There is a big difference between looking motivated and looking desperate. Motivated people are eager to take a specific job and make a big impact fast. Desperate people are eager to take any job, and are mostly interested in the paycheck.
Your resume, cover letter, and interview performance all inform your “brand” — the overarching image of you as a prospective employee. Branding yourself as desperate is just as bad as branding yourself as incompetent, negligent, or lazy. Here are few tips to help you avoid this common job-search mistake:
- Don’t Contact Everyone – You want to leverage your professional network, but not the entire network. If you send out mass communications soliciting referrals or hyping up your credentials, it makes you look unfocused.
- Refine Your Resume – Desperate job seekers often leave their resumes vague and general to make it appear like they can take on any responsibility. Focus on your core strengths instead, to stand out from the pack.
- Focus on Value – In order to appeal to the broadest number of employers, job seekers often focus on their qualifications. But there are probably dozens of