Why Selling Your Qualifications Keeps You Unemployed In 2024

I see many LinkedIn unemployed job seekers posting they can't figure out why they can't find their next job and after searching unsuccessfully for a year when they're qualified and have sent out 1,000 resumes.

And I wonder if those frustrated job seekers realize that one of the major reasons they are still unemployed is because they describe themselves as qualified, and use a strategy of apply to a bunch of jobs, and hope they get lucky.

They're unemployed because they're qualified and have sent out 1,000 resumes.

These job seekers saw first-hand that selling your qualifications keeps you unemployed in 2024, but most don't see that this is the cause of their own long-term unemployment.

How can being qualified be bad?

It's not that being qualified is bad but selling yourself as qualified isn't enough when you're unemployed ... And that's what's bad.

Look at it this way: If you were the only qualified candidate, then being qualified is enough, because you have no other qualified competitors.

But it's not anywhere near enough when you compete against many other qualified candidates, especially when most of your qualified competition is fully unemployed, and you're unemployed.

In 2024, most employers see 5-10 qualified job seekers competing for each interview spot (so that's 50-100 qualified candidates competing for 10 interview spots, plus all the unqualified ones). Most of those qualified candidates are currently employed, as currently employed job seekers make up over 90% of 2024's job market, while unemployed job seekers are less than 10%.

So if you're unemployed, and you're competing against many other qualified (and currently employed) job seekers, you appear equivalent to them except for one very important aspect ...

You're unemployed, but your competitors aren't.

That means that employers see a risk in you (How come you were let go, when others in your company were kept on?) that currently employed candidates don't present to employers. When you present a risk, but your competitors don't, if you're equally qualified, you usually lose the job to someone with less risk.

When you do this 1,000 times, you make the same mistake 1,000 times ... the sort of thing that usually leads to long term unemployment.

The trick is to not accept portraying yourself as qualified to be the goal of your resume and interview strategy. This can be tough because most of the job search stuff you see online, what most career coaches teach, and what most professional resume writers use to write resumes has the goal of making you appear qualified. It's just not enough when you're unemployed.

That's why I have a higher goal and teach job search at a higher standard than just qualified. I teach how to go from qualified to the emotional response of "Wow - I need you on my team". That's an employer perception that makes you look for better than qualified, that can make you look too good to pass up, that makes an employer think "who cares if you're unemployed, you're awesome!".

Of course, if you knew how to do this, you'd already be doing this, and you'd be to busy being awesome, preparing for interviews where you blow employers away (or preparing to start your next job) - You wouldn't have time to read this post.

So why not let me show you what "Wow" looks like to employers? And show you how to get from qualified to "I want you on my team"?

Tell you what, I'll even do it for free, so you have no reason to miss this.

I help people solve the most difficult job search problems, including getting past ATSs, ageism, remote positions, product/job function/career/industry/ geographic change, job search acceleration, 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/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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#jobs #resume #career #unemployment