8 Mistakes that Can Hurt Your Job Search

Big job hunt blunders that can cost your job search - big time

Been searching for a job but aren't getting the results you want?

Take a look at the following top job search blunders to make sure you aren't undermining your own job search success!

Mistake # 1: Acting as if the Job Search Is about You

From your perspective, of course you want a job. Therefore, it's only natural to assume that the process of searching for a job is all about you. But when it comes to hiring, it's all about the company.

Organizations don't hire people because they want to give people jobs. They hire people because they have a specific need that must be met.

Unless you can demonstrate how your skills and strengths can help meet a specific need of an organization, you simply aren't relevant to that company; even if you're the most highly skilled person in the world. Discover the needs of the target company first, then position yourself as the best solution to those needs.

Mistake # 2: Not Knowing Yourself and Your Value

Starting a job search without first understanding your career interests, skills, values, and personality is like starting a road trip without a map. You can drive forward, but you probably won't end up where you want to be.

What gets you excited in life? What are you most proud of? What do you think you're best at?

Don't cut corners here. If you don't know the answers, talk to family and friends. If you're serious about your future, go a step further and get personal guidance from a career consultant who is trained to help people like you connect their unique gifts with a life direction.

Self-knowledge is the foundation for your entire job search campaign:

1. It will help you determine how to aim your job search at the right job targets.
2. It will help you communicate what value you can bring to a company.
3. It will enable you to give others the information they need to help you.

Mistake # 3: Not Being Able to Clearly Communicate How You Fit What the Company Needs

Refer to Mistake #1. Unless you can demonstrate how your skills and strengths can help meet a specific need of an organization, you simply aren't relevant to that company. This requires that you do your homework to discover what the company's needs are.

Learn as much as you can about the company's focus areas and needs, and then use the company's own language to describe what you can do for them.

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12 Eye-Catching Resume Tips

Words in your resume could make or break it

Gone are the days of simply mailing your resume, receiving a call, shaking hands at the interview and agreeing on a start date for that new job. The Internet has taken over the recruiting landscape and everyone is required to submit a resume online. While that brings greater efficiency to the process for employers, it can be awfully maddening for job seekers. But it doesn’t have to be that way if you know how to navigate the system.

Consider these 12 tips before pressing “submit:”

1) Search job boards and the websites of employers that appeal to you. Print out the job postings that you’re interested in pursuing before you apply.

2) Use a highlighter to mark the keywords and industry language used to describe the requirements and responsibilities of each position.

3) Compare those words and phrases to the language that appears in your current resume.

4) Figure out how and where to add the most relevant keywords to your resume, assuming you have the specific knowledge, skills and experience. Applicant tracking systems will search for keyword matches – the more matches, the better, which often determines if a recruiter opts to view your resume.

5) Once you’re confident that your resume reflects a strong match, go ahead and submit that targeted resume online.

6) If the system requests a cover letter, write a short one that expresses why you’re a strong match and why you’d like to join the organization. This is a chance to tout your research on the role.

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7) Never submit a generic, one-size-fits-all resume or cover letter. If you really want the position, you’ll customize all documents for each job.

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How New Grads Can Land Job Interviews

Handling job interview questions is one thing, but how do you even land an interview in the first place?

You've graduated, you know what job you want, but how do you go about getting that job interview? Watch this video to learn how!




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Student Loans: Parents signing on for them?

Students get financial reinforcements

Many families are making plans to pack up the belongings of their recent high-school graduates and move them off to college. The experience of life on campus is exciting and provides many opportunities for growth.

But if listening to the sobering stories of the 2010 graduates from universities across the country are any indication of what’s ahead, parents as well as the students would do well to seriously consider exactly what they’re getting into. Research tells us that the job market for graduates is not promising, except for those in a few selected areas of study.

Signing on the line for student loans is not difficult. The terms of the loan may be explained but the official-sounding language can be confusing to the student and to the parent. This is actually the best time to really think through what would happen if things didn’t work out as planned.

It is a fact that close to half of the students enrolled in college do not graduate. What’s more concerning is that often the parents have co-signed for loans covering college expenses with the ‘understanding’ that the student will be responsible for repayment once they graduate.

If that doesn’t happen, parents may be shocked to learn that they indeed will be the ones re-paying that loan. Defaults have a serious impact on the parent’s credit scores.

It is not unusual for parents to have several student loans to repay for more than one child. These loans may come due at a point in their lives when it’s going to be extremely difficult for them as they’re trying to save for their own retirements.

Four-year and six-year degree programs are no longer a guarantee of a job. In fact, geographical location, competition from other candidates and a sour economy means graduates are faced with few prospects for employment. It’s disheartening when they realize that those loans, so easy to sign for, are now coming due.

Recently, Minnesota Public Radio posed the question to listeners: would you go deeply into debt for a college education? Noting that graduates from Minnesota colleges and universities in 2008 carried an average student debt of more than $25,000, they asked for honest feedback.

Some of the responses from recent graduates: “I am sitting on $50,000 in debt from undergraduate and graduate studies. I have 18 months left on my program. My debt will be somewhere near $65,000.” Another response: “I borrowed $250,000 in student loans on the way to my doctorate at St. Thomas;” “I am on a 25-year repayment plan. I will be free of my student loans when I am 52 years old.”

In spite of the American dream of having your children go to college, the number one priority of parents must be to prepare wisely for their own retirement. That means saving and investing and contributing regularly to workplace retirement plans. The other benefit to this sort of thinking is the positive role model it provides for children.

Also, it is entirely reasonable for parents to expect their children to contribute something to their education. For example, every dollar saved from their summer jobs work can help offset the amount of loans needed.

