10 Mistakes to Avoid in Your Job Search
By Soozy G. Miller, CPRW, CDCC, CDP
Here is a list of 10 completely avoidable job search mistakes.
10. Let a bad interviewer distract you
You might come across an inept or inexperienced interviewer during the hiring process. Don’t let their lack of experience or bad attitude deter you. Just concentrate on addressing the company’s needs and proving your point with impact. Remember, you still want them to recommend you to the next step. You can succeed even if the interviewer doesn’t!
9. Rely only on personal connections
Sometimes executives tell me that they have all the personal connections they need to land their next job … and then they come back to me and say, “Oh, I guess I do need help!” LinkedIn, with all its flaws and annoyances, is still the best connector we have. With 1 billion users in 250 countries, I recommend using LinkedIn in addition to personal connections to help you find your next great opportunity. It certainly can’t hurt. The more paths you take toward offers, the more offers you get!
8. Your resume is filled with tasks and responsibilities
I see unhelpful, task-based resumes all the time. Why is this unhelpful? Because other people who do what you do have the same tasks and responsibilities (or close enough) on their resume, so none of you stand out. Sometimes the resume is jam-packed and crowded with useless information, like the summer job at The Gap in 1986. I recommend that, in addition to all of your technical skills, you add impact and value-add statements. Results and impact are how you prove your hire. Skills and responsibilities don’t do that.
7. Unable to talk about your impact
Some executives, no matter how accomplished, are unable to give examples of how their leadership skills brought value. One finance director told me, “My work is complicated, and I work hard!” For any job seeker, if you are unable to enumerate and demonstrate how your unique strengths impacted other companies and brought value, you are not going to get very far in the hiring process. And you’re not going to land the job you want.
6. Let age be a barrier
If you ever say during an interview, “I know I’m older, but ...” you have already lost the job. If you are older than 50, your value-add and your expertise are your greatest assets. Use them! Illustrate your impact and all the benefits that your expertise has brought to companies. That will reduce any worries about your age. If you are able to demonstrate specifically how your expertise solved the same problem as the company’s, the hiring team simply won’t care about anything else.
5. Consider inappropriate jobs
You can reduce your job search time as much as 90%, and get more offers, by narrowing down opportunities and offers to only ones that you think truly suit you. You’re a good fit for the job if you match the needs of the job in skills, tools, and experience, and if you like the tone of the job description. If you are only reading job titles and only using job titles to determine which jobs you should apply to, you are wasting a lot of time. And probably enduring a lot of rejections! If you are applying to more than 5 jobs per week and not hearing anything back, you are either applying to the wrong jobs or your resume needs work. Or both.
4. Use common descriptors like “good communicator” and “team player”
On a resume, people tend to say that they’re awesome at everything. This means that most people put “good communicator” and “team player” in their summary and/or skills section, and these attributes are very general and very difficult to prove. For example, not everyone is a team player, despite what they claim. These words are too general, so they are not attractive to the hiring team. If you must use more general terms, then at least please exemplify them with how they made the company better. “Good communicator” and “team player” by themselves ain’t gonna to cut it.
3. Resume that’s hard to read.
Most resumes are impossible to read. This means that the resume contains useless information (see #8 above) and words like, “helped with” or “developed” or “assisted with” or “Used X tool” without any additional information or context. Or the resume is literally hard on the eyes due to bad and confusing design or document corruption. So recruiters end up guessing about the information, or they try to read between the lines and infer what the candidate is trying to say. Then recruiters have to make a decision as to whether or not to spend the time to get to know the candidate. If you are not sure about your resume template, there is clean, incorruptible template available on this site.
2. Empty LinkedIn profile
I can’t tell you how many job seekers come to me with an empty LinkedIn profile. Many job seekers simply have their latest job title in the headline. Do you know how many marketing managers there are? A LOT. LinkedIn is your professional and promotional face to the world. There are 1 billion people from 250 countries on LinkedIn, and any one of them could view your profile and want your help at any moment. But they won’t be interested if you simply have IT Professional in your headline with a few skills listed in your About section.
By far, the #1 mistake that job seekers make when applying for a job is …
#1…Using one resume to apply to all positions
Recruiters call this “Spray & Pray” and it’s totally ineffective and a waste of time for you and the hiring team. You’ve learned from #5 above that you want to be very discerning about which jobs you apply to in the first place. But being discerning won’t help you if you send the same resume to those 2-3 jobs. Believe me, the hiring team can tell. It only takes a few minutes to read the job description carefully and then adjust the top parts (title, summary, skills—not the entire resume!) to each job posting. Sending a generic resume says I’m not spending any time on this. So why should the hiring team spend any time reading it? Focus the top parts of the resume to each position (remember, max 5 per week) and you will see more results. Guaranteed.
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Better job. More pay. More control.
For a resume review, please contact us at Control Your Career!