Stop ‘Fooling’ Yourself about your Job Hunt: Things you may be doing to sabotage yourself
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**I am a member of the Career Collective, a group of resume writers and career coaches. Each month, all members discuss a certain topic. This month, in honor of April Fool’s Day, we are talking about how we fool ourselves about the job search and/or being tricked by common job search blunders. Please follow our tweets on Twitter #careercollective
Unless you are independently wealthy, you’ll be on the job hunt at some point in your life. If you’re lucky, you won’t find yourself looking for a job very often. That also means that when you are seeking a job, you might be out of practice. It’s also possible that you may be inadvertently doing things to sabotage yourself while job hunting. Take a look at some of the common lies people tell themselves about their job search, and how you can avoid them.
I can wait a few weeks to look for a job. I have money saved up.
This is a very dangerous job hunting mistake, mostly because it’s a slippery slope. It starts off as a few days of rest, and then a week. One week of sitting at home turns into two, and before you know it, you find that you’ve lost the motivation to look for a good job. Maybe you’ve gotten accustomed to sleeping in, or perhaps you’ve moved in with a relative who is allowing you to mooch without demanding payment. Whatever the reason, this can quickly lead to depression, and worse, the longer the amount of time that lapses from one job to another, the more potential employers want to know why you weren’t working. Do yourself a favor, and start looking immediately.
My Resume is just fine – I don’t need to re-do it.
If you’ve sent in your resume to multiple places, and you haven’t gotten a response, it’s probably time to tweak it. Add new experiences, play with the format, or have a professional resume written for you. Ideally, you really should be tweaking your resume every single time you send it out. It should always reflect the job you’re applying for, and it should also use the keywords that were in the job posting.
I don’t need to look for a job every day.
Yes you do. You should be treating your job hunt as a 9-5 job. There are several reasons for this. First, by waking up early every day, networking, visiting businesses, dropping off and printing resumes, and scanning the job listings, you’re setting up a good schedule and work ethic so that you never get out of the habit of working hard. It’s also important, because if a month later you still haven’t found something, you know it won’t be because you aren’t trying. That can help stave off joblessness depression.
I can do all my job hunting online.
While the internet is a huge resource for finding a job, it’s certainly not the only one. If fact, the best way to find a job is to get a face to face meeting with someone. Dress in your best every day, and while you’re not scanning online job listings, you should be on the road. Visit every company you think you’d like to work in, and have a chat with whoever is at the front desk. Explain that you’re a skilled person at doing whatever it is you do, and ask politely to see the HR manager, or hiring director. If you’re not allowed to meet with them, leave your resume, along with a handwritten note saying that you dropped by, and you’d love to have a chat with them about filling any needs the company has.
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The April, 2010, Career Collective Links
10 Ways to Tell if Your Job Search is a Joke, @careerealism
April Fool’s Day – Who’s Fooling Who?, @MartinBuckland @EliteResumes
If It’s Not You and It’s Not True, You’re Fooling Yourself, @GayleHoward
Don’t Kid Yourself! (The Person You See in the Mirror is a Good Hire), @chandlee
Avoiding the Most Common Blunder, @jobhuntorg
Are you fooling yourself? Bored at work? Is it your own fault?, @keppie_careers
Hey, Job Seeker — Don’t Be a Fool!, @resumeservice
Job Search Is No Joking Matter, @careersherpa
Is Your #Career in Recovery or Retreat? (All Joking Aside), @KCCareerCoach
9 Ways You Might Be Fooling Yourself About Your Job Search, @heatherhuhman
Don’t get tricked by these 3 job search blunders, @LaurieBerenson
Trying to hard to be nobody’s fool?, @WorkWithIllness
It’s not all about you, @DawnBugni
Mirror ‘their’ needs, not ‘your’ wants in #jobsearch, @ValueIntoWords
Stop Fooling Yourself about your Job Hunt: Things you may be doing to sabotage yourself – @erinkennedycprw
Same as it ever was – @walterakana
Don’t be fooled. Avoid these – @kat_hansen
Job Seekers: You Are Fooling Yourself If...@barbarasafani
Written by Erin Kennedy, CPRW, CMRW - Visit the website to hire executive resume writer Erin Kennedy, CERW, CPRW
Erin is an internationally renowned certified resume writer specializing in professional and executive level resumes and career services.
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Erin Kennedy, CPRW, CERW owns Professional Resume Services, where she and her talented staff of writers specialize in professional & executive resumes. Erin is internationally recognized by her peers as one of the best of the best, she is a perennial award-nominated certified resume writer.
Great article Erin! In particular they way you have identified many people who erroneously think that as long as they are “online” all they have to do is sit back and wait like Cinderella for Prince Charming to come to her door with the glass slipper! It just doesn’t work that way! I say to my clients, all the internet does is allow you to communicate quicker. Active participation, talking to people and being a strategically agile thinker to work all the angles—they are the things that work the best! Great job!
Erin:
Great explanations! You covered the many excuses we’ve all heard! Job search does take practice, as you pointed out. I also think that things have changed a bit over the past several years, so a “refresher course” in job search is always beneficial. Great post and glad to be part of this initiative with you!
.-= career sherpa´s last blog ..Job Search Is No Joking Matter =-.
What an excellent post! Many, MANY people make EXACTLY those mistakes, and then find themselves out of time, out of money, and still unemployed. VERY tough situation, and, sadly, at least partially self-inflicted.
Love Gayle’s Cinderella and Prince Charming analogy! I’ve often thought that if people approached dating the same way they approach job search, they’d be single their whole lives.
Thanks!
Great article. One thing I find interesting is that how reluctant people are to actually do more than look at online advertisements for jobs, particularly people who may be looking for a job for the very first time in their lives. I think it’s because the huge job boards advertise themselves so much and it seems like the only way. I often ask my clients to name the last three ways they found a job, and many of them say “headhunted,” “friend told me” or the offer started at a talk at a BBQ. Yet I talk to these same people about the concept of networking and most run a mile.
LOL. True. Seems scary at first, but it is much easier than they think!
Erin
Thanks!
It is definitely true that now days job hunting online is the way to go. With sites out there like career builder and monster dot com it is much easier to submit your resume to a large number of employers with the click of a mouse.