Try to find your best career opportunity to achieve success
The job market has changed. Your car radio broadcasts a local largechain store’s need for local drivers, no overnights required.
Whizzing behind huge trucks on the highway, you see signs posted on rear doors calling for owneroperators and drivers themselves to life on the road. Restaurants advertise for servers, bussers and delivery drivers.
Other retailers report even more needs with Help Wanted signs. These are signs of employer desperation.
While you may be looking for another kind of job, you can be sure that if roadways are littered with job postings, you’re seeing only part of a trend.
Companies are having more difficulty than they can remember filling positions by applicants who may be a little more particular than in the past. A survey of approximately 1,500 working Americans finds that 51 percent are “overall satisfied with their jobs,” according to The Conference Board, which conducts business research.
Remember the recession of 2009? If you could even find an opening, you’d won the first part of the battle. Today’s challenge is to find work you really want to do and be paid for it.
Door-openers
Don’t assume there are so many openings that you can use a generic resume.
“There are many job opportunities available, but there are also many people responding to them,” said Gene Brady, director at Search Consulting Network, a dba of SC Novi Inc. in
Novi, Michigan. “Read the position description. Understand what the company is looking for. If you have it, make sure it’s addressed in your cover letter and easy to find on your resume.” The best employers will recognize your work behind the words.
Update your perspective on the hiring process some employers use. It can be much more than a series of interviews.
“Some desirable companies hire people on a temporary basis,” said Joy Montgomery of Structural-Integrity
in Livermore, California, a volunteer for transitioning veterans at Reboot Camp. “Finding the right fit for the team is as important as finding the right skill set.” Identify companies that interest you and pursue the ones that pass your test.
Recruit helpers in the process.
“Attend meetings of associations of your peers; connect with those a bit more senior in their industry; ask for advice; and connect via
LinkedIn and/or email,” said Lynda McKay of HR Extension LLC in Phoenix, Arizona. “Communicate with them. Let them get to know you and what you can do.
“When someone already within the hiring manager’s network can vouch for your skills and capabilities, the potential for an in-person interview goes way up.”
Once there, “be confident and humble,” said Laurie Battaglica, CEO and Workplace Strategist, Aligned at
Work, a dba of Scottsdale’s Living the Dream Coaches LLC. “Don’t become part of the ghosting trend — disappearing after the hiring process. You never know when you’ll see the interviewer or hiring manager in a different role later in your career. Do the right thing and keep looking for that dream job.”