Avoid These Mistakes For a Successful Job Hunt
The topic today is six ways you can fail in your job search.
Keep Your Resume Up-to-date
To start with, never ever let your resume become out of date. As a resume writer and career coach, I would recommend that every six to eight months you update your resume. This is a very, very important tool. It’s all part of your career strategy. It’s all part of your branding. You need to have an up to date resume and LinkedIn profile. Why is because today, tomorrow, or next week, a career decision-maker, an HR professional, or an executive recruiter could tap on your shoulder and say, “I have a great opportunity for you. A great job for you. Are you ready? Would you like to take advantage of that opportunity? If so, where is your resume?”
Social Media
Be active, always, on LinkedIn; be active on other social media platforms such as Twitter and Facebook. You need to portray exactly who you are. These platforms are free. It gives you a chance, a venue, to market yourself, sell yourself, portray your expertise, your authority. So never shy away.
One of the biggest mistakes in career management and job search is not being proactive, active on LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook. The crux of career management and business generally is networking. You need to network, network and network. It can be very rewarding and you meet some pretty neat people. Not everybody you meet networking is going to bring you value. But remember, the idea of networking is not just giving. It’s also receiving. So share your network.
When you are in career transition, once you’ve got all that emotional baggage out of the way, once you’ve assessed exactly who you are and got clarity on who you are, you set your career plan.
A job search is a full-time gig. So many people lose track or they’re off track. I ask them, when they’re in career transition, how many hours a day they are spending on job search? And they answer 1 or 2. That is the biggest mistake you are going to make in your job search. You need to treat this as a full time gig, a full time appointment. In fact, I’m going to go even further. The more effort you put into this, the more hours you put into this, the more rewards are going to come your way. I would say the perfect job search as a job search expert / coach myself, if you are in career transition right now and watching this video, I would suggest you go into a 12 hour a day search because the more effort you put in the faster those rewards IE interviews and job offers, will come.
The Job Search Wheel
The job search wheel varies from country to country, but many people are under the impression that the bulk of the jobs are advertised on job boards, corporate websites, or national, regional, or local newspapers. That is a bad error. You have got it all wrong. Only a small percentage of jobs are advertised. You need to embrace the hidden job market. Be like a detective and use your ingenuity, patience, diligence to go, and hunt those opportunities.
Seek and Search
Let me give you some examples here in Canada, where I’m currently residing, only 8% of jobs are advertised. 80% are hidden jobs. So the bulk of my clients here in Canada are absolutely astounded. When we converse and I ask how many hours they are spending on job search and they say five or six or two or three. And then I say, well, what are you doing during those hours? Oh, well, I’m searching just purely on the job boards. That is two huge errors. You need to go and seek and search.
There are other videos on my YouTube channel telling you how to go and seek and search for those hidden jobs that are going to bring you more excitement and more rewards.
So hidden jobs, advertised jobs. And then the other part of that job search wheel is executive recruiters. The percentage changes for executive recruiters changes according to where you are in the world. But it varies little and it’s somewhere between 10 and 15%.
If you are on the way up a senior manager and above you need to build, and this is the crucial thing you need to retain those relationships with executive recruiters, they can bring you huge value. So when a project comes from their clients at the other end, that fits your skillset. You want to be number one in their mind. Building and retaining relationships with executive recruiters is going to be crucial for your career management.
I Can Help You
If you’re in career transition, unemployed and going through that difficult time in your life, I am here for you. I’d be happy to have a conversation with you.
I am passionate about helping you reach your career goals and so I have an offer for you, a free resume critique, and a LinkedIn audit. I will give you 30 minutes of my time, no obligation, no sales pitch, to go through your LinkedIn and your resume from top to bottom. Are you interested? If so, email me your resume on LinkedIn, or send it to me by clicking on the button below. I’d be happy to help you. Cheers!
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