The Bowl Championship Series polling almost always manages to infuriate some college football fans. Coaches are playing favorites or sportswriters don’t know what they’re talking about or those computer-generated ratings are just plain goofy.

What’s really happening, though, is that a bunch of people are trying to be as fair as possible in a system where there is really no one right answer. It’s a lot like how companies hire workers.

And you can maximize your chances of getting hired in the same way that football teams improve their rankings. Such as:

Don’t let up. Sometimes it is not so sporting when football teams run up the score on outclassed opponents, but they do it to improve their rankings. They don’t want the last few, otherwise meaningless, minutes of a game to taint the rest of their efforts.

Some workers are clumsy about this when they are ready to leave a job. They don’t give proper notice or they burn bridges or they simply slack off, and that’s the lingering impression they leave with bosses and co-workers.

Minimize your setbacks. Even top teams have a loss or at least a serious scare, just as top workers have weaknesses or have made mistakes. How do you work around your weaknesses? What have you learned from your mistakes?

Stand out. If a flawed team has the best passing attack in the country, it can fool people into thinking it’s better than it really is because it stands out from everyone else.

For job applicants, standing out means the people doing the hiring remember your name and your personality. Look for ways to connect with them, so you come across as unique rather than another faceless cog among a dozen applicants.