Chances
are you have never met a jobseeker who told you he wasn’t serious. No
one thinks of himself as not being
serious when it comes to serious job hunting. As a group, jobseekers do not identify themselves as commodities, products or
merchandise, but as unique individuals.
Randomly prepare 500 or
more résumés and it is hard to resist the temptation not to categorize. By the
time you work for 800 jobseekers, you have
encountered everything from technically challenged luddites to overachievers. As new jobseekers
enter the market, repetitive patterns emerge.
From an employer’s perspective,
jobseekers tend to get classified quickly
into distinct scenarios: There are those who tell employers what they want to
hear. (These are often get classified as
C-players.) There is nothing wrong with being a C-player, but do not be
disappoint to learn you’ll have stiff competition.
Another group of jobseekers rely solely on what they know and precede accordingly. (These qualify as B-players.) In large measure, B-players tend to be
highly skilled or technically oriented. The rely heavily on their knowledge
base to carry the day.
In the smallest group are
those who dynamically demonstrate their potential. (This group of jobseekers gets
categorized as A-players.) Naturally, they have their act together, they
interview exceedingly well, and they are much sought after. Oddly, these candidates
face little or no competition in the job market.
For various reasons—and
there are many—everyone else gets lumped into the non-serious category. This
should not imply that those jobseekers
themselves aren’t serious, it’s just that from the employer's perspective, they
don’t get classified as such.
When dealing with volumes
of jobseekers, behavioral patterns begin
to jump out at you. Whatever might escape one’s attention on a small scale
quickly emerges as the volume of candidates escalates. Thus, there exists an
overwhelm desire to expeditiously rate and classify candidates.
The glaring difference
between being interviewed by someone preparing your résumé and a hiring decision
maker amounts to their mission. The
résumé writer attempts to qualify the client jobseeker,
while employers make an all-out effort to disqualifying candidates
through elimination.
Most jobseekers – an estimated 60% -- make the elimination
process horrendously easy. Such jobseekers
will apply for positions for which they are clearly unqualified or unsuited. Others
resort to copying résumé material from books and others. These individuals get
quickly classified as non-serious jobseekers.
As I have often indicated, each
résumé sends a message, whether intentional or otherwise. For example, a jobseeker
who submits a lengthy résumé may be perceived as someone who is inconsiderate
or perhaps full of himself. Those who submit hard-to-read material are often
perceived as disconnected, lacking withitness or perhaps careless.
Certainly, those who fail
to qualify due to lack of relevant experience, skillsets
and/or education are viewed by employers as time-wasters. One of the surest
ways to be eliminated is attempting to market outdated experience. Those individuals
get instantly classified as past-their-prime jobseekers.
Employers who receive a
short stack of résumés—let’s say around 20—it’s like shuffling a deck of cards looking
for face-cards and aces. The stack can be visually
scanned to eliminate the low-value cards in a few minutes.
Obviously, when employers need
to shuffle many decks of cards (résumés), then
using a card shuffler makes sense. In this case, the card shuffler amounts to
using an Applicant Tracking System (ATS), which can scan, sort and evaluate a pile
of material in nanoseconds. Those attempting to outwit ATS apps will encounter
an ever-dwindling audience. In short, the AI software is becoming highly
sophisticated.
The ultimate question is:
How does a job candidate avoid projecting the image of someone who is not
serious? The quick response is to avoid the classic mistakes. That, however,
amounts to avoiding an exhaustive list of not-so-subtle no-nos.
Should you find a résumé
writer good at what he or she does, pay the freight. Nine out of ten times, the
writer will save you from self-inflicted folly. At minimum, you will avoid
coming across as a jobseeker who isn’t serious.