No one enjoys making a mistake in his or her job hunt at the cost of the job which he or she has applied for. Yet mistakes do happen either because of misconceptions, faulty guidance or advice, or by failing to develop an effective strategy. Furthermore, these mistakes are not just limited to either resume writing or poor interviewing, but a lack of holistic thinking.
The following list is not made in the order of the severity of the mistake, as you never know what mistake may be severe enough to cause you to lose an opportunity. The list is compiled by the different spheres where you can possibly make mistakes. And also there are going to be more than just 10 mistakes in the lists, for they all have enough potential to mar your job prospects.
Top 10 Mistakes In The Job Search
Making Mistakes In The Resume And On Applications
1. Not organizing your resume as the recruiters would like it to be.
2. Not highlighting your skills against must-have requirements, boring self-promotion
3. A simply boring or undeveloped cover letter
4. Sending multiple copies of the same resume
5. Badly formatted resumes and cover letters, with spelling and grammar errors
6. Unprofessional email addresses, font/color selection and unspecific subject lines, such as “resume.doc”
7. Failing to follow directions, either by carelessness or by over-confidence
All these are enough to either disinterest or annoy the recruiter. Just put yourself in his shoes and imagine what you would like in a resume that you would short-list.
Attitudinal Mistakes
1. Presuming entitlement to the job, which reflects badly in interviews and on tests
2. Assuming that you don’t have the proper experience and feeling inferior
3. Trying to play out of your league, presenting false information, inflating titles, etc.
4. Insulting the interviewer or showing either pessimism or career stagnation
5. Applying to jobs you don’t qualify for in hopes of playing the numbers game; wrongly assuming x out of y number of applications must result in interview calls
6. Appearing at interviews at your worst, i.e., uncut nails & hair, un-pressed dress or suit
7. Applying where you don’t want to work or would reject the job if offered, for reasons such as higher salary expectations, etc. This is the result of not researching the position thoroughly
These attitudinal mistakes are much more serious than the mistakes in your resume and it could seriously damage your chances. You attitude is the result of crystallized characteristics which hardly change. At least this is how the interviewers see it.
At The Recruiters’ Office
1. Just showing up for the sake of gaining experience. Interview-attending experiments don’t bolster your skills but wastes recruiters’ time
2. Not trying hard enough to be your best. Not asking clarification on a question if you are unclear about it the first time
3. Bringing up salary issues first (before the recruiter does) or accepting a low salary without discussion
4. Being unable to justify the claims that your resume makes
The biggest of all mistakes is just wondering why recruiters are not responding to your resume. If this is happening to you, don’t just send out more resumes. Get your resume professionally evaluated. If you can correct this one mistake, you will have a lot more opportunities and many more doors will be open to you.
Tony Jacowski is a quality analyst for The MBA Journal. Aveta Solution’s Six Sigma Online offers online six sigma training and certification classes for lean six sigma, black belts, green belts, and yellow belts.