As a recruiter for 22 years, and now a job coach for 2, I’ve come in contact with hundreds of employers and probably thousands of job seekers. Directly (myself) or indirectly (through my client companies as a recruiter, through feedback prior to working with me) candidates, almost without exception, are operating at about 15 – 65% of their potential, yet under the impression they’re at about 90% – 100%. I may exaggerate some, but not by much.
How can I say this, you ask. That’s ridiculous, you say. What am I talking about? Let’s start with that job seeking is a skill. Plain and simple. Been working for the same company a long time? You have no idea what you’re doing. Been working for a lot of companies? You still don’t – or you wouldn’t have been working for so many companies.
Yet people put together a resume (usually full of bland job description stuff, sometimes difficult to read from poor formatting, occasionally with an objective – or worse, not even that, or some combo of these and other problems); write a generic cover letter that is obviously generic, and therefore very unimpressive to the company, and sometimes it’s one short paragraph and sometimes it’s a full page or longer with 12 line paragraphs.
Continuing….people have no idea what they want. A people oriented company isn’t specific enough. Nor is “the right opportunity.” “Growth oriented” doesn’t work either. They’re all very wide definitions. What you want is a job. A JOB!!!! So who cares? As long as it pays? Non discerning candidates don’t impress hiring companies. Do you want someone who wants just anyone? Or a company who – out of all those people they interviewed – wants you? Companies want someone who has thought carefully through what kind of job and company they want and why, becuase then the company feels like you are more likely to stick around.
There’s more! Most people put their resumes on job boards. This brings them in contact with recruiters who….well let’s say they aren’t the best representatives of the group. Good recruiters recruit! They contact people who are employed, referred to them, in a network, that they’ve spoken with. They don’t go trolling the job boards for every tom, dick, and harry that everyone else has plucked from the tree. So you end up not liking recruiters and often don’t contact them. And let’s face it, like attorneys, policemen and other professions, recruiters sink to the lowest common denominator.
But they’re not all bad and many of them can really help you. But you need to know how to find the good ones. Ideally, start that relationship when you’re employed.
By the way, this is about what isn’t working for you. I have other columns that will tell you how to fix these things and better methods of doing them, but if I make that part of this column, it will be a 10 page blog post minimum. So this one is really to raise your awareness and get you thinking. As in “Hmmmm, do I see myself in this picture?”
Many people skip what I call cold companies, and others call the hidden job market. That’s because people sometimes feel intrusive contacting companies cold. And if they manage to do it, they go through HR, which isn’t the person who makes a decision or would know if something is about to change from a confidential replacement or otherwise. And if they do go to the hiring authority, they don’t follow up.
Ads often don’t work because someone is so despearte for a job they asnwer anything. Ever been a business analyst? No, but you could learn. No you can’t. Not in this market. Ever built a 400 unit condominium? You built condos? No, it’s not the same thing. You were a VP Finance, but you need a job so you’ll take a cut in pay and be a controller? No, because unless you have a really good reason for taking a cut in pay, the company is sure you’ll leave so they won’t even consider you.
And I haven’t even approached interviewing skills…..or people who haven’t researched the company or don’t know all the great things they did in their jobs and the benefit to their employers and thus are unable to sell themselves. Or don’t know how to create a dialogue to sell themselves and learn about the company concurrently. Or they trip over themselves doing and saying everything they can to BE the candidate.
Do you begin to see why you need help? Do you begin to see why you’re operating at less than 100%? If you think I’m setting you up for this huge program to pay a lot of money, I’m not. Read this blog. Read my other articles at my site and on my own blog. Read Debra’s and Jeff’s posts. They’re both excellent and knowledgeable. Subscribe to other newsletters and see if what you read makes sense.
When you find someone who’s stuff you like, then invest. Buy their book or CD or pay to take a teleseminar. You don’t have to spend hundreds or thousands of dollars. But find someone who knows what they’re talking about and doesn’ t ask for the moon before they tell you anything. Good heavens, there are enough of us out there these days. (caveat emptor, by the way)
You owe it to yourself to do everything you can do and as the Army says, be all you can be! And that means being willing to learn. Isn’t it time you up your odess and be the bride, not the bridesmaid, so to speak?