Desi News Corp - Index

Desi News Corp - Desi News - July 2009 - Index

core reason people take
so long to find a job is that
Athat
they use a single approach
doesn’t always work.
Serious job hunters understand
why “click and apply” is
the least likely way to get a job.
It has to do with the process:
Thousands of other people,
both qualified and unqualified,
are seeing the same job posting
and are simply hitting the button
that says “click and apply”. You
are in a queue of potentially
thousands of resumés. The
more successful the board, the
greater the number of resumés.
One of two approaches are
used by a hiring authority
swamped with resumés:
• They use software to scan
for keywords; or
• The first 25 candidates that
they find that meet the job
criteria, get to move to the next
stage.
In the first scenario, if your
resumé is missing a keyword, you
are out of luck. In the second
scenario, if your resumé is too
low in the pile, you are out of
luck. And it may be due to tim-
Why ‘click and apply’ doesn’t
always work for job hunters
ing, since the resumé may be
sorted by last name, telephone
number, distance from location,
years of experience, or any
other criteria that might be
important to the company.
Another problem is who does
the first review of the resumé.
The first selection is probably
being done by a junior employee
to weed out the totally
inappropriate people.That employee
may not be able to relate
your experience to the job,
unless it’s spelled out explicitly.
Another challenge to “click
and apply” is how much time a
single person gives to each of
thousands of resumés that are
used to create the short list.
Unless your resumé quickly
gets the attention of the reader,
it’s almost impossible. Subtle
wording does not work.
It’s been my experience that
many job hunters only know
“click and apply” and “networking”
as their job hunt tactics.
There are hundreds of job
hunting tactics available, but the
biggest stopper for most people
is that they haven’t learned the
correct way of thinking about
their job hunt.
Here are my top 10 ways a
job hunter must think:
• I have courage.
• I’ll focus on opportunities.
• I understand my choices.
• I’ll act outside my comfort
zone.
• I know the kind of job I want.
• I’ll work to a deadline
• I’ll put a team together to
help find a job.
• I understand I must take
action each and every day.
• I’m learning something new
every day.
• I’ll develop a sales and marketing
mindset.
I have some bad news for
you. The length of time specific
skills are useful is getting
shorter and shorter every day.
The lifetime of the skills of a
typical university graduate
today is about two years. This
means that most of what they
have just learned will have no
value in two years. Don’t believe
me? Think about somebody
who just came back from a oneyear
sabbatical. What they
knew, who they knew, and what
was considered normal a year
ago is totally useless. The job
hunter needs to be continuously
improving skills – technical, interpersonal,
writing and anything
else you can think of.
You must take the position
that you are a product. You will
then start to think about how to
sell yourself.
Good luck on your job hunt!
– ZALE TABAKMAN
• Zale Tabakman is the founder
of Help For The Job Hunter; a
lecturer at YMCA; and Managing
Director at Zale Tabakman Consulting.
Visit ZaleTabakman.ca
for job hunting tactics, or write
to him at JobHuntingTips@Zale
Tabakman.com.
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July 2009 Desi News 31