Why job hunters fail and what you should do about it

An excellent book by Robin Ryan, 60 Seconds & You’re Hired Employers are extraordinarily picky about whom they offer a job to. A poorly crafted resume, or goof at the interview, and you’re dead in the water. Many common mistakes can be avoided. I divide my time between talking to hiring executives, HR folks and working with job search clients. This gives me a very broad view of what people do that works, and what trips them up – often without realizing it.Here the top reasons job hunters fail and my tips for your success.   1. Failure to advertise your key accomplishments. Employers hire people who get results. Generic job descriptions and vague, unfocused resumes don’t work. Employers complain that most applicants simply don’t have the skills to DO the job. The Internet’s ease of use and the job hunter’s ‘click and send’ mentality has added to this problem–increasing by the thousands the number of resumes received. This has made it very hard to get noticed.
Robin’s Success Tip: Make your resume standout. Your resume needs to note your actions and the results that were achieved. Be specific. Show where you saved money, made money, saved time or increased productivity. Use action verbs like streamlined, created, implemented — to show you’re a take-charge, get-the-job-done kind of person. Limit your resume no more than 2 pages.

2. Not writing a cover letter. Human resources directors state that most individuals no longer send a cover letter especially when they apply electronically. The few that do send in a generic one that rarely addresses the employers’ needs.
Robin’s Success Tip: A well-written cover letter has great power with employers and should always precede any resume sent. Simply make one document including both cover letter and resume when you apply online. Begin your letter with a powerful first paragraph that sums up your experience, key strengths, skills and accomplishments you have to offer. Hiring managers reveal that your cover letter demonstrates your communication skills and a well written one can capture the interview.

3. Not mastering how to control the interview. Dressing inappropriately, wasting time on lengthy discussions of your life story, lacking confidence, not being well-informed about the company, and nervousness — these get you off to a bad start you may never recover from. Employers often make snap decisions and many confess that they often mentally dismiss a candidate during the first few minutes after meeting them.
Robin’s Success Tip: Be prepared and research the job and organization. Immediately open with the top strengths you have to offer. Display enthusiasm for the job, show you have the potential to learn, grow and produce on the job. Start the interview in the best possible way: when the interviewer asks the, ‘Tell me about yourself’ question, forget an autobiography. Use the 60 Second Sell (outlined in Robin’s book+ audios 60 Seconds and You’re Hired). This technique has you analyze the job duties the employer wants accomplished, then select your top five selling points. Link these together into a few sentences and you’ve created your ‘verbal business card’.

4. Flustered or stumped by tough interview questions. Many hiring managers say today’s job hunters seem quite unprepared when they meet an employer face-to-face. They haven’t thought about the tougher typical questions, such as: why should we hire you or tell us about your worse boss or why did the company let you go and keep someone else?    Robin’s Success Tip: Be ready for tough situational questions. This style of interviewing is common today. The interviewer probes to determine how you have performed in the past. Specific examples of past performance are required. Do not torpedo your chances saying the first thing that comes to mind. Write out work stories for these kinds of questions before the interview. Try to put a positive spin on the experience. Say nothing degrading or negative about your former boss or company. Illustrate how you learned from a mistake and have improved.

5. Not asking intelligent questions. Hiring managers complain that all the candidate cares about is how much we’ll pay them. Other candidates often just search for something to ask – seeming spacey or uninterested – this comes across poorly.
Robin’s Success Tip: Most employers listen intently to the questions you ask as a sign of how you’d think, and act, on the job. Impress the employer with good probing questions about job duties and management styles. That’s the best way for you to determine if you really want to work for the company. Avoid asking questions about salary or benefits. There’s plenty of time to secure a higher salary after you’ve been chosen for the job. Good questions to ask include: “Could you describe your management style please?” “Where are your major concerns that need to be immediately addressed in this job?” “How have any budget cuts affected the department?”

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