15 Tips to Improve Your Odds for a Job

 

If you are unemployed, you are probably feeling desperate. Your lifestyle is threatened. You are reevaluating your spending, where you shop and comparing prices on private-label food products.

But it’s time to get and stay busy. Looking for work is a full-time job.

Here are 15 strategies:

1. Lean into your pain from being laid-off or being under-employed. Understand grieving is part of the process for growth and it takes time to heal. The three stages of healing: Shock-denial, anger-depression, and understanding-acceptance.
2. Get out of the house daily. Continue to exercise and perform community service. Both will increase your morale. The reward of high morale, alone, is worth it.
3. Assess your strengths and weaknesses. Be sure to analyze your interpersonal skills, too. Employers prefer teamwork and soft skills.
4. Market yourself effectively. By building on your strengths, you will be prepared to tell prospective employers how they will benefit from hiring you. They want to hear how you will save them time and money while helping them to make a dollar. For that you need a great elevator pitch.
5. Polish your resume. Your contact information should be at the top of the page and then followed by a realistic objective, and a summary of why you’re qualified. Think like a recruiter – why should someone hire you? Employers want to know your skills, experience, and successes. Mention specific achievements that would be important to your prospective employer. Subdued, easy-to-read font on white or off-white, good quality bond paper is preferable.
6. Hone your career-management skills. Make a list of people to see and include your public officials at all levels. They are great centers of influence and are cognizant about economic development efforts. Personally visit each office to make an appointment. Seek the opinion of managers two levels above your skill level. They are not intimidated if you have great skills and your worth. If they hire you, they likely will take you with them up the employment ladder.
7. Be open-minded and consider all options. If you are mobile, consider working abroad. In this age of globalization, future employers will be impressed that you know how to conduct yourself in a foreign country.
8. Consider a new field. The best available jobs include information technology, medical and retail sectors. And great employers can never get enough good salespeople. If you need a career change, here are 10 steps for a career makeover.
9. Make it easy to contact you. Take advantage of wireless e-mails at coffee houses and libraries, but be security-minded. Don’t use a device containing personal information and make sure it isn’t ever connected to your computer with sensitive information. Forward calls to your cell phone.
10. Use the Internet. Get online – not to search job boards, but to go on offense. Applying at job boards is probably a waste of time. The competition is too great. Create an edge by building a Web site, blogging, and leveraging social networks from LinkedIn to Twitter.
11. Consider temporary employment services or freelancing. If you can avoid collecting unemployment, take work either at a temporary service or freelancing gig – you will be better off emotionally. Not to be gauche, but standing in line at the unemployment office will only put you in a position to network with other unemployed folks. Benefits will include networking, building your resume, maintaining your work ethic and best of all – earning a paycheck.
12. Accept any opportunity until you get the right job. You will attract options you never thought possible.
13. Get a mentor. Find someone who has the success you want for personalized one-on-one strategies.
14. Body language. When you land the big interview, remember the employer thinks you’ve got the necessary tools. It is your opportunity to assure the company that you will solve its needs and that you’ll fit into the culture. You only have a few seconds to make a favorable first impression with a warm voice, direct answers, a smile, and good body language. To err in being too formal is preferred over being too casual. Sit erect, feet on the floor, comfortable hand-placement in your lap, and maintain good eye contact.
15. Attitude of gratitude. A well-written thank you letter will help you stand out in a crowd. Write anyone who helps you. Mail a thank you letter immediately after each interview so that the employer hears from you the next business day. Mention a specific topic from the interview and include a bonafide compliment for the company. Reiterate the benefits of hiring you. Thank the interviewer for her or his consideration. Prevent buyer’s remorse by reassuring the reader you will provide the necessary results the company expects. If you have not heard from the employer, it is businesslike to make a follow-up telephone call in five business days. Your odds will be enhanced once the company has had five positive contacts or interactions with you.

Being unemployed is not easy, but as long as you make an effort to stay productive and keep open to new opportunities, you will be fine – you might even come out stronger.

The moral: Layoffs are really stepping stones as opportunities for personal and professional growth.

From the Coach’s Corner, to improve your selling ability to employers, here’s related reading:

Job Hunting? Tips to Land Your Dream Job with Style, Substance

Discouraged in Job Hunting? Powerful Tips for the Best Job

“Fall seven times, stand up eight.”

-Japanese Proverb

 

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Columnist Terry Corbell is also a business-performance consultant and profit professional. Click here to see his management services (many are available online). For a complimentary chat about your business situation or to schedule Terry Corbell as a speaker, why don’t you contact him today?