Hi there! Welcome to You’re Hired! Resume Tactics - Job Search Strategies That Work.
Make no mistake. Searching for work… is work!
It takes time, effort and a lot of self-motivation to succeed in your search.
While you have your skills and experience in place to be able to apply and land your dream job, or one that leads you to it, searching for a job requires a whole different set of skills.
It is often said ‘resumes are your ticket to job searching success.’ This book focuses on resume writing tactics to maximize your job searching effectiveness and is excerpted and expanded upon, from my book You’re Hired! Job Search Strategies That Work.
Nobody can make a promise that if you follow their program, you will be guaranteed the results you are looking for and I won’t either.
However, I’m confident that if you follow the strategies outlined in this book, your chances of succeeding in landing a job are increased.
From my experience, one of the biggest problems job seekers often face is they feel they are coming from an inferior position and they don’t have a lot of personal power. The belief being that the Employer has the superior position and has all the power.
Yes, they have the job and they have the power to give you the job… or not.
What you may not realize is many Hiring Managers are under similar pressures as you, the job seeker. They have the pressure of finding the right candidate for the vacancy they need to fill.
They are accountable to their superiors should the person they hire not work out. It has been said that an inappropriate hire can cost the organization an additional 30 to 50 percent over the job position’s annual wage. This would include lost productivity incurred when the new hire is oriented, the cost of advertising for new applicants and the time taken to interview and follow up with applicants.
Hiring managers are under pressure to hire the right candidate.
Your task is to become the only choice. The right choice!
As I mentioned earlier, we are likely not experts at searching for jobs and landing one. It isn’t something we do on a regular basis.
As I researched the content for my book You’re Hired! Job Search Strategies That Work, I found that the problem is compounded by a lack of hard facts on what are the best-practices for job searching.
I’m reminded of an old parable about a group of blind men that were required to touch an elephant and to describe their observations.
Each one felt a different part, but only one part, such as a tusk or the trunk. When they compared notes, they learned that they were in complete disagreement.
I found the same to be true when researching strategic job searching skills.
Each webpage from my search results on the internet spoke from the perspective of the writer whether they were a resume writer, an Employer Hiring Manager, recruiter, etc.
Much the same as the blind men describing what an elephant looks like, their advice is from their perspective. That makes sense to me. We all create our own reality. My reality is completely different from anyone else’s.
The problem is that the job search ‘experts’ state their observations as hard facts. They believe what they write is true. And then next article you read, will dispute what the first expert had said and they will present their truths.
How can something be both true and false at the same time? You must never do this. You must always do this.
Same advice. Can something be both yes and no?
I don’t consider myself an expert at job searching.
What I am very good at though is taking subjects that people struggle with, finding better, easier ways to do things and breaking it down to basic strategies that work.
I create systems to solve problems.
Years ago, I moved my family across Canada to a city where I didn’t know anyone.
I had a brand-new home built for me, but I didn’t have a job waiting for me when I got there.
At the time, the new location was very hostile towards people that had moved from the east to the west coast.
I often heard “you Easterners come out here and steal our jobs…”
I found that jobs were limited. I found getting an interview for a position I had applied for was like winning a lottery.
I also found that my new geographical area had what they called a ‘Sunshine Tax.’
As a desirable place to live, the cost of living is higher and employers believe that they can get away with paying their employees lower wages. The idea being that you the worker should be grateful to have a job and that the employer can get away with paying you less.
‘If you don’t want the job, somebody else will!”
I got so tired of hearing about stealing local jobs that I started to change my story when I attended local business networking events.
Instead of saying that I was unemployed, I would say that I had retired early.
I was 39 years old and the illusion that I had retired early seem to resolve the ‘you Easterners’ complaint.
However, I used to add “if the right job came along, I would likely consider going back to work.”
It was offered somewhat tongue in cheek.
It took me a good six months to land a job. It wasn’t as good a job as I had hoped.
It was a compromise until something better came along.
I describe my employment experience at my new location as being like a roller coaster ride.
I went from being unemployed, to employed. I went from not getting enough hours to getting too many.
I went from being employed to being laid off.
I went from being employed to being self-employed.
Self-employment ended when I came back from a vacation to find that my only client had sold their business i.e. a vocational school and the new owners had no idea who I was or had need of my services.
Back to being unemployed.
Then I got a job...