Job Search Aid

Most job seekers understand that the job market has changed radically over the last few years. Sadly, however, many still hold to career job assumptions that do not apply to our current market conditions.

If you believe any of the following assumptions, you could be dragging your career job out longer than necessary. Cut your job career time by knowing the truth about the job market and learning how to combat these assumptions.

1. If the last job interview is a snap, the next one would surely be the same.

It is probable that your last job search was when the job market favored job seekers. Even up to 2001, jobseekers lived under a rosy glow of unrealistic optimism.

In the last few years, however, most job seekers have noticed a drastic drop in the market demand for their career skills.

Persons who were once courted by recruiters and headhunters from top firms wonder why they are no longer receiving calls with enticing opportunities.

For many job career seekers, frustration and lack of confidence have replaced optimism.

Develop a strategic action plan that involves a high degree of proactive and systematic effort.

2. Employers and recruiters have all the time in the world to read entire resumes.

This could not be farther from the truth. If the best information is not in the top four to five inches of your resume, nobody will notice them.

Try this out for yourself. Open up your current resume on your computer. Do you see the entire first page?

Most likely when your resume is opened, the reader will see the top four to five inches. You must sell the reader in those first few inches or that person is not going to bother scrolling down to read more. Who has the time to hunt out the good material on a resume?

If your current resume is not making best use of the top four to five inches, consider using a hybrid format that will allow you to place your best assets up on top where they will be noticed immediately.

3. One resume can cater to all kinds of career job opportunity being offered.

Employers turn down perfectly qualified candidates because the focus of the resume is too general. A one-size-fits-all resume gives the impression that the job seeker is uncertain of his job career goal.

The most effective resumes leave no doubt as to the job seekers career objective. If you have more than one career objective, you need more than one resume.

4. No one reads cover letters.

The truth is the quality of your cover letter often will determine whether your resume gets read at all. The worst offense, however, is to send a cover letter that sounds like junk mail.

If you keep in mind the buying motives of your cover letter recipient, you will win their attention more often than not.

3. Skills in interviewing are enough to qualify someone for the job.

That may have been true back when there is less interview competition.

But today, employers have the advantage of choosing from the best talent available, because so much of the best talent is available.

Ask questions to uncover the interviewers hidden buying motives. Ask closing questions to win the job offer.

Once you are free of these false assumptions, you are less likely to fall victim to many of the disappointments, frustrations and anxieties associated with an extended job career search.

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