Looking for a job can be very enjoyable – honestly, if you know what to do and have the right skills to showcase on your CV and at job interviews, it can be a doddle. Ask anyone who isn’t and hasn’t ever struggled to get a job.
If that reality doesn’t sound like yours, then here are some things you need to bear in mind when you go for job interviews. These tips might sound simple, but, you’d be surprised how many people make a mistake without thinking much about it during job interviews and then wonder why they don’t get the job time and time again.
1. Make a silly mistake on your CV
Perfection counts on CVs and if yours looks like its been dragged through a hedge backwards and is littered with spelling mistakes and inaccuracies, then it tells a potential employer that that is how you’ll be in their workplace. Would you give yourself an interview or a job?
2. Limit your job search
If you limit your search by only applying to positions that meet your exact criteria, you reduce the number of jobs you can apply for, and you may miss out on the perfect job that has been given a slightly different job title than you’re used to seeing, for example.
3. Expand your job search
Sounds contradictory, doesn’t it? You shouldn’t limit your job search, but, there is no point wasting your time or anyone else’s by applying for jobs that you’re not qualified to do, or don’t have the right experience to do. If you’ve worked all your life as a nursery assistant, deciding that the hours you spend uploading pictures on Facebook makes you qualified to work as a web developer just won’t do…unless you’ve taken a few courses in web programming and development, of course.
4. Only searching for jobs online
Looking for jobs online is a fantastic step,mbut it doesn’t mea that you should ditch the traditional methods. You’d be surprised at how many employers who don’t put all their vacancies on big job sites, but prefer sector newspapers.
5. Insult your former employer
Even if your last job was horrible and your boss was the devil’s stepchild, don’t mention it. Speaking poorly about former employers is never wise, and many industries are incestuous, so the last thing you want to do is say negative or derrogarptory things about about someone who your recruiter knows and respects. And besides, how does your future employer know that you won’t talk about him that way, next time around?
6. Underdo it
Don’t be a slob. Candidates who are unkempt, disheveled and poorly dressed won’t get the job. So, the fact that you have vomit in your hair, bevy duty bags under your eyes and look like you haven’t seen lipstick since the last Jubillee doesn’t mean you’ll get sympathy – it will make you look ridiculous and you won’t get the job, no matter how great your experience is.
7. Overdo it
Smelling nice is great, but you don’t want to overdo the perfumemandnchoke your employer. Makeup used subtly is great, but look professional – don’t make yourself look like a clown. Nicely manicured nails are great, but long gallons that reach your knees will terrify.
8. Act desperate
Are you almost out of unemployment? Don’t know where you next meal is coming from? Do you absolutely have to have this job? Don’t give an inkling of any of that away. You want employers to believe that you want this job because it’s a good opportunity and because you can be an asset to the company, not because you’re on the breadline. Even if yu are really,mreally desperate for the job, leave that attitude at home and go to your job interview with poise, class and self worth.
9. Talk about your children, and how you want to have more – soon!
Yes, discrimination is unlawful, but it still exists. Many employers do t want the cost and unheaval that your potential maternity leave will bring, and they don’t want a working mum who is going to be off work every other day because Morris Junior is sick or fell off the slide at nursery.
Your I terrier is about you showing an employer what you can do in the workplace – save those personal details for when you have started work and are getting to know them.
10. Give up
Regardless of how good the job market is, job searching isn’t simple, and it’s not always easy to stay positive and focused. When you’ve sent hundreds of applications without much of a response it can be difficult to keep going. It’s important, though, to keep plugging away – if you give up, no one else can find a job for you.
