Last month the jobless rate officially fell below 5%, yet so many really smart people cannot find a job. Whatever your scenario–maybe you found yourself unemployed suddenly or maybe you “saw the writing on the wall”, either way, you thought you had time. But time did as time does and your casual looking turned to frantic looking and eventually to desperation.
Three phases of an unsuccessful job search
During the casual phase you were feeling pretty confident. You have phrases on your resume such as “vast amounts of experience”, “innovative”, and “proven track record”. During your tenure at a Fortune 500 company, they increased their revenues by 15%, so whomever is lucky enough to employ you next should be paying you that much more in your salary. You throw your resume out there to see who bites. Maybe you have some good experience or at worst some good keywords, but for whatever reason you get a few interviews but never the offer letter. As time goes on your casual search goes to frantic.
At the frantic stage you double down on your resume. You create a resume for each purpose. You label them accordingly (and forget to change the name when you email them). One emphasizes your education, another your job history, and another your mastery of the art of management. You have one that camouflages your age, and another that minimizes the jobs where you had a less than perfect exit strategy. You ask the advice of experts–lots of experts, and you try to incorporate everything that they’ve advised into your collection of resumes. You bump up your keyword count in an effort to attract more computer algorithms. Frantic has just become desperation.
Desperation is often marked by a visit to a few temp agencies. You begin the rhetoric of “I don’t really care what the job is, I just need a job”. As soon as you utter those words you are done. You have sunk to the bottom of the food chain. It’s arguably the equivalent of walking into a bar and announcing that you are so desperate for a companion that you’ll take anybody that will have you.
So what’s the remedy?
First, recognize that this can and does happen to anybody. Some truly amazing and talented folks find themselves in desperation. The most at risk of this are those who are so arrogant that they believe that it could never happen to them. So never be casual. The minute you know that you are about to be unemployed, is the minute you should begin to act as though you have no safety net.
Next (and most importantly) is to focus all of your resources on one specific career path. “Throwing your resume out there” to see who bites is for the comfortably employed only. The 21st century is the age of specialization. The marketplace is far too competitive to be a generalist. The exception to this is when you are very young and just starting. Only the young have the luxury of exploring and trying things out. If you’re over thirty, most folks would benefit from making a solid and committed choice to a very specific career path.
Use headhunters early and judiciously. Build relationships with a handful of recruiters who specialize in your industry. The pathway to a lot of jobs is through a recruiter, however the trick is to understand how to work with them. Recruiting agents are paid by the company. Always look to the money if you want to know a person’s first loyalty. However, much like a good real estate agent, a good Recruiter should (and hopefully does) always do the right thing for both parties. Learn and understand the difference between a good headhunter and a temp agency.
Be a great investment for your future employer. Companies hire the person that they see as being the best investment. So if you want a company to invest in your future, then be able to demonstrate how you continue to invest in yourself–as it relates to the career path that you are targeting.
Lastly is to remain 100% genuine throughout the entire process. If you’ve chosen a specific path then you do not need multiple iterations of your resume. I believe that the number one reason a person doesn’t get hired is because the person doing the hiring has a nagging feeling that the job seeker is hiding something. For example, recruiters know that if there are no dates on your resume, then you are probably older. They just don’t know how old. So rather than risk breaking the law, they will just avoid you altogether. If you’re in your forties and you’ve condensed all of your work history into four lines and your education is the entire rest of the page, then we might guess that you’re not proud of your work reputation. The point is, don’t make HR folks guess what you might be hiding.
Another part of being genuine is accountability. If every single deviation on your career timeline happened for some reason other than your own doing, then it’s a red flag. Personal accountability looks good on everybody.
In conclusion
If I could sum up everything here into just two points, they would be 1) be genuine, and 2) focus all of your resources on one very specific career goal. These two things I believe are the most important part of avoiding terminal unemployment.