In short, when applying for a job, your task is to take care
of the details, appeal to everyone and not offer any reason
for anyone to reject you.
Easy enough?
Well, we wish.
In fact your overall success will depend on:
- The clarity of employers? definitions of the needs of their organisations
- Your understanding of those needs and your relative ability to convince those employers that you can fill them (i.e. relative to the ability of your competitors). This last point sometimes surprises people as they do not fully appreciate the nature and extent of the competitive situation that they are in.
Opinions vary, so you need to play the averages
We will have differences. Men of different ancestries, men of different tongues, men of different colours, men of different environments, men of different geographies do not see everything alike. Even in our own country we do not see everything alike. If we did, we would all want the same wife - and that would be a problem, wouldn't it?
Lyndon Baines Johnson
If you think that the advice and answers to questions that I provide in my articles and books will be guaranteed 100% correct in 100% of cases across 100% of the world, then I am afraid there has been a gross misunderstanding.
In order for this to be true, there would need to be a personal interview conducted with the at least 5 billion adults in the world to seek their personal opinion on every possible issue and after that there would need to be a conference of all these people to try and resolve any disagreements and draw appropriate unanimous conclusions.
No-one has yet tried this, and I have no intention to be the first.
Suffice to say, people?s opinions do vary.
Of course, we know that.
What is important to some people may be irrelevant to others.
What appeals to some will be a real turn-off for others.
When applying for a job, it is your job to understand what the
universal turn-ons and universal turn-offs are, and play the
averages on the rest.
All my advice is based on first-hand experience and validated professional third party input.
If, based on that experience, 90% of hiring managers think that something is ?bad?, then, for this purpose, it is bad, and I will tell you it?s no good and it?s to be avoided.
On occasions, I do tend to buck the popular trend, however.
There are some instances where I will over-rule the popular for the common sense and doubtless you will be able to spot such instances.
However, here are some universal guidelines that may seem obvious but worth listing because so many people fail to adhere to these basics.
Your Minimum Attributes
Regardless of who you are or what position(s) you are applying for, you need to:
- present yourself as a serious and credible contender
- demonstrate enthusiasm, self-confidence, and communication skills
- emphasise decision-making and problem-solving skills
- make the CV attractive in presentation, provocative in content, positive in approach
- spend most of your energy on the 1st page, especially the summary
- plan, take charge and be proactive
- choose confidence, not cockiness
- ensure you clearly understand that the purpose of producing your CV is to get interviews (and subsequently offers and jobs) - not to tell the reader your life story
- sell your strengths; manage your weaknesses
- take great care of all the finishing touches (spell-checks etc.)
- and do all this to clearly establish why you (and not your competitor) should be the preferred candidate
You need to become an Expert Job-hunter!
Like anything else that is worthwhile and rewarding, you need to develop a skill, probably a new skill, one that probably you have never been taught.
Developing that skill is the key to success in the new age of job-hunting.
Job-hunting is a system
And, like any system, you need to develop the necessary skills to operate it.
You may be an outstanding technician or salesperson or engineer or secretary or manager, but if you are a poor job-hunter, you will not get all you deserve.
It is a fact that the best jobs go to the best job-hunters, not
necessarily the best-qualified.
Of course, there?s much more to these themes than I can include in this article but stay tuned for future blogposts here.
If you prefer to get it all in one place (and much more career analysis and advice),
you can download my best-selling book
DO WHAT YOU LOVE, LOVE WHAT YOU DO
at a special member?s price.
Till next time, always remember I am rooting for you!
With love & blessings
Peter Fleming FCMA
Your Career Success Coach