You’re ready for a new job. Great! What are your next steps?
By Emily Worden
Most people dust off their resume, hit the job boards, and start applying to jobs. Perhaps you customize your resume for each job, write a cover letter, and/or use the “Easy Apply” button. Then you cross your fingers and hope you get an interview.
Rinse and repeat, every day. You do the work, get your hopes up and … nothing. Soon you’re up to 100 job applications without hearing anything back, and losing confidence in yourself and the job search.
As a career coach, I’ve seen this mistake repeatedly. This is the old method to search for a job and it doesn’t work anymore, for several reasons:
- Too much time. It requires a lot of time to customize your resume and cover letter. You could take hours to complete one application. Who has the time for this?
- Too much competition. Hiring managers used to receive 50 applicants for a job, now they’re getting 500. In the world of “easy apply,” everyone else is applying to jobs all day long and it’s too hard for you to stand out from the pack.
- ATS bots. Applicant Tracking Systems help HR professionals sift through job applications. The bots look for keywords and job titles, and if your resume doesn’t have the right words, your application is rejected before a human sees it.
- Fake job listings. Some of the job listings aren’t real. Up to 65% of the job listings can be “ghost jobs,” which are jobs a company has no intention of filling, at least for the next few months. So you might be spending all this time just to apply for a job that is not actively being filled.
The traditional job search is broken. I have helped hundreds of people get jobs doing this process instead:
Start with the basics. Are you clear on what kind of job you want and where you want to work? This is central to your brand, resume, and LinkedIn. You don’t want to be a generalist, you want to be specific here. Make a list of your dream jobs and ideal companies and focus your efforts to appeal to those companies.
Build a strong personal brand. A great personal brand communicates in an easy-to-understand way who you are, what you have to offer, what kind of jobs you’re looking for. Be very clear about your background, what you want, and how your skills can benefit employers. Use the keywords and key phrases from job descriptions to guide your writing. What skills are employers looking for? Highlight that in your brand. Then use this language all over your resume, cover letter, and LinkedIn profile.
Build an optimized LinkedIn profile. A good resume is not enough for your job search. You need a great LinkedIn profile too, meaning all sections are completed and compelling to hiring managers, using the language they use in job descriptions. Hiring managers absolutely check your LinkedIn profile, so if you’re spending all your time on your resume, redirect some of that energy to completing your profile. BONUS: A great LinkedIn profile attracts recruiters, which is a much easier way to land a job. Working with recruiters helps you avoid ghost listings too.
Work your network. Use your connections or make new connections at the companies that interest you. It’s much easier to get your resume to the top of the pile when there’s someone on the inside advocating for you. Start with your personal network and your school’s alumni, then check your 1st, 2nd, and 3rd connections on LinkedIn.
- Contact people at the companies where you want to work and ask for a 20-minute informational interview. During the informational interview, ask about their experience at the company and if they’d be willing to pass along your resume to a hiring manager.
- It’s better to make 100 connections than send out 100 resumes. Networking is a better use of your time rather than sending out dozens of applications into the void.
Stop job searching the old way – it doesn’t work and you’re wasting your time. No more applying to jobs online with a resume and cover letter – change your job search strategy using the steps outlined above and you’ll get much better results.
EMILY WORDEN is a certified professional career coach helping driven job seekers get hired, get paid, and get more confident in their personal and professional lives. She helps mid-career professionals with career transitions, whether they want to move into a new industry or return to work after a career pause. Emily created a proven five-step method to help people find jobs they love for more money than they were expecting – the typical client receives a job offer in three months with a 20% pay increase. Kick your career in gear at www.emilyworden.com.
