Applying to a job is like having a Restaurant in which, one day, you get the chance to invite a food critic to review it:

The first critic doesn’t even taste the food, they check the outside. Is the sign clean, is the menu clear, is the floor swept, does it look like you care. A quick scan, hunting for reasons to walk away, not to stay.

Only if you pass that, the second critic will come. They won’t answer your emails begging them to visit, they’ll come because the place was recommended by the first critic. This time, they ask for a table. 

They want samples, a tasting menu, a bit of your best work. They might even want to meet the chef to ask some questions: Why this spice, why that combination, what’s your story.

Then the next critic comes, and the next…

And you’re not the only one on their list. They’ve got 100, maybe 1,000 restaurants to visit. Some newer, some fancier, some with better marketing, others very noisy. Yours have to stand out.

A lot of chefs complain they didn’t get the Michelin star, or the dream job. But only a few realize that they need to cook a dish that gives Anton Ego a flashback of his childhood in order to succeed.

Your job isn’t just to cook “good enough” or make the most complex dishes. That is a very subjective task. Your job is to understand what your critic craves. Your menu, your vibe, your flavors need to echo the same spices that their use in their own kitchen.

Go, try their dishes, study their menu, sit at their tables, talk to their waiters respectfully, with curiously, without pushing.

Then go back to your kitchen and run it like theirs. Not as a copy, but as a reflection of what you saw. Make sure you know the differences and can defend your changes if they ask.

Understand their cravings and mimic them. 
Thank me later.