There are around 800 million LinkedIn members who call themselves as career coaches & over a million & half folks claiming themselves as resume writers. All of them claim to help you successfully land up with a job of your choice. In between experts giving their advisory services & suggestions given by family, friends & colleagues, jobseekers gets perplexed & confused.
I have spent years structuring career portfolio documents which include resumes, cover letter, LinkedIn profiles, motivation letters to help jobseekers land up with a dream role. I am going to share some misunderstandings based upon my experience of structuring job search strategy for my clients & interaction with HR folks & headhunters:
- Job hopping is a minus for jobseeker: If we go back to the early 2000’s, job hopping was taken negative by various corporations specifically in case of job seekers who used to make a job shift every 2 years. In today’s job search scenario also, shifting jobs every year is considered as a red flag; however in certain scenarios, environment & functions including sales, operations, consulting & start-ups, it is acceptable to start looking for an attractive position once they have completed a major assignment. Besides, staying for a long period of time with the same employer can impact your future earning potential. If your shift/movement is positioned appropriately, you can even showcase departure from a particular corporation as an asset to a prospective employer. Hiring managers respect candidates who do what it takes to look for opportunities that offer growth potential.
- You must be dressed in formals: Business casuals were introduced in early 2000’s in the US. In today’s world, firms have implemented flexible dress code which varies from suit & tie in Wall street to jeans & t-shirt in the silicon valley. It all depends upon the company’s culture. Do your groundwork & check with someone you know in prospective employer who can guide you about wardrobe. In case you have no connect, it is perfectly fine to check with someone in the HR department. You can find more information on the company by visiting their website & social media pages. This will help you get a glimpse of the office before visiting there.
- If you have a great profile & resume, you will certainly be called for an interview: On average a company receives 200 plus applications for a particular job. Therefore if you have one size fits all resume, it is more likely that your resume will not pass the initial gatekeeper. If you do not format your resume correctly or do not use relevant keywords, it is not going to pass through the application tracking system(ATS). Prefer tailoring your resume to the job you are applying for, so that ATS keeps your resume on the top of the pile. Ideally your resume should address the following areas:
- The role you are targeting in your job search.
- How your skills align with the job requirements.
- How your achievements makes you perfect fit for the role
It’s even better if you can use your personal referral to make your resume reach to HR manager directly. If you use referral, the process shortens & you are most likely to be onboarded quickly. It is found that only 7% of employee referral apply for roles which account for 40% of hiring.
4) You do not need to pay attention to your social media presence: Around 70% of employers use social media to research candidates for the hiring process. Even a perfectly written resume or outreaching employers will not help. In order to avoid unnecessary risk, most employers do give weightage to online profiles. Studying & researching your social media profile gives prospective employer information about your personality, work ethics, your professional network & your personal brand. This becomes really important if the employer is hiring for executive level since the personal brand of senior management team does have impact on the corporation’s brand equity. There are higher chances that you would not be called for an interview if they do not have an active social media profiles.
Online presence does have its share of disadvantages. You should not indulge any discriminatory comments &/or provocative & inappropriate pictures.
If you are looking to optimise your professional branding material, resume &/or linkedIn profile or leverage your social media presence, sign up with us for our career services or free consultation at https://thesushantkumar.com/resume-writing/
