Top 10 Major Reasons Why Your Job Search is is Not Successful
Is Your Job Search is Doomed Right Out of The Gate?
Here is Why Your Job Search is Not Working
Resume Doesn’t Pass The 10-Second Test
I can honestly say that over the past 30 years I have personally reviewed several hundred thousand resumes. What I have found is a recurring theme. Over 95% of them do NOT PASS the 10-Second Test. That means the typical recruiter, HR representative or hiring manager spends less than 10-seconds reviewing your resume to determine if they wish to read more and dig deeper or hit the proverbial delete key. What must be included is a comprehensive professional summary that summarizes your entire career into 1-2 paragraphs, accomplishments and achievements that are quantifiable and measurable and your technology and software experience.
Resume Format
- Header/Footer – Include at the top of each page, but not in the header portion of MS Word. Also, do not include tables, borders or crazy looking bullet points. These create a problem for ATS and can block the search.
- For each position create a narrative section first, but instead of a skills section, it is labeled key achievements/accomplishments.
- The rule of thumb is that we want to show detail/bullets on positions going back no farther than 20 years – with dates (months and years). However, I would include one line for each position greater than 20 years.
- Your email address is actually important. You shouldn’t use names or providers like Hotmail, AOL, Preferably Gmail.
A company’s HR department usually relies on 1-2 job boards that they post their openings on. Although, recruiters may have access to the resume databases of several. HOWEVER, as an applicant, you need to be registered on at least the top 5-6. This is because if some companies are only using 1 or 2, you won’t see the openings if you are not registered on all of them. Registering on all of them enables you to cover the full spectrum of new job openings that are posted.
Cover Letter Doesn’t Match Your Resume
Many job seekers don’t really understand the importance of Cover Letters. Be aware that the first screening of your cover letter is usually performed by a junior level employee and most likely won’t read your cover letter. However, when they pass along your application to the hiring manager, he/she will most likely read it. That’s why the answer is yes – they do matter.
You must include your experience as it relates to the job description of the position you are applying for. Once you develop the cover letter, 90% should be template. What should change with each application is the Header/Address and the introduction describing your interest an application for the specific position at the specific company. This will show the reviewer that you at least took the time to customize some of it as opposed to sending something that is all template.
The cover letter must match what’s in your resume. I have read so many cover letters where initially, it appears that it states the relevant work experience and it matches the job description. However, after looking further, very little of the information in the cover letter relates to the experience stated in the resume. Many times, it doesn’t even exist. This is cause for an immediate rejection of an application.
You Are Not Registered On All The Major Job Boards, Only A Few
It is my opinion that there is a ranking order of the major job boards based upon relevance, number of positions, accuracy, setup of your profile, ease of applying, receiving alerts and mobile interfaces, from best to worst (US Only). Overseas, the rankings change, and others are more popular depending upon the specific country.
- Indeed
- Glassdoor
- Monster
- The Ladders
- CareerBuilder
- Dice – is a must if you are in the technology fields
- Zip Recruiter
- There also other niche boards and well as job board aggregators.
- Google's new job search functions pulls in all the openings from all the boards into one place
New Job Alerts Are Incorrectly Setup
Each of the major job boards provide you the ability to set up notification alerts when a new position is posted based upon specific job titles, keywords, locations, industries and more. Some only provide the ability to set up 5 while others allow you over 10.
The first step is to determine the titles of the positions you are interested in. For example: Mechanical Engineer, Marketing Manager, Vice President of Human Resources, Chief Operations Officer, Director of Sales. This method of creating alerts is very targeted/specific. If you are living in a major metropolitan are like New York City, Chicago, Atlanta, Boston, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Washington DC, it is best to be very specific in your titles when setting up these alerts. If you are not living in a major market, it is best to be more general. For example, Let’s say I am interested in finding Vice President of Human Resources positions in Augusta, GA. There will probably not be many positions listed.
