The biggest mistake job seekers do

By Kompatible MindsCareer Booster

We, all look for career transitions and seek new opportunities at different phases of life. But there is one biggest mistake job seekers mostly do while finding the right opportunity and that is –

Following the conventional job search method

Recruitment process, from the perspective of candidate, is divided into 4 major parts –

1. Application Submission – In this step, candidate prepares his/her application (CV, Job Portals, LinkedIn etc.) and submits it to companies

2. Interview Alignment: In this step, candidate receives calls from the companies or recruiters, and he / she has to speak in a manner that this call gets converted to an “In – Person” interview

3. Interview: In this step, candidate attends an F2F or a Video Interview with the domain-related expert from the company. This may comprise of three-four rounds of interview

4. Offer and Negotiations: If candidate reaches this step, it means that he has cleared all rounds of interviews and salary is to be decided now.

Most of the rejection happens at 1st Step i.e Application Submission

Rejection at Application Submission means that you are sending your application to 100s of companies but rarely listen back from them.

Conventional Application Submission Process

Most of the candidates follow conventional application submission process which is divided into following steps:

1. Candidate, first, identifies the need that he has to look for a new job. This need arises when you are stuck in your career with no growth prospects in current organization, / you want to switch your domain / you are currently not working or just starting your career as a fresher

2. Candidate updates his/her resume with latest developments. However, I have witnessed several times that candidates do not even feel the need to update CV

3. Candidate updates job portals like Naukri.com, Indeed, Monster, Shine.com, Freshersworld, iimjobs etc.

4. Candidate uploads CV on Career pages of companies and awaits to receive call from the recruiters.
Then, usually candidate applies with one standard CV to varied companies.

Your CV or resume may possibly gets rejected by ATS i.e. Applicant Tracking System owing to –

a) Lack of right set of keywords (matching the job description and company profile)
b) Your experience is little short of the required one
c) Your profile does not meet other shortlisting parameters like – Target Notice Period, Specified salary range for role, Educational Background etc.

5. Candidate also asks several friends to refer him/her in their current companies. Usually, response received is – “We would look into it”

6. Candidate builds or updates his/her LinkedIn profile as everybody is talking about it. But seriousness and reach of this powerful platform is usually ignored

Outcome

1. Does it work in current competitive environment?
There are only 8-10% chances of success via this traditional approach which leads to a lot of frustration

2. What answers do you usually get from friends?
You keep following up with them and they always say – “Please share your CV, I would look into it”
But you never hear back from them

3. We usually come to the conclusion that there are not many opportunities in the market and you should stop looking for now

4. It also leads to lot of time wastage and companies also now understand it as a Bad Candidate experience

Modern Application Submission Method

As righty said, if you need different and better results, we should stop and think from new perspectives. We should look for new strategies and start implementing them.

The modern job search funnel strategy is not rocket science. It is something which you probably are already aware of but I want to re-emphasize its importance again.

This is intended only for serious job seekers as it will require some efforts from your end. As your goal is big – Landing into a dream job which can give immense satisfaction to you, so you should be willing to invest your time towards it

Modern Job Search Funnel basically reverses the traditional approach of finding job

– This modern job search funnel can also be categorised as a pro-active approach while the traditional approach is a reactive one.

1^st Step: Here, process starts with the setting up of an objective i.e. Dream Job.
– You first build clarity around your career and make a list of potential companies which fulfil the criteria of your dream job. The number of potential companies can be 30 plus.

– Identifying goal is 50% of the work. But I have seen candidates failing in setting up the target. They fanatically keep on following the traditional method but it is to be remembered.

2^nd Step: After identifying your target, you should not directly jump to building your profile. Instead it is better to consult or ideate with seniors (may be your college alums, or seniors from your previous or current organisations) who are following the same road map. They can suggest you with required skill sets, or may assist in adding up new companies in your target list

3^rd Step: After consultation with senior, you have to come up with an improvement plan in terms of skill sets needed to be acquired. You can explore some training or certifications (not just for the sake of certificate) but to actually learn skills required to land into dream job

4^th Step: Maximum number of interviews can only be done by ensuring that your CV reaches the right recruiter.

– In traditional approach, we apply to job postings or submit our application on company’s career page. But, ATS (Applicant tracking system) can filter out our profile if we do not have the right keyword or our experience is little short of the required one

– Hence, in order to break the ATS, we have to reach real recruiters by building a good network and connecting with senior professionals or HRs of targeted company

Your Network is your net-worth

– You have to be active, your network can be built both online (by using LinkedIn or attending some webinars) and offline (by attending certain seminar or event in your interest-areas)

5^th Step: As you reach the right hiring managers, next step is to share your profile or CV with them.

– Do not prepare one standard CV for different positions (like we did in traditional job search method)

– Instead, go through the Job description and company profile exhaustively. Mark the important keywords for the role and mention them in your CV

I am certain that by following the strategies mentioned above you can land up into one of your target companies

We have an e-book available over Amazon – “Make your Job Search Effective” comprising of all steps of recruitment –

– Application Submission
– Interview Alignment
– Cracking the Interview
– Salary Negotiation Process