Although looking for a job is a process that sooner or later happens in everyone’s life, it should not be taken lightly. There are a lot of things that can go wrong while you search for a job – we hear about amusing mistakes job applicants make in their CV or during a job interview. However, mistakes can occur well before you get to a job interview; in fact, your whole job search can go wrong if you don’t do your best to avoid the most common missteps unemployed people often make.
Relying on the internet
The internet is a powerful job searching tool these days – websites like Jiji have thousands of job offers waiting for their applicants. However, your dream job is not guaranteed to meet you online. This is why it’s important to use every source available to you. You can start by asking friends and family members if they’ve recently heard of attractive job offers. Then you can make a list of companies where you want to work and contact their HR departments individually – they may not have an open position at the moment, but a good HR manager will always consider you for future job openings.
Making your search too broad
No matter how badly you currently need a job, it’s important to focus your efforts on the positions and economy sectors you’re truly interested in. If you apply for all kinds of jobs, without considering whether you fit for the job and vice versa, it can make your job searching process ineffective and can stand in a way between you and your dream job. Before you start looking at open positions and applying for jobs, make a list of positions you qualify for, and make sure to only apply to the selected group of openings.
Bad resume
There are lots of CV-writing mistakes job applicants make. One of the most common ones is making your resume too long: no one wants to read a 5-page story on how great you are as an employee and as a person. Make your CV short but effective. There is no need to include more than a single page of information, but that page should be informative and persuasive to the HR manager. It’s also essential to avoid typos and factual mistakes, since they instantly let the company know you’re not taking the job search seriously enough and don’t like to check things twice.
Underestimating your abilities
If an applicant has been out of job for a while, one thing is almost guaranteed to happen: the applicants begin to apply for lower paying jobs or positions that don’t really fit their impressive resume. This is a crucial mistake in the job searching process. While looking for a job, you always need to move upwards, or, at the very least, consider a similar position to your last one. Don’t think your skills or experience are not good enough for a great job offer, and if you haven’t found one yet, try not to accept a questionable offer out of fear.
Reaching the point of exhaustion
We all know how tiring and seemingly never ending the job seeking process can be. However, searching for a job is not the reason for exhausting yourself. Spending hours and days looking at job offers, working on your resume and contacting HR managers may eventually get you the job you want, but it will also damage your health. Remember: even the best job offer in the world isn’t worth your physical and mental health, so even when the job seeking process gets intense, don’t forget to take care of yourself – eat, drink, take breaks, sleep well, stay physically active, and don’t fall out of your social life.
Having one resume for all occasions
We’ve already talked about the importance of having a good CV, but your CV should also fit the job description perfectly, so that the HR manager could see your attention for detail and the ability to quickly adapt to new conditions. This is why you need to spend a couple of minutes perfecting your resume every time you’re about to send it to an employer. A universal resume may not be suitable for every position, and after a while you’ll become a CV editing expert!
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