- 1. Your resume is All About You and Does Not Meet Hiring Managers' Needs
- 2. You Didn't Bother to Proof Read Your resume, cover letter, etc.
- 3. You're Not Qualified for the Job
- 4. You Don't Know How to interview
- 5. You Didn't Do Your Research
- 6. You Don't Dress Appropriately for Interviews
- 7. Your cover letter Reads Like a Form Letter
- 8. You Did Not Follow Up After the interview
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We all know that a job search can be tough and there are so many reasons why your search may take longer than you had hoped. The economy, your industry, your experience, and competition are just a few of the factors that will impact your ability to land a new job. But what if it’s more complicated than that? What if it’s the unthinkable – you are the reason you are not getting any job offers? Maybe you’ve thought about it, but if you haven’t you should.
Think about it – YOU are the single largest factor in getting a new job (or promotion or raise). It’s just not enough being the best and the brightest (and it never was). It’s about the entire package – how you present yourself, your resume, your cover letter, your network, your interview skills, your experience – and the list goes on. So now that you’ve given it some thought, what are the reasons you won’t get hired?
We all know that a job search can be tough & there many reasons why your search may take longer than you had hoped. The economy, your industry, your experience, and competition are just a few of the factors that will impact your ability to land a new job.Click To Tweet1. Your resume is All About You and Does Not Meet Hiring Managers’ Needs
Your resume obviously needs to include what you’ve done as well as a list of your achievements, but you know the old saying – “What have you done for me lately?”. Hiring managers want to know that you can do the job and the only way they will consider interviewing you is if your resume clearly demonstrates that you have what it takes to get the job done. If you’re not sure what to include, take a look at some job descriptions for your function (you should be able to find lots if you do a search). Does your resume include enough job-specific information to convince a reader that they should hire you (be honest with yourself)? If not, time to make some changes. You may need to have a few versions of your resume depending on the types of jobs/functions that you apply for.
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2. You Didn’t Bother to Proof Read Your resume, cover letter, etc.
My biggest pet peeve when reading a resume or cover letter is errors. All of your job search documents should be error-free. Just running a spell check is not enough. You should focus on sentence structure, punctuation, word usage, etc. Once you think that it is perfect, send it to some friends, family, and peers in your network to read it as well. You will be surprised to find out how many errors may have slipped by. But wait, you’re not done yet. When you forward your resume to a Recruiter, they (I would argue) should be reviewing your resume as well and suggesting changes as appropriate. They see more resumes than anyone else and are best placed to help adjust your resume for the best possible error-free profile.
3. You’re Not Qualified for the Job
It makes absolutely no sense to submit your resume for jobs that are “close” or maybe not even close (for the same reasons as indicated in #1 above). You will be wasting your time, the Recruiter’s time, and the hiring manager’s time. Additionally, you will potentially be “burning bridges” which may mean that when you submit for a perfect match, your resume and application may go directly to the trash folder. That being said, consider carefully how/when you want to leverage multiple resumes.
4. You Don’t Know How to interview
Just because you are great at what you do, have the
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5. You Didn’t Do Your Research
If you don’t know anything about the company where you are interviewing then what’s the point of going on the interview. For one, you should know if it’s a good place to work (more on that in a bit). But more importantly, you should try to learn everything you can about the company. How big are they? Are they profitable? Where are their offices/locations? Do you like the industry? That’s just the tip of the iceberg for your research. With the right Internet, LinkedIn can help. Start with your network to see if anyone works at the target company. If not, look to see who has connections with someone at that company. If you are persistent, you will find some contacts that can provide background data.
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6. You Don’t Dress Appropriately for Interviews
How to dress for an interview can be a tough question. Much depends on your industry, the company, and the role you would play. There are some basics that (should) go without saying. No shorts, tee shirts, sneakers, etc. Whether or not business casual is okay or formal dress is more appropriate really depends on some of the criteria raised in the first sentence of this paragraph. The good news is that there is plenty of info available on the Internet on this topic. How to dress is also a topic that you can and should bring up with your network.
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7. Your cover letter Reads Like a Form Letter
If you are applying for lots of jobs, it can be tedious to write cover letters for each opportunity. This is another perfect example of where cutting corners does not generally work in your favor and where you need to spend time personalizing the cover letter to each application. In addition to mentioning the title of the job and briefly indicating why you are the perfect candidate, you should try to add something specific to the interview so that the reader will know that you were listening during the interview and wrote the thank you note specifically for them (starting off with their name in the salutation is a big help – “dear sir or madam” is not usually the best start).
8. You Did Not Follow Up After the interview
Some will say that “thank you letters” following an interview are a thing of the past. I disagree. Everything else being equal (between you and another candidate), a properly written thank you note will give you an edge. Again, this should not be a form letter and, to the extent that you’ve interviewed with two or more individuals in the organization, each thank you letter must be personalized. You should mention specific topics discussed during your interview as well as (most importantly) reminding the hiring manager why you are the best person for the job.
This was a guest post by me on JobMob and is reposted on CareerAlley. You can see the original post here ==>> 8 Reasons Why You Won’t Be Hired (And How To Get Past Them). The article was part of The $10000 7th Annual JobMob Guest Blogging Contest.
