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Career Advice for Job Seekers

The Bad Qualities of the American Job Seeker

William Frierson AvatarWilliam Frierson
August 23, 2012


Ken Sundheim

Ken Sundheim, CEO of KAS Placement

I’ve been more involved in our company’s recruiting process as of late and this hands-on experience has given me insight regarding the American job seeker that is more valuable and definitely more interesting than most of the things that I’ve learned in my professional career.

The American job seeker, from when I started recruiting in 2004 has gained some bad tendencies that hinder their odds of success to an extent where they become their own worst enemy.

While this is negative for the majority, it is a big positive for those hard working individuals who always seek to improve themselves and upgrade their skills. In a nutshell, here are some of their bad habits:

Pessimistic and Very Tough on Themselves – The American job seeker has a tendency to see things in a negative manner that consistently has them focusing on the aspects of a job that are negative despite how small they may be.

It seems that our confidence as a nation has gone down and, unfortunately some of these individuals are so tough on themselves that these thoughts gradually hinder performance.  Again, it’s unfortunate, but you can’t give optimism nor teach it, rather you can examine the problem and begin to put mental energy towards thinking positively.

Can Be Very Self-Centered – By nature, people tend to think about their needs first rather than the employer’s needs.  Instead of how I can help this employer, the mentality of the American job seeker is what can these guys do for me.

While employment should be a “win-win”, one thing it should not be is a “how do I win.”  Seeing things from the other side’s perspective is a gap in our skill-set.  My first inclination is that this mentality comes from candidates having many job options (even in a bad economy) combined with technological advances that tend to put us in our own world.

Thinks in the Short-term – Careers are a marathon with ups and downs that require long-term thinking and decision making combined with the ability to forego job offers that are seemingly easy, yet not as rewarding as some of the jobs that are harder to get.

We Americans seem to like the easier jobs even though they will not pay down the road.  What is the takeaway?  Knowing this is a great opportunity to get those hard to obtain jobs and know that the competition may be less than one anticipates.

Buying American

As job candidates, the American job seeker makes it harder to buy domestic than it should be.  I have no more, no less to say on the topic.

Bio: Ken Sundheim is the CEO of KAS Placement an executive search firm based out of New York City.  Ken has been published throughout major media over 400x as well as lectures at universities regarding job search techniques.

 

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