It’s Not You; It’s Them
If you’ve been looking for a job recently, you have probably felt frustrated, depressed and lackluster at more than one point.
You want nothing more than to find a job so that you can hone your skills, but even the jobs that you are over-qualified to take on are not getting back to you. Soon, you find yourself working a job that hardly pays the bills that you could do in your sleep.
We get it. You deserve better. You are qualified for so much more, but you just can’t quite get ahead. Sure, there are things that you can do to maximize your chances of finding work. Heck, we’ve written dozens of articles about that in just this last month. The issue is that the job market is different, and nobody is teaching job seekers how to navigate it.
We’ll offer you what help we can so that you can make your way through the job market, and into your next dream job.
Online Applications Are Awful, But Necessary
How many times have you clicked a link to fill out an application, and posting requires you to create a profile, upload all of your work history, talk about your educational history and include tons of personal information. Yeah, it gets annoying really fast. If you have filled out an online job application in the past few months, there’s no way you haven’t been asked to answer questions that the job recruiter can easily find in your resume. Unfortunately, all that applications have become are just reiterations of our resumes.
Here’s where things get more frustrating. If you are applying for jobs online, there is nothing that says that your will even be called in for an interview. This is for two reasons. The first is that since jobs are posted online, people around the world are seeing them. This isn’t the ‘90s where you would drop off a copy of your resume at a local business that is hiring. You are basically throwing your resume into the lottery and praying that yours happens to be one of the ones that gets seen by a hiring manager.
Secondly, companies now use applicant-tracking systems. These systems filter through applications while weeding out applications that lack the keywords or key phrases that the businesses want to see in their applicants. This doesn’t sound bad, but this is also why a lot of companies miss out on hiring people who are more than qualified for the job. For example, let’s say you want to work at an analytics firm. You have plenty of experience, and have worked for several other analytics firms. Some of which might even be bigger than this one. Unfortunately, the applicant tracking system threw your resume in the recycling bin because you didn’t use the term “fixed asset management” in your resume. You may very well know exactly what that is, but because you didn’t have it in your resume, you aren’t even getting a call back.
This is why hiring a professional resume writer is necessary. Look, money might be tight. Hiring a professional resume writer might even seem like a bit of a gamble, but you need to highly consider doing so. Hiring a professional resume writer is the best way you can maximize your chances of getting your resume in the hands of a hiring manager. Professional resume writers are trained to add the necessary keywords and key phrases to resumes depending on the jobs that the applicants want to land. Click here to schedule a free consultation with a professional resume writer.
Being Off the Grid is Not an Option
If you want to find a job in this market, you need to have some sort of social media presence. If you don’t, you are seen as someone who doesn’t know how to network, and as someone who isn’t savvy with the latest news.
You need a presence on social media, especially LinkedIn. Create some profiles, keep them updated and add them to your resume and portfolio.
Interviews Have Gone Virtual
When your mom and dad went on job interviews, they wore newly dry-cleaned suits, got fresh haircuts and commuted to job interviews with a briefcase and resumes in tow.
Times have changed. Pandemics have come into play. Zoom calls have become the new norm.
You need to learn how to have virtual interviews, and how to have interviews over the phone. When you’re on the phone, stay calm. The only thing this company has to go off you is your voice, so make sure you don’t sound like you’re about to have a stroke from stress. If you have an interview via Zoom or Skype, make sure that you look nice, and make sure that you are doing the call in a place with no distractions. You don’t want the interviewer to be distracted by your 2005 Dave Matthews Band poster that’s in the background.
Be Patient
They say that the first person to quit, is alway thFinding a job is a full-time job in and of itself. Don’t go into it thinking that you’re going to find your next dream job at a Fortune 500 company within the next week or so. It is going to take time, but it will be worth it. Get back on the horse, and don’t quit.