It’s difficult to get a new job. It necessitates a significant amount of effort, focus, and work. Many people, from fresh college graduates to seasoned professionals, make the same mistakes, making the hunt for a new job more difficult than it has to be. Check out these typical Job Search Mistakes and how to prevent them!
Article Road Map
You Don’t Have A Plan In Place To Target Employers.
You may believe you’re doing an efficient job hunt since you’re sending application after application online. That is not the case! Applying for every job you come across without thinking about it typically doesn’t work out well.
Targeting your dream employers—companies that fascinate you, align with your passion, and require your skills—is the most effective approach to discover the appropriate job for you.
Once you’ve created a list of ideal businesses, you may customize your applications to those companies precisely, increasing your chances of being noticed and landing the job.
Your Cover Letter And Resume Aren’t Tailored To The Employer.
A generic CV and cover letter, even if you have a specific job-search approach, can swiftly sabotage your efforts. An employer can tell if you developed your resume particularly for the firm or if it was a one-size-fits-all document that you send to every company on your list just by looking at it.
If you tailor your cover letter and CV to explicitly target the company’s business challenges and your ability to solve them, your job search will be far more effective.
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You’re Throwing Away the First Third of Your Resume
The first third of your resume is valuable marketing real estate since so many resumes are examined online, through applicant tracking systems, or on mobile devices. If a hiring manager doesn’t notice a strong message in that section right away, they’ll go on to the next CV.
Begin by keeping your personal information brief, sweet, and to the point at the top. You just need to enter your name, one phone number, one email address, and your LinkedIn URL; no physical address is required. This gives you plenty of room to get to the heart of the matter in the top third.
Remove any objective statements you have. Instead, make a professional overview statement or go directly into your experience.
Your Resume Is Very Long.
When I read a CV that is many pages lengthy, I know the job seeker hasn’t customized his resume to the specific position—rather, he’s included everything but the kitchen sink.
While you may believe that a lengthier resume helps you to highlight more of your qualifications, it really leads the reader to grow bored, perplexed as to why you applied for the position, and then toss it aside.
A résumé does not tell the full narrative of your life. All you need to do is give enough relevant information to get an interview. To do so, list the most important parts of your experience as well as why you’re qualified for the position.
You should be able to limit it to one page (or two, at the most, if you have a lot of substantive information that’s relevant to the position) if you do it this way.
You’re Counting On Others To Do The Math For You.
Do you describe your job in terms of duties or achievements? Many job applicants employ phrases that describe actions rather than outcomes in their resumes and cover letters. “In my present work, I managed the project to automate time cards,” says the person explaining the assignment.
Now, I’m sure that’s useful information. It won’t mean anything to a future boss if you don’t tell him or her what it means to you. You must perform the math for the potential employer and demonstrate how you will add value to the organization.
To do so, consider the following questions: What was the effect of my efforts, and how has the organization improved as a result? For example, you could change the preceding sentence to: “When I managed the project to automate time cards, we were able to cut payroll processing time by 20%, saving the firm $15,000 every quarter.”
You Joke With LinkedIn
Assume you’re in charge of recruiting a candidate for a critical position, and you’ve reduced the field down to two excellent candidates. On LinkedIn, you search for both of them. One has a profile chock-full of accomplishments, a compelling personal story, a slew of contacts, and work samples. The other has a few links, no photos, and very little substance.
Which one would you pick?
Companies are increasingly adopting LinkedIn as part of their hiring processes, which means your profile is likely to be the first place employers go to learn more about you.
Sign up for LinkedIn today if you don’t already have one.
Employers Are Put Off By Your Social Media Presence.
Employers take a huge risk when they hire, so they try to gather as much data as possible to either confirm their decision or weed out the poor candidates.
A staggering 93 percent of hiring managers conduct web research on candidates before making a job offer. Worse, 55% have altered their opinions about a candidate after seeing anything unfavorable about him or her on social media.
So get your social media in order. Examine all of your social media platforms to make sure you’re OK with your privacy settings—that is, what potential employers may see. Remove anything that may be construed as offensive, such as negative remarks about past employers. No one wants to recruit a troublesome employee. You’re a problem if your social media wall makes you appear like a lawsuit waiting to happen.
Conclusion
If you don’t pay attention to these things, you could miss out on your dream career. If you master the fundamentals, you’ll be well on your way to a dream job.
The ability to exhibit attention to detail and to network like crazy is the only tried and true job search method that has been proved to work time and time again.
You’ll be well on your way to obtaining your next job if you master those abilities and back them up with relevant experience and real passion.