5 Ways Job Seekers Blow It

[Monirul Islam]

If you're a job-seeker and you're frustrated, I don't blame you. The hiring process is broken. Black Hole recruiting has been shown to be a dismal failure. Whose bright idea was it to try to hire brilliant people by reducing them to keywords? That's idiotic.

The only surprising thing about keyword-search-based recruiting is that it's still hanging on all these years later. Is it corporate and institutional leaders' inability to admit they made a mistake installing big stupid applicant tracking systems, or just inertia?


Either way, job-seekers get a lot of sympathy from me, as long as they're taking responsibility for their side of the equation. Sadly. not all job-seekers do that.

If you turned on your kitchen faucet and no water came out, you'd check with the utility that supplies your water. You wouldn't keep turning and faucet on and off for months to see if water might come out eventually.

Why would you keep lobbing resumes into Black Hole recruiting portals after you notice that you never hear anything back? You aren't going to get a job that way.

Job-seekers hurt themselves by failing to notice when the job-search methods they try don't work. The rational thing to do is to say "Gee! That system is broken. There's no water coming out of the tap. Better try something else."

Here are four other ways job-seekers shoot themselves in the foot. We can't blame evil employers for any of these slip-ups -- job-seekers, unfortunately, bring them on themselves!

They Treat a Job Search Like a Clerical Project
A job search is mental and emotional stretching exercise. It's more like yoga than like an administrative task. Too many job-seekers treat a job search like a routine clerical project.

Every resume they send out is the same. They write boilerplate cover letters that don't even mention the employer or its situation. That's not only ineffective, it's also rude.

If you're going to take the time to apply for a job, put some elbow grease into it! Read the company's website. Check out its leaders' LinkedIn profiles and mention something about the organization in your letter.

A Pain Letter and Human-Voiced Resume make the connection between the employer's needs and your background clear. Try a new approach if your traditional job-search methods aren't working.

Don't people say that the definition of insanity is to keep doing the same thing and expecting to get a different result?

Related: Should I Quit, or Wait to Get Fired? (LinkedIn)

They Show Up To Job Interviews, But Just Barely
If you were a fly on the wall in a company recruiting meeting, you'd know how badly hiring managers need talent. You'd take a lot of time and care preparing for a job interview, because you'd know that talented and switched-on job-seekers are not hiding under every bush.

They're hard to find. Since you are one of them, show up and bring that energy into your next job interview!

In our office we hear about job-seekers who come to job interviews unaware of what the company's business is. They come to job interviews in tank tops and say "I heard it was a casual environment."

They have no questions for the interviewer. They say "I thought you were going to ask the questions."

We filled a VP position for a client. We met each of the candidates and found the perfect person very quickly. Sadly, one of the applicants told us "I knew you guys weren't the hiring decision-makers, so I didn't really prepare for this meeting."

God bless your honesty, my pumpkin -- you're out of the running. What else would you expect?

Every interaction with the employer or its representatives is as significant as a meeting with its CEO. If you want the interviewer to take you seriously, take the process seriously, too.

They Drop Out of the Picture
It's surprising how many job-seekers will respond to a recruiter's email three weeks later with a reply that says "I was out of town." They don't have internet connections out of town? Recruiters are not dying to drop qualified people out of the pipeline. They get paid when one of their candidates gets hired.

We've heard recruiters say "I didn't feel that I could pass this candidate along to the hiring manager. That's a shame, because he's qualified. He's doesn't seem to be serious."

We hear so much about awful treatment of job-seekers, but let's be honest - the problem is just as bad from the recruiter's point of view. If you have plans to travel or be out of touch for any reason, let someone know.

Source: https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/239929