11 Million Open Jobs and You're Not Getting Interviews? Here is Why & How to Fix It!
2022 is off to an exciting start if you're looking for or changing jobs. All you hear is everyone is "quitting" their jobs (5 million a month since July), and tons of jobs are open (11 million jobs or 1.8 jobs for everyone looking). If all this is true, you should be getting multiple job offers each week and settling in on the best job you ever had. Sounds great, but for many, post-pandemic job searching is a struggle. You are applying for jobs, but you are not getting called for the interview. How is this happening when employers pay people to apply because they are so desperate to hire.
It makes no sense, and job seekers' lack of interviews is frustrating. The lack of communication from the employer happened before the pandemic. Still, for job seekers today and the daily news coverage blasting everyone hiring, it can be a major downer when you don't get picked to interview.
The good news is it doesn't have to be like this. Right now is maybe the BEST TIME EVER to get a great job, not just any job. You have to understand why this is happening and how you can change your job search strategy to increase your odds dramatically.
Here are three significant mistakes job seekers make in 2022 and how to fix them. No matter what you do for a living or what level of job you are in, most likely, there is a great job waiting. I can promise you that understanding these three things that prevent you from getting a great job will yield more interviews and, ultimately, a great job (because you can't get a job without an interview!).
- Job boards are a source of job leads but not always the answer. When most people look for a job, they go to job boards like OrlandoJobs.com, Indeed, and sites like Career Builder. These are great places to start, but each site has positives and negatives regarding employer interaction with your application. National sites like Indeed spend over 100 million marketing dollars a year to get you to come to their site and apply for jobs. It works, but competition for great jobs is massive since most job seekers use this site. Also, sites like Indeed take your resume, format it into an "Indeed" resume, and give you an Indeed email address. All that time you spent optimizing your resume is now gone, and every job seeker on Indeed looks the same to the employer. Does this work? Sure, but you are up against tremendous competition, and at some point, it is more a numbers game to be selected for an interview than anything else. Niche sites like OrlandoJobs.com are direct job posting sites. The employer pays for all jobs on this site, and unlike a national general job board, it focuses on the Central Florida area.
When you apply to jobs on OrlandoJobs.com your resume is your resume, and employers communicate directly with your personal email address. Final thought, national job boards are fine but niche job boards will have jobs not found anywhere else.
- Your Resume Needs Work. So many people have fantastic skills but can't figure out how to get them to a resume. Watch this video if you want more interviews. The key to writing a good resume is using the job description and title of the job you are applying for as the "final exam" on what should be on your resume. The video goes over this in great detail. At the top of your resume should be your name, email, phone, city, and state (please add a town). The headline should be the title of the job you are applying for, like "Business Development Executive" and "Account Manager-Insurance" ."This is followed by the core competencies of the skills needed to get the job you are applying for (from the job description).
Most mistakes are made here because you want to list every skill you have. Only list and expand on the skills the position needs. You will get more interviews if you do just this at the top of your resume!
- Apply with no Follow Up. You see your dream job, send an optimized resume for that job and then sit back and wait for that phone call. This is where you can make an impact, especially with companies with under 500 employers. Go to LinkedIn, and look at the employees at the company where you want to work. See if you have any connections that work there and reach out to them if you do, even if you don't know them well. Also, look for any employee at that company that could be the hiring manager or human resource recruiter. Send them a connection request and let them know you just applied to the "XYZ job" and are very interested in working with their company. This is powerful, but it also means you have to update your LinkedIn profile. Please read this article on three things job seekers must do to their LinkedIn profile during a job search!