbers three through eight apply to number one and number two. And not all of them are like this. But yeah, you're gonna see this. So the number one golden rule applying for jobs in onlinejobs ph is to stand out. That's it. Stand out. Now how do you stand out? Well, you stand out by following the other seven golden rules that I'm going to give you. But here's the main thing. If you don't stand out, there are 200 other applicants to that job and six or 10 or 50 of them are going to stand out. And if you're one of the other 150 or one of the other 190, well, you don't stand out, then your application is never going to even get considered. You're never even considered. So the real key here is to stand out in the mind of that person. And I can tell you multiple times in my career in the last 20 years where I have hired someone because they stood out rather than because they were the best or the most qualified or they were the one that had the most experience or the lowest salary or whatever it was, it didn't matter. I hired the person who stood out the most. And sometimes I was right and sometimes I was wrong. But I still remember multiple times where I was like, I just keep coming back to this person. Like I, no matter what these other people say, I just keep coming back to this one because they stood out to me. So as you listen to the rest of this, you need to do things to stand out. And if you're just part of the crowd, well, then, like the ones that are part of the crowd, I never even looked at them. So this brings me to number two. Mass applying does not stand out. If you're applying to 10 jobs every day, sending the same cover letter every day, and your profile is generic, I want to be a virtual assistant, slash data entry, slash video editor, WordPress. Well, you don't stand out. You don't stand out at all. And every employer who gets your application sees you just sent me a generic application, a generic cover letter. And I don't, I'm not interested. I don't. I don't care. I'm not interested because you just, you're just mass applying to everything. Okay. So before I move on, I want to acknowledge that I understand that applying to jobs is hard. And certainly the easiest way is to write a single cover letter that you think is really good and Send it to 10 different people. Send it to 10 people every day. That's your apply points limit. You get to send one apply point to each job. So send it to 10 people every day. It's the best cover letter you can write, and it's generic and whatever. So I understand that's what's easiest. I also understand it's going to take. It's. I also understand it's just going to take more to get a job that way. Like, it's just, it's, it's unlikely. It's unlikely to work. So this leads me to number three, which is to follow instructions. So because so many people just mass apply, employers have put stuff into their job posts in order to weed out those who are just clicking Apply, Apply, Apply. Right. They want someone who stands out. So employers do things. They add instructions like make the subject of your application this or don't apply here at Online Jobs. Click the link, go to my Google Doc and fill out the Google form. Or use a specific number of apply points when you apply. If you don't follow the instructions, you're out. That's it. So if you're just mass applying to jobs, not standing out, you didn't follow the instructions. You just guaranteed they will not look at your application. So, and if you're an employer. Yep. You should put in instructions if you're still. If you're listening to this. Yeah. Add. Require a certain number of apply points. Yep. Require the title to be a certain. A certain way. I have asked people in your application, send me a link to a Picture of a pink Cadillac. I've, I've done that before. Just. I know it's stupid, but it just requires something that says, you know. Yep, you read my job post and you're paying attention. So, yeah, if you're applying to jobs, follow the instructions and follow them well and make sure you pay attention to the details. That's all I have to say about that. So my number four golden rule is know who you are applying to. So if you're sending an application to me and I say, in my job post, I'm looking for a social media marketer, that person's going to work for onlinejobs Ph, and if you don't acknowledge that you're applying to me, the owner of onlinejobs Ph, you don't acknowledge that in your application, you just send me an application. I'm sorry, I'm not interested. Because I got 12 other people that were like, oh my gosh, I'm so excited to apply to a job at the platform that I'm on. Right. And that right there stands out. Just that little thing of understanding who you're applying to and making that person feel special. So you're applying to a freight forwarder out of Long Beach, California. You have no idea about this person other than they put their business name in their job post. And all it takes is like three minutes of googling to find the business, what they do, and who the person is that you're applying to and for you to find something about them. Hey, I'm applying to your social media position, your SEO position for your freight forwarding business. And I have some relationship to freight forwarding because of something, something, something. And so I think I'm qualified for this job. You, you just caught that person's attention and not by being any more qualified for the job, but just by knowing who you're applying to, by paying attention and personalizing it. And that is going to go a long, long ways towards making sure your application gets seen and that they're interested in you, that makes you stand out. And for me, so not everyone's like me, but a lot of people recruit this way where as soon as someone stands out, that person's in your head. And now if you just wrote something about them or you just looked them up on their About Us page on the website and you came up with something, hey, I also like basketball like you do. You know, something like that, I don't know what it is, but if as soon as you find that thing and you make a personal connection with that person, or a business connection with that person, all of a sudden it just gets so much more likely that they're going to pay attention to you. Number four, know who you're applying to and personalize your application. Number five golden tip is use more apply points. Yeah, I know. If you use more, then you can't apply to 10 jobs today. If you use eight apply points, well, then you can only apply to three more or to three jobs today. That one plus two others. I know. Maybe you should only apply to that one job today because that's the one you're most qualified for. Using more apply points makes you stand out. Using more apply points tells the employer, hey, I'm really interested in this job, and I also think I'm really qualified and I'm going to stand out. I'm going to recognize who you are. I'm going to make a connection. I'm going to personalize my application and I'm going to use all 10 of my apply points today. On your single job as an employer. If I'm looking at, at applicants to my job post, number one, I don't ever look at people who used one apply point. I just don't. I will, I will not. If you use one apply point, I'm not interested. I don't care how qualified you are. I'm not, not going to look. If you use 10 apply points. If you use 24 apply points, all of a sudden I'm like, well, wow. I mean, this person is. They're serious about this. And I'm definitely going to read their cover letter. I'm definitely going to look at their profile. I'm going to see. I' least going to open and see. And