So, I might just search on Human Resources in Augusta. This will return every position with “human resources in it (Vice President, VP, Director, Manager, Supervisor, HR, CHRO, Chief Human Resources Officer, etc.) Many positions may not be relevant to your search, but you will pick up all the openings with one saved search instead of creating 10 separate alerts. You can also affect the number of positions appearing in your alerts by setting geographic parameters – usually from 10 miles to 100 miles. The titles for some of the positions may say “human resources” will others might say HR. Some might say “Vice President” while others might say VP. That is why you must create alerts or search the openings using all the variations.
LinkedIn Profile, Headline And Settings Are Not Correctly Updated And Optimized
Reviewing dozens of profiles every day, I am shocked to see over 75% of the profiles do not have a banner image. Instead they have the default blue background. Having an industry related banner image, gives your profile a brand boost, elegance, sophistication and professionalism. Not having ones cheapens your profile - I simply don't have the same opinion/impression of the individuals background and experience without a banner image. It is so easy to insert a banner image. It is so easy to insert a banner image.
You Need to Update Your Settings, Not Just What is Visible on Your Profile
To access your settings, click on the Jobs Tab in your profile menu, then select Career Interests in the top left-hand corner.
At the top of the page it says, "Let Recruiters Know Your Open" Click the button to make this active. Now you are visible to recruiters but not visible to your current employer that you are open to new opportunities. When you click this setting to on, a text box opens up and you can insert a few sentences that summarizes your experience and what type of position you are seeking.
Then, there is a section that says " Where are you in your search - status. Click the drop down box and select actively applying. There you can add several job titles relating to the types of positions that you are seeking, the specific cities where you want to search, if you are open to working remotely and whether you are seeking full-time, part-time, contract or temporary positions. Check all that apply.
Your LinkedIn Headline
When creating a headline for your LinkedIn profile, DO NOT put "Seeking New Opportunities" in your headline. As your resume might be 3-4 pages, it will then be condensed into a one-paragraph professional summary. This summary will then need to be shortened to a headline of 200 characters. Your headline needs to define you. That fact that you are seeking new opportunities, does not define you. Here is an example of my headline:
Outplacement - Career Transition | Career Job Search Coach | Remote Work | Global Recruiting | CEO | MBA | 30 Years Exp
Not Reviewing Your Alerts Every Day
Every day in the job search world is a new day. You MUST check your alerts each and every day – sometimes a few times a day. I recommend checking your alerts each morning and then at the end of the day as new position come online throughout the day.
Initially, you should start going thru the alerts and continuously apply. Some companies may respond immediately, some may take days, some weeks. Some not at all.
Not Responding To New Openings Within 24 Hours
When starting to review your alerts, log in to each job board, go to alerts or saved searches and set the filter at 30 days. After you go through each one for the first time, I would recommend changing the date range to 7 days and sort by most recent date first. This way you see new posts that just come online each day. When reviewing new alerts, log in to each job board and change the filter settings to “Date”, Not “Relevance”. This will show new postings that just got posted within hours. Don’t wait more than 24-48 hours to apply. If a company posts a new opening, they will initially receive the majority of resumes within the first few days. Yours needs to be included as soon as possible within that first group. Otherwise, the company may never even see your resume to review.
Don’t Know How To Find The Unpublished Job Openings
As previously mentioned, an effective job search is a comprehensive job search. This includes, resumes, cover letters, job board registrations, LinkedIn profile updates and optimization. These will assist recruiters and hiring managers when searching for candidates on the major job boards. However, many new jobs are not published in the traditional sense. Meaning, they are not posted on the job boards nor on the company’s website.
Outside recruiters have deep relationships with clients and are aware of job openings that are not made public. Finding the top 5 recruiters in a respective city or industry will provide access to those unpublished positions.
Not Effectively Using Your Existing Network
Recently, I reached 10,000 connections on LinkedIn. It took about 10 years to reach this level. I also have about 6000 twitter followers. Each of you have instant access to your network. Although I use my network for marketing purposes, it can also be used for adding another component to your job search.
