Is it Time to Reassess your Job Search Strategy?

Long and fruitless job searches can leave you feeling exhausted and depressed. It’s easy to start questioning your professional abilities when you have trouble getting job interviews. If your job search carries on for much longer than you were expecting, it might be time to examine your job search strategies and find out if you’re having any problems that can be corrected.

Review your Goals

If your job search has been both long and unsuccessful, it might be time to review your career goals and job-search strategies. Ask yourself these questions:

• Is the field you’ve targeted the one you really want to work in?
• Are you using a variety of job search techniques instead of concentrating on one type of lead?
• What is your stumbling block? Are you getting no response from applications, or are you getting interviews but no job offers?

Reassess your Application Documents

If you’re not getting to the interview stage, your application documents—your resume and cover letters—are probably where your problem lies. Does your resume make the most of your employment history, professional skills and achievements? Are your resume and cover letter targeted to both the industry you want to work in, and to the specific employer you’re applying to?

Review your Interview Techniques

Are you getting to the interview stage, but having trouble with using interview techniques that help you sell yourself to employers? The main problem that people face during interviews is lack of preparation. If interview techniques are your primary issue, there are several ways you can prepare and practice to help your chances of success.

• Prepare answers to common interview questions
• Research the company you’re applying to
• Review your job history and identify complicated or stressful situations where your experience helped solve the issue
• Prepare a list of questions to ask interviewers about the position and the company

Create a Goal-oriented Schedule

If your main difficulty is keeping the momentum of a job search going, or if you feel overwhelmed by everything you have to do, chopping up your search into smaller tasks is a good way of making it more manageable. For example, set yourself a certain number of goals every day—three to five, or more if you’re treating your search as a full-time job. Telling yourself “I need to follow up three job leads tomorrow” is much less intimidating than “I have to find a job within three months”.

Also, please review our Tools to Find a Job section.  If you need more help, please consider using a Career Counselor.