Job Application Tips for 2010
The following is a short article to help you get started on the RIGHT road to applying for jobs in 2010.
*Read the job description completely! Make sure you have all or most of the qualifications required.
*Provide the exact information required by the job description! If an MS Word attachment of your resumâ© is requested, don’t send a PDF file. If there is a request for the job title or job code, be complete in your response.
*Send a cover letter highlighting your experience! Focus on your experience and not a lot of flowery words that don’t make you look any better anyway!
*Respectfully ask for an opportunity to discuss your qualifications further on the phone with the recruiter or hiring manager. I’ve often seen people apply for any job they can, jobs that they don’t even remotely qualify for, then brag about how many they applied for today! Is this YOU?
Who really cares if you applied for 138 jobs today? How many of those jobs can you work at the same time? Worse yet…How many recruiters or hiring managers know that all you did was waste both their time and yours! Their first response is to hit the DELETE button. This is one reason, you may have heard, that recruiters or hiring managers only spend 10 – 20 seconds reading your resume.
This isn’t a numbers game. Although many will tell you that it is…THEY ARE WRONG! When I started out as a recruiter, I read 2471 resumes in one week. From those, 55 were good enough to consider. From the 55 only 7 ended up on my ‘call list.’ This is a game I no longer play.
It’s a QUALITY game and nothing more. It’s all about finding and applying for the job description that’s the best possible fit, one that will give you the very best chance. You are at risk of wasting so much of your precious time by applying for jobs that qualify you by “keywords” rather than your own TRUTHFUL experience.
So, I have a few questions for you to ponder:
1. Why am I applying for this job (the one you now have in front of you)?
2. Did I read the job description completely?
3. Do I ‘truthfully’ qualify by at least 90%?
4. Is this job really a good fit for my family and me?
Answer these questions honestly and you are half way there! The other half requires some support from others and a little salesmanship on your part, but I’ll leave that for another article.
By Steven Coyne http://thejobhunter.jobthread.com
Courtesy of the Recruiting Blogswap, a content exchange service sponsored by CollegeRecruiter.com, a leading site for college students looking for internships and recent graduates seeking entry-level jobs and other career opportunities, and posted on The Daily Recruiter.
