Getting your player ready...
If the typical job search rules you’ve heard made sense once, they may not apply in today’s increasingly competitive job market. “It used to be that you would fill out a job application, then wait for the response, but companies today are hiring without hard-and-fast rules,” says workplace consultant Jake Greene. Greene and other experts offer seven job-search rules you should feel free to break:
Apply only if you meet all requirements.
Ads demanding specific education, skills and industry experience may be more flexible than you might think, according to Jean Baur, senior consultant at an outplacement firm Lee Hecht Harrison and author of “Eliminated! Now What?”
“Sometimes online job descriptions are boilerplate and are not completely accurate,” Baur says. “If you match 85 percent of that ad, fill out a job application or send a resume anyway.”
Do a mass mailing to maximize chances.
If you throw enough spaghetti at the wall, something will stick, right? Wrong, says Greene. Doing your homework on a smaller pool of companies, and tailoring your resume and cover letter to those organizations’ specific needs, is a much more effective way to find a job.
Emphasize your education. Degrees are important but they’re not what hiring managers care about most, according to Gary Romano, a specialist in nonprofit and government strategic planning and principal consultant at a management consulting firm. “A hiring manager is looking for experience, any experience – even if it’s at a supposedly menial job – that demonstrates your ability to show up and do the work,” he says.
Don’t call.
Sure, employers insist they don’t want calls. But Greene says waiting quietly for a response won’t get you very far either. “When you’re waiting, you’re not working. If you’ve reached out with a cover letter or email to the hiring manager or inside contact, you’re not being a pest if you call a few days later,” Greene says.
Use the interview to talk all about you.
You may have heard that you should spend your interview time wowing your interviewers with your skills. “Remember you’re interviewing the company too, so be prepared with some probing questions to make sure the job is right for you,” Romano says. Asking good questions also makes job seekers seem interested and engaged, hiring managers say.
Be vague about salary.
You can’t dance around salary questions now because many hiring managers and headhunters will cull their applicant pool by asking how much you make or what salary you expect. “It’s all right to give a salary range, but be sure you’re all right with the low end, because that’s often what they’ll offer.”
Don’t contact the company again if it rejects you.
If you don’t get the job, it only means there was someone more appropriate for that job at that particular moment. It’s perfectly fine – even beneficial – to follow up and say you’re still interested in the company.
“I can’t tell you how many times I was second choice, but still ended up with the job,” says Megan Pittsley, job market consultant at Lee Hecht Harrison. “After I was rejected, I followed up with a thank-you note and provided information about what I was working on. When their first choice didn’t work out, they came to me because I built a relationship.”