Let's say you have a connection that works at a particular company that you are interested in working at. You could directly reach out to that person, send a short introduction and reason for contacting them. You may have seen a job posted at that company and you would prefer not to respond to the post on the job boards or the company’s website. Instead, you can use your connection to make an introduction to the hiring manager or Human Resources. An applicant that gets referred from an existing internal employee has more weight and is more likely to be reviewed, than one that comes in from the job boards of the company’s website. Also, remember that it is not always just about your network but your networks network.
Not Properly Preparing For Interviews
As a hiring manager interviewing hundreds of applicants, I have always asked the same first question as I begin each and every interview. “What have your learned about us? Who we are and what we do? The answer to this question sets the tone for the remainder of the interview. I will immediately know if the candidate has done their homework/research and to what depth. When they answer this question, you can tell if they just did the minimal amount of research or they really did their homework and thoroughly researched the company.
On several occasions when I asked that question, the candidate would say “I don’t know? I haven’t really done any research? After pausing for a moment, I say “Thanks for coming in. This interview is over”. It lasted a total of 3 minutes. The candidate looks at me and doesn’t understand what just happened. There is absolutely no excuse for not doing some research on the company you are interviewing with. Especially because there is no much information readily available and easily accessible. Much different form 1984. I would say to the candidate, “If you haven’t taken the time to do your research, this is not the position for you.” Taking the time to gather key information can not only set the tone for the remainder of the interview, it can make the difference between getting or not getting the job.
What Kind of Research Should I Do?
Company Website – At the very least, an applicant should look at the organization’s websites. Many are hundreds of pages and contain information about products and services, clients, company history, executives and if a public company, financial information. newsletters and press releases.
LinkedIn Company Information – Not only can you find company information on LinkedIn, the key company facts of that organization are usually summarized in one place. How many employees and how many locations the company has. You can also see how many open positions the company has that they are trying to fill. Is it a great many or only a few? If you are a LinkedIn Premium member, you can see if headcount has been rising or shrinking. You can also see other individuals that currently and historically have worked for the company, what their average tenure is and if they have progressed and been promoted over time.
LinkedIn Personal Information – Before an interview all candidates should research the person(s) that he/she is interviewing with. You can find out what their title is, how long they have been at the company, what other positions they have had within the company, their prior work history, education – where they went to school and what did they study. You can also see what interests they have, key skills, certifications, publications, awards, what groups they belong to and what influencers they follow. Use this to connect with someone on a personal level. Where they grew up, their interest in the Arts, Music, their volunteer work, etc.
Glassdoor Reviews – Glassdoor is a great website to see actual employee reviews. How current and past employees describe their time working for the company. If the discussions about culture, salaries, benefits, work environment, management, room for advancement are positive, you will feel much better taking a job with that company? Or, do the reviewers talk about poor working conditions, tremendous overtime, a terrible medical plan, high turnover, disconnects between company leadership and staff.
If so, that should be a red flag. It’s the same premise as Amazon reviews. There will be positive and negative reviews. Don’t pay too much attention to one specific review. Take a look at the overall theme/message from these reviews. This type of information is not posted on the company’s website or social media accounts. If there are too many negative comments, this is a clear indication to stay away.
Properly preparing for an upcoming interview can make or break your chances of having a successful interview and being offered the position. If you prepare yourself with all of the above tactics, you will appear intelligent, knowledgeable and confident. “Knowledge is Power.” Practice talking about the information you have found before the interview, so you know it cold walking in.
Finally - Almost all employers will ask the candidates if they have any questions. Don’t not have questions. Always, always, always prepare 2-3 questions ahead of time that you want to ask at the end of the interview. Don’t ask general knowledge questions (ones where the answers are readily available), ask deep thought out questions based upon the research you have done. This will really impress them at the end of the interview.
During the past 30+ years, I had been on over 100 interviews, been a hiring manager at large companies interviewing hundreds more & a global recruiter, placing candidates all around the world, and have reviewed over 500,000 resumes and bios. What I can tell you is that the art, process & function of resumes has greatly changed.