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I was out of a job for four days short of a year during Covid. As a single parent in their 50’s with two pre-teens, this was stressful and incredibly hard on my ego. Anyway, I beefed up my resume by taking some Coursera courses to get certifications and it was amazing how many doors that opened. The three courses that I took were: Business Transformation with Google Cloud; AWS Cloud Product Essentials; and Google Cloud Product Fundamentals. Whatever industry you’re in just stay current and learn the latest and greatest. This can also explain gaps in your résumé, that you took time off to better yourself by doing intense courses in XYZ so you’d have even more to offer your next employer.
I did a very structured job search. I had spreadsheets with people / companies I was targeting, when resumes were sent out, cover letters sent out, follow ups, personal thank you notes to each and every interviewer, commenting on things that were said during the interview and reiterating why I thought I was a strong candidate for the job. I rarely took a day off. I put an extra hours a day and treated the job search as my job.
I also tailored each resume I sent out according to the job description. A lot of times bots are used to scan for key phrases or words whenever applicable I try to use their exact words. It’s ironic, sometimes I would have in my résumé things that bots wouldn’t recognize as a skill set match. I remember one time I had “consultative sales” and they were looking for “consultative selling” and it didn’t match. On my Laptop I would have separate folders for each company ABC company, ABC job req, ABC résumé, ABC cover letter ABC thank you letter to each of the people I interviewed with… They do compare notes so don’t do a copy and paste thank you note and make sure that for each interview you comment on something that they said, and you make it specific to your conversation with that person. Thank you notes should go out within 24 hours.
A lot of companies nowadays ask Behavioral questions. Print out the top 20 behavioral questions and craft your answers. They’re the type of questions like tell me about a time where you faced a challenge and how you overcame it, tell me about your proudest accomplishment, tell me about a time you dealt with a difficult customer…. Craft your answers in the STAR format: situation task, action, result so interviewers can understand how you can contribute to their bottom line.
How do you stay positive? Just knowing that you’re doing your best to get out there and find a job. Know that you’re not going be a fit for every position. I wouldn’t beat myself up. I would say you know what, sometimes I’m red delicious apple but they’re looking for a juicy orange, they’re both good fruit. Hold your head up high, know your worth, and be able to articulate how you could add value to that specific company.
Show any interviewer that you’ve done your homework and you know things about the company. Read their annual reports, press releases and news articles. Understand their strategic initiatives and be able to articulate how you can add to their bottom line. Do your homework. Read the LinkedIn profiles of the people you are interviewing with and see what you can learn about them and what synergies you can find.
Good luck, stay positive, and know that you are not alone. Thousands of people have been let go in recent years, it’s not necessarily a reflection on you. You will find something. Don’t give up, we are rooting for you!
The most awesome realistic and in-depth advice ever needed.
Thank you for sharing your experience and vulnerability but also your strength and resilience 🚀💪🏾🙏🏾😎
Stop filling out online job applications
I don’t entirely agree with this. Most of my interviews were from online applications. However, I learned that you need to apply as soon as possible. If you see that a job was posted three weeks ago and already has 1,000 applications, you’re probably dead in the water. I would limit with my search to jobs posted in the last 24 hours or a week . I would also track every job I applied to and would make sure I wouldn’t apply to the same one. What I found was some companies have a rolling renewal on job reqs that might not be real.
Work anything while your looking to keep yourself busy and make ends meet
Turn learning to being knowledgeable to having knowledge have a Thinking 360 mentality not just your discipline and expertise.
Fill in those knowledge gaps improve and evolve.
I been out of work since August but in that time the new knowledge and certs I have gained allow me to be considered for other areas.