Why is it that nearly every job seeker puts ten times the energy and effort into the job search than what they get back in return? To speak in business terms (and running your job search should be treated like a business), where’s the return-on-investment (ROI)?
Hope is not enough.
You hope to get an interview after submitting your resume.
You hope to get a job offer after the interview.
You hope to hear from someone soon.
If you spend too much time just hoping and not enough time feeding energy to your hope, then your hope is false-hope. To feed energy to your hope, you have to overcome the 4 top reasons why your job search struggles in the first place (you know, there’s no ROI).
Reason #4
You’re not giving a good demonstration of what you can do for someone during the interview process.
The interview is like a product demonstration. You are the product and the employer is looking to hire you. Think about the last time you received a product demonstration or a sales pitch – it could even be when you were walking through your local hardware store or garden center.
If the benefits of having a specific product are not highlighted, then why would you buy the product? The same holds true for an employer looking to hire you.
Reason #3
You’re not giving your networking contacts the best or right information to effectively refer you to an employer for consideration.
Giving your contacts the right information is like training a sales staff so they can properly sell the products. Have you ever received a sales call where the “messenger” did a poor job of representing a product and you immediately closed your mind to ever buying it?
If a product is passively marketed, then the chance of you ever really understanding the value of having it is slim. Getting your network of contacts to share the right information about you is equally important.
Reason #2
Your resume doesn’t provide the results of what you did.
Your resume is like a product sales brochure. It is the first thing that a potential employer will see about you, and you don’t get a second chance to make a first impression. Haven’t you ever received a half-baked advertisement or seen a television commercial that left you asking, “huh, what was that?” Sure you have, we’ve all been there. You immediately forget all about it.
If you’re resume is a disorganized dump of your thoughts that leaves a reader confused, then what kind of message does that send to an employer?
And, Reason #1
You haven’t spent the proper time developing your career history story so that you can fully explain the value you can bring to someone, and therefore resolve reasons #2 - #4 listed above.
The top reason job searches struggle is because of poorly communicating the results of what you have done. Poorly communicating it in your resume, to your networking contacts, and in the interview. If you talk about what you did, but leave out what the results were of what you did, then you are only halfway home. It’s like saying you can do a certain task, but you're going to need a push to get there.
The Critical Path to Focus on
Take time to develop a stronger career history message with quantified results. Do this before you write your resume, talk to your contacts, or go on interviews.
If you do this one simple planning step, the rest of the job search will take care of itself.
Go ahead, feed energy to your job search hope today! You'll be glad you did.
Ken Moore is Founder of www.JobSeekerUniversity.com and ResumeBridge, Inc. (www.TheResumeBridge.com). Education and services focus on helping job seekers communicate a better career story.