Personal Branding That Wins Jobs For Unemployed Job Seekers

To beat unemployment, you've got to get employer attention on your resume to win interviews.

And then, you've got to keep interviewer attention on your message, to get employers to listen (and care).

But how do you do this effectively when you're unemployed, to focus employer attention on the great job you'll do, rather than on the fact you're between jobs?

Here are a few best practices for resume and interview personal branding when you're unemployed:

1. Qualified Is Average: Most job seeker resumes/interviews feature a personal brand that focuses on your qualifications, with efforts to show you meet criteria. It's not just you that brands themself as just qualified, it's nearly every applicant for that job. Since employers expect 5-10 qualified candidates to compete for each interview spot (plus all the unqualified ones) - that's 50-100 qualified candidates. When so many qualified candidates apply, being qualified is no big deal ... it's average. This gives a first impression as average but unemployed - that's not enough to get a hiring manager excited about you. You need a personal brand that does more than say you're average.
2. Skills And Job Criteria Are The Minimum Requirements (including transferrable skills): Skills and job criteria are the bare minimum job requirements. Showing that you meet them is nice, but don't you think you'll need a little overcome an employers risk of hiring an unemployed candidate? You compete against many fully employed candidates with similar skills who also meet minimum criteria. Transferrable skills are only enough when you're the only candidate with these skills and there are none with exact experience. This might have worked in 2019, when there was a shortage of qualified candidates. But in 2024, especially when you're unemployed, don't you think you'll need more to win interviews and jobs?
3. Crystal Clear: You need to make it crystal clear to employers exactly why they need to interview you (or advance you in the hiring process) to overcome unemployment. But most resumes and interviews create a confusing first impression, by doing brain dumps (see all the stuff I can do!) or reading your resume during interviews (describing career history). You create a confusing first impression of all the things you can do, or have done - This rarely works well. You're hoping that you guessed the one thing that will grab an employer's attention ... can you imagine how badly you've lowered your odds to win that job?
4. Only One Candidate Wins The Job - The Top Candidate: Top candidates make crystal clear first impressions, show an employer that they understand the hiring manager's current key/priority problems (these aren't in the published job description), that they've already solved similar problems, and they have a strong track record of success, all in 6 seconds or less (resume) or 30 seconds (interview). You need to make the first impression that you're better qualified (not overqualified). The few candidates who can make this first impression in their resume make unemployment unimportant, and the few job seekers who can make this interview first impression advance in the hiring process ... it won't matter if you're unemployed.

But most career resources teach average resume/interview strategies, stressing that qualifications, skills, and brain dumps ... because that's what their certification training taught them. Most career resources will teach you to just send more resumes to overcome unemployment - Doing more of the same things that work poorly have a poor chance of attracting employer attention.

Those strategies represent average, basic job search ... but not enough to overcome employer risks or difficult job search problems, like unemployment. You need to do more of the things that matter to employers to be considered a top candidate that's better qualified.

And you'd already be doing more, if someone taught you the more - to do more of. You've got the chance to learn how to create a top candidate personal brand and what to do more of to beat unemployment. What if I could show you how to find your next job by year-end 2024 ... and show you for free?

During my next free Resume Webinar- Beating Unemployment, I'll teach you how to change your resume/interview/job search strategy to accelerate your unemployment job search. While we're at it, I'll show you how to change your resume, interview and job search strategy to one that proves success and can win jobs by year-end.

Join me for my next free Resume Webinar (enroll at https://x.resumewebinar.com/Registration 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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#resume #jobs #career #unemployment