Unemployed Job Seekers Stay Jobless Due To Many Small Mistakes: Here Are A Few

It's never just one thing that causes unemployed job seekers to have long, frustrating searches.

Unfortunately, there's no magic pill that will solve your job search problems, and no one thing you can change to bring better results.

Big changes in your results come from the combined effects of many small changes working together. One or two changes just aren't enough to move the needle.

The reason most unemployed candidates' searches stall is they're making many small mistakes. When these small mistakes are combined, they cause unemployed job seekers to get screened out from the interviews they really want, causes them to fail to advance or land the right offers.

Here are a few of the common mistakes you're probably making, making you stay jobless longer:

• Sending A Standard Resume: Sending a standard resume, one you've saved on a job board, a resume template, or your LinkedIn profile is a bad look. Employers feel like you're not trying when you don't customize your resume to the individual hiring manager's current needs. You won't match enough search criteria, and if you manage to get through resume database screening, human reviewers can tell in seconds that you've sent a standard resume. You look like the wrong fit. When you send a standard resume, you expect that the words on your resume magically happen to match enough criteria to beat your competitors (the ones who invested time to ensure their resume meets needs).
• Not Understanding The Hiring Manager's Current Needs: A hiring manager's needs aren't static - they change all the time, as old problems are solved and new ones arise. Even skills gaps change when people enter and leave a department. Most job seekers depend on published job descriptions, which are usually at least a year old and generic (even for levels as high as VP). Hiring managers communicate their individual current needs to recruiters after the job ad has been published, and their current needs become the search criteria (most of them aren't included in the published job description). It makes you stay jobless when you depend on generic or non-current information to customize your resume and interview answers.

• Trying To Solve Unemployment Through Volume: Do you really think that sending more resumes with similar small mistakes in your resume/job search strategies, will somehow bring different results? Hiring managers don't care how many resumes you send. Instead, they care if you send them the right resume to meet their needs, that shows you can solve their current problems and improve their team's performance.

And these are only a few of the problems that are likely slowing your search and keeping you unemployed.

Ask yourself honestly, how many of these common mistakes are you making in your job search?

There's a good chance you're making some (if not all), because they're taught by most career coaches and outplacement firms, whose goal it is to have you write a resume and give interviews that make you look qualified. But when you're unemployed, you present risks to employers who can choose between many other qualified candidates. Many of those candidates will appear less risky than an unemployed candidate.

To beat unemployment quickly, you need to do more. But what can you do more of that will make a difference to employers, and be more effective for your search?

During my next free Resume Webinar, I'll show you how to change your resume, interview and job search strategy to one that proves success and wins jobs more quickly when you're unemployed. While we're at it, I can teach you how to turnaround a difficult job search, making it so quick that you can beat unemployment faster in 2024.

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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