3 Ways You’re Unknowingly Sabotaging Your Job Search

When you’re anxious to get a job, it’s easy to become frantic about the process behind finding your next opportunity. You think you’re working tirelessly to land a great position, when in reality you may actually be sabotaging your job search without realizing it. If you’re still struggling to find the right position for you, take a step back and see if you may be making one of these job search errors:

Sending out a generic résumé or cover letter

Even if you’re applying for jobs that are very similar in nature, you absolutely must customize each and every résumé and cover letter that you send out. You should include points that speak specifically to that business, and its vision and values. If it’s apparent that you’re sending the same documents out to dozens of companies, hiring managers will be much less interested in looking over your application. Show why you want to work for that company specifically, and not just the first business to show interest.

Ignoring the requests of the hiring manager

Sometimes hiring managers make specific requests. Regardless of whether you think these requests are smart and/or necessary, it’s important to follow them. If they ask for your materials to be sent in a PDF, do it. If they want them sent via snail mail, get your stamps ready. You want to show that you can follow directions.

Failing to do research

If you’re doing it right, you shouldn’t be able to fire off a cover letter in three minutes. This is because each cover letter requires some research and time. You should check out the company’s website, Google them and see if they’ve made headlines recently, and look at what they’re tweeting about. This shows that you put in time and care as you wrote the piece.

Lastly, if you’re sending your materials to “to whom it may concern” then you’re certainly doing yourself a disservice. Take an extra 10 or 15 minutes and find a name and an email address for the person who will actually be doing the hiring. This helps to keep your information out of the sludge pile.

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