My brother and his wife, now retired teachers in Marathon County, helped their son and daughter sell seeds, manage a huge garden and work summer jobs to save money for their educations.

Kurt, the oldest, went to the Wausau community college to get basic requirements out of the way, as did his sister. Working at Kraft Foods, he saved his money and graduated with his bachelor degree, debt-free. He was accepted into UW-Madison’s School of Medicine, where he worked as a lab assistant.

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Weekly Grad Star: Chelsea Baldwin

Name: Chelsea Baldwin
School: Appalachian State University, Boone, NC
Major: Communication, Journalism - minors in Spanish & English
Job desired: A position in Communication, Content Writing, Marketing, Sales, or Social Media within the publishing, marketing, green, non-profit, or other great industries.
Graduation date: May 2010
Contact info: chelsea.j.baldwin@gmail.com

Why should you be hired?
I have been told a number of times by fellow AIESEC Executive Board members, “Chelsea, I don’t know where our LC (local committee) would be without you.” It was a huge compliment, and it is a reflection of my work ethic: I am very passionate about my work, I always strive for excellence in everything I do, and I will never settle for less than my best.

I have a number of professional experiences under my belt, and I am a dedicated and confident individual with proven success and a great ability to communicate, whether in correspondences, in a controlled group setting, or on my toes. One of my biggest strengths is my organizational skills, and my ability to keep a cool head and thrive under pressure. I have a lot to offer, and can‘t wait to be productive within a company or organization once again.

Bio
I recently graduated from Appalachian State University with a Bachelor of Science in Communication. I graduated with Magna Cum Laude honors, and as the top Journalism student within ASU’s Communication department.

In addition to my education and top grades, I spent the last 3.5 years as a member of AIESEC at Appalachian State. AIESEC is a student-run, non-profit organization present in 107 countries that focuses on developing global leaders through facilitating international internships. Not only did I participate in one of these internships by working at a leadership and team-working development camp outside of Mexico City, but by my last year I was working at least 30 hours per week leading the sales and marketing teams, facilitating conference sessions, managing campus relations through a wide variety of campus marketing tactics, and establishing a Board of Advisors. I developed countless hard and soft skills that will be applicable in any professional situation. Some of these include: a year of sales experience, social media marketing, blogging, external relations, team management, internal and external communications, and public speaking.

Since April, I have been writing freelance for a variety of online websites in order to keep my skills fresh and learn new writing and communication techniques. This has taught me a lot about SEO, using images, and a document’s visual layout. I was even invited to be a contributor for an environmental web magazine because one of the editors liked some of my articles that he had seen elsewhere.

Want to be a featured Grad Star? Click here!

Top 3 Cover Letter Mistakes

Cover letter mistakes you're probably making

As a career coach and professional resume writer, I'm often asked "How important are cover letters to my job search?" My answer is, "It depends on how long you want to search for your next job." If you are in no hurry to get interviews, then don't worry about your cover letter.

The fact is I've never met a job searcher who wants to have a painfully slow job search. The whole point of sending out resumes is to get multiple interviews as quickly as possible. But many job seekers still unwittingly sabotage their efforts by using substandard cover letters. Instead of helping you, your cover letter may actually be hurting your job search.

For fast job search results, make sure to avoid these top three cover letter mistakes:

1. Not understanding the hiring motives of your audience
2. Repeating rather than introducing your resume
3. Overuse of the word "I"

1. Not understanding the hiring motives of your audience

There are three basic audiences that a job seeker sends his/her resume to: executive decision-makers, resume screeners, and third-party recruiters. Each of these groups has its own hiring motives.

   • Executive decision-makers are looking for candidates who will have a significant impact on bottom-line initiatives, such as time saved, income generated, revenue built, etc.
   • Resume screeners are searching for candidates who directly match the lists of qualifications in the job description.
   • Third-party recruiters are looking for selling points to help position you as a top candidate.

Knowing these hiring motives will help you craft your cover letter specifically to catch the attention of your particular hiring audience. By appealing directly to the reader, you are creating an immediate bond that will make you a stronger candidate.

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Applying to Jobs Online? 3 Mistakes to Avoid!

Online job hunting pitfalls everyone should know

Job hunting online seems to be simple these days, just a few clicks and you have submitted your application - but what if we are doing something wrong when applying to jobs online? Using the Internet for a long time now, I can safely say that while trying to get a job online is pretty straight-forward at times, there are some huge mistakes job seekers can make. To see what 3 big mistakes to avoid while job hunting online, read this article.

1) Applying to positions we are not qualified for.

The Web has streamlined how we communicate with each other. We often see postings on the Web we "may" be interested in and quickly apply to them without giving it more thought. That is the path to failure as the whole process is built on wishful thinking. Most people who have this habit will then have a tendency to send a short email, along with a generic resume (or no resume at all!). Recruiters can easily identify these types of applicants and will not waste their time reviewing these applications. For these applicants the issue really is: If you are not interested in the position, why bother applying and, if you are indeed interested in the position, why don't you put more effort into it?

2) Lack of professionalism when applying online.

It is certainly true that the Web has broken a lot of frontiers, including that between people. We are much more informal on the Web. Some people push this attitude too far however to the point of using the wrong "tone" when applying for a job. Keep in mind that a certain degree of formalism should remain. It's preferable to lean on the safe side. You probably have heard that when attending a job interview, better dress conservatively (except if you are an artist, or working in the creative field) than push your luck. At the end of the day, you will be hired for your competence. You don't want your outfit to be a distraction. Same thing for your job application. You don't want anything to distract the employer when reviewing your job application. Being too informal could have a nagging effect on some recruiters and might jeopardize your candidacy.

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