3 Best Ways To Beat Unemployment Faster In 2024

Most job seekers start their unemployment job search feeling confident that they'll find their next job in 30-60 days.

And they can't figure out what went wrong when their job search pushes into 90-120 days, or turns into long-term unemployment of 6+ months.

Most career resources teach unemployed job seekers to search just like candidates that present fewer risks to employers - Few unemployed candidates recognize or mitigate these risks.

The primary risk unemployed job seekers present is when an employer can't tell if you were let go because of under/average performance. In 2024, employers expect they will see 5-10 qualified candidates competing for each interview spot - So for 10 interview spots, that's 50-100 qualified applicants (plus all the unqualified ones). With so many choices, this gives employers the ability to improve performance of their teams/departments/companies ... and that's who hiring managers want to hire, rather than candidates the present risk of being average/below average performers.

It's up to you to prove you can improve the performance of the hiring manager's team. But when you make them guess at your success or failure, it expands the risk you present.

With this in mind, here are 3 of the best ways to beat unemployment faster in 2024:

1. Recognize And Mitigate Your Risk To Employers: You need to recognize and mitigate the risk unemployed job seekers present to employers, discussed above - That you were?let go due to below or average performance. But many unemployed candidates also present additional risks that are critical to recognize and overcome: Age 40+, career/industry/product change, geographic relocation, seeking remote positions, seeking raise/promotion, long term unemployment, industries in decline/consolidation, family leave, long term gaps and other difficult job search issues.
2. Do More Than Other Candidates: Do more of the things that matter to employers, and less of the things that employers don't care about or that hurt your search. Do more of: Creating a first impression of the top candidate, focus on impact instead of responsibilities, invest a lot more time heavily customizing each resume to the individual hiring manager's current needs (which aren't in the published job description), get better and more current employer information than what's in job descriptions/company websites/Google searches.
3. Improve How You Apply For Jobs: You're going to stand out less and instead be screened out more when you apply online. You would be shocked at how low your odds are to land a job when you apply online, and it's only worse when you're also unemployed. Online applications make it much harder to stand out and some hiring managers want to specifically screen out unemployed candidates. Job seekers who apply in different ways emphasize how their network can help them to be a better performer on the job.

If you'd like to learn more about how to make your unemployment job search faster, I'll cover these and other best practices in my next free webinar about beating unemployment.

I help people solve the most difficult job search problems, including job search acceleration, getting past ATSs, ageism, remote positions, product/job function/career/industry/ geographic change, unemployment, "bouncy" recent career path, job search turnaround, seeking raise/promotion, industry in decline/consolidation, long term gaps, family leave, or other of the most challenging job search issues.

Join me for my next free Resume Webinar (enroll at https://x.resumewebinar.com/register for no charge) and learn how to accelerate your job search, so you can find your next job faster in 2024.

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