Job searches are hard. We understand. Figuratively, you’re casting your line out in the world’s largest pond, already flanked with fishermen with just as much skill as you, and the fish headed your way are extremely choosy as to whose lure they’ll take. So what happens when you work your hardest, buy the best possible line and lures and camp out for hours chasing fish after fish, but fail to get a single bite?
Discouragement is the most frequent and understandable emotion. If you’ve been putting in applications to job after job but have yet to be hired by anyone, we realize and acknowledge your frustrations. However, you have to keep trying! Here’s what you can do to try and keep yourself afloat while your job search continues.
Check Over Your Resume
While this may sound like an irrelevant suggestion, it could very well ring true that you don’t have enough information included within your resume to push employers to hire you. Sometimes we shortchange ourselves by underestimating our skills. Sometimes we fail to see how certain skills and experiences relate to the industries we’re trying to work in, so we leave them out of our executive resume bio and flesh out the rest of what we have to offer. Go back over your resume and think about all of your qualifications, experiences and skills and whether you could have skipped over anything that could prove useful. Chances are you’ll come across something you shouldn’t have left out, but other times you may just need to tweak the wording to better align with keywords that potential employers search for.
Re-evaluate Your Prospective Jobs
If your resume checks out, you may be using it to approach the wrong positions. Again, this happens more often than you’d think! Look back on all of the applications you’ve submitted recently and make a note of what you find. While you’re doing this, be sure to consider your own skills and where you fit in terms of what the employer is asking for. Sometimes we apply to positions even when we don’t have exactly the right credentials. Other times, we simply may not yet have enough experience in the field to qualify for certain positions in it.
Invest in Some Self-Improvement
If you find a dissonance between the types of jobs you want and the types of jobs you qualify for, now is the best time to start brushing up on your professional skills so your executive LinkedIn profile (and other branding tools) will more adequately reflect your potential. You can potentially improve your professional skills by taking adult courses to learn any necessary software, researching what skills are becoming more relevant in your industry and much more.
It also helps to review the best ways to market yourself to any and all prospective employers. A professional resume company can assist you by critiquing your executive resume cover letter and much more! Be sure to reach out to your nearest and most qualified executive resume company to get back on the right track with your job search today!