that's the difference between mass applying and making it personal and caring and making it a significant, making a significant contribution to this application. If you make a contribution, if you take your time and do a single good application rather than 10 crappy applications, the chances of you getting looked at are so, so much higher. So my golden tip number five is use more apply points when applying. You will stand. It makes you stand out. All right, so now number six, and this is maybe common sense, and you might just be like, well, I don't care. I'm not going to do that anyway. I don't care. But number six, golden rule. Stick within your skills. If you find a job post that says, I need someone with 12 years of experience in copywriting and you're like, well, I just graduated, but I've done a little bit of copywriting, so I'm going to apply and say, and pretend you know I'm an expert copywriter when you're actually not an expert copywriter, you just made that employer mad. Right. Because they know they're not dumb. And this is when we start to see reviews put onto people's profiles, negative reviews put onto people's profiles. When during the application process I see it regularly, this person applied and they wasted my time and do not pay attention to this person. I'll see that review on someone's profile. And it's hard to come back from a negative review when you just wasted this employer's time by applying to a job. That said, I'm requiring 12 years of experience and you just graduated from college. So while I get that you want to get the job and I get that this might be a really high paying job and it would be really awesome to get it, recognize there's 75 other people that are applying to this job and they're personalizing and they're using multiple apply points and they recognize who the employer is and they're standing out and they also have 10 or 15 years of experience. So when you're applying, stick within the skills that you have. Which leads me to number seven, which is AI. Now I'm going to combine six and seven here. Stick with your skills and using AI. So if you're using AI to apply and you're relying on AI to write your cover letter and to write your email responses, as soon as that person does a video interview, they're going to know, right? And most people do a video interview today, especially because of AI. If you're just relying on AI in your application process, it's going to come out and then they're going to write a negative review. And again, it's hard to overcome that negative review. So it's acceptable to use AI in the application process. It's not acceptable to fake who you are in the application process with AI. It's not acceptable to fake your skills and say, oh well, I could do social media marketing, I could do SEO, if I can just get the job, then I'll just use AI to do it all for me. And I will say that I got duped once early on. This had to have been late 20, late 20, 23. Probably like soon after AI came out and whoever it was had done a lot of really incredible AI stuff to apply and I hired her. And as soon as we started working I was frustrated and it took me a little while to figure out that you actually, this person actually has no Capability. They have no skills themselves. They are incapable of making the changes that I'm asking for because AI will not make these changes that I'm asking for. And they just keep giving me the same thing over and over and over again. And I fired them and I wrote a bad review, and I don't know where that person is now, but they have a bad review on their profile, and that review is not coming off. So it's okay to use AI. It's not okay to use it to exaggerate, to overstate. It's not okay to use it to say, oh, I can apply to this job that says I need eight years of experience, when really I only have one. Because AI has 100 million years of experience, not just not how it works. So if you're going to use it, fine, use it as a tool. Don't use it as a crutch. Don't use it to think for you. Don't use it to be who you are. Which leads me to number eight in my list, which is be yourself. I want you to be yourself in the interview process, in your application, in your cover letter, in the tests that you take. Man, I, I can't tell you how many people we get taking the disc test on online jobs, and they take it trying to think, what does an employer want from me? And so they try and answer the questions according to what does an employer want? And they end up actually being the opposite of what most employers want. And that's not even their actual, their actual personality. It's not even your actual personality. So when you take that test, take it as who you are. Be yourself. Answer it honestly. Then when you apply, be yourself. Put some of your personality into the application. Put some of your personality into your, into your response emails. Put some of your personality into the video interview. Don't worry about the background in your house. Be yourself. Don't worry about the chickens clucking or the dogs barking. We know, we know that's going on. We know we're not hiring someone next door to us in the US we know we're hiring. You're in the Philippines. We know your house is small. We know. Right? We're pretty. I mean, most employers are fairly realistic about this. And what we're actually looking for is someone to kind of be a partner with us and not. I'm not looking for AI. Like, I can use AI myself. I don't need you to use it for. I don't need you to fake who you are to get the job. And then later I just find out, wow, that really sucked and that person's bad. Or you just disappear because you faked it, and then you realize, oh, wow, I really can't do this. And now that employer is pissed and they're gonna leave you a negative review. Just be yourself. Be yourself. When you're being interviewed, write honest responses. If you don't have whatever they're asking for, tell them, hey, look, I'm sorry I don't have all of these skills. I have this one and this one, but I don't have these others. But I'm really excited to learn and I've been studying and I'm willing to take courses on this and I'm willing to be trained and I'm willing learn and go above and beyond. And when they ask you to do a test, go above and beyond. Do more. Impress them. Stand out. But don't be fake. Don't be fake, because fake comes out and then you get fired and then you get a bad review and then you know, like, wow, life is long to have a negative review on your online jobs profile. And that just makes it really hard to overcome towards getting a future job. So be honest and be yourself. And that's my eight golden rules for applying to jobs@onlinejobs.ph, and let me go back through these really quickly. Number one, stand out. And that is the number one of number one, golden rules. Stand out. Number two, mass applying does not work. It does not stand out. Don't do it. Number three, follow instructions. Number four, know who you're applying to and personalize your application to that person. Number five, use more apply points. Using more apply points makes you stand out. Number six, stick within your skills. Stick to your experience level, to jobs that are relevant to you. Number seven, it's okay to use AI, but don't use it to fake. Don't fake that you have skills because AI has those skills. You'll find it's really hard to use them. Number seven or number eight. Number eight, Be yourself. Be yourself in the application. Be yourself in the COVID letter. Be yourself in the interviews. Be yourself. Don't be AI. If you'll stick with these eight rules, wow. I think you'll find it so much easier to find a job on onlinejobs Phone.
