Too Many Applications
By Soozy G. Miller, CPRW, CDCC, CDP
Over the last 6 months I’ve been reading and hearing a lot of stories about people sending out 75, 150, 400 resumes to jobs. And then they’re so happy that they finally landed 10 or 20 or 30 interviews.
One woman said that she sent out more than 600 resumes and was lucky enough to get 45 interviews. A couple of people online responded to her with congratulations, that the world had answered her prayers, and that she was one of the “chosen” ones who had broken through “the barrier” and that God was with her.
And while I appreciate the power of prayer and keeping God and faith in your life, no one—I mean no one – should have to send out 600 resumes to land 45 interviews. That is just a horrible sales ratio. And no one should have to go on 45 interviews to find their dream job, or any job. That is simply too exhausting and stressful.
One client told me that he had applied to more than 150 positions in the weekend before he hired me, and he hired me because he didn’t hear back from anyone. Wow.
I don’t care if you are an executive with 1 million connections on Linkedin, or if you’re fresh out of college and you have 5 connections. If you are applying to more than 5 jobs per week and not getting any responses, you are doing something wrong, and it’s probably the jobs that you’re applying to and it’s probably your resume. I can’t tell you how many people come to me claiming that they’re too old, they’re too young, they’re too experienced, or they’re too inexperienced. Or they don’t live in the right place. Or their employment gap is too long.
One client, an interior designer, thought that she wasn’t landing a job because people were so impressed with her background and her talent that they were overwhelmed and intimidated by her. Really. Yes, her experience was extensive. She had probably worked on hundreds of high-end design projects in and around New York City, and she had many repeat clients. But during the resume writing process she told me that she was holding back on talking about her true talent because people would be jealous of her. She somehow got the feeling that if she went “all out” and really demonstrated all of her talent and expertise on her resume, that people wouldn’t hire her anymore because they would be overwhelmed by her awesomeness. Have you ever heard of an intimidating or overwhelming interior designer?
I’m here to tell you that you don’t have:
An ageism problem
A skills problem
An employment gap problem
A region/available jobs problem
What you have is a resume (and Linkedin) problem.
Please, please please … before you consider throwing your resume around and hoping that it sticks somewhere (Spray & Pray method)… and before you consider moving because there are no jobs where you live… talk to me. Let’s work on controlling your career.
Trust me, everyone, it’s not the universe or God holding you back from your dream job. It’s your resume.
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Better job. More pay. More control.
For a free resume review, please contact us at Control Your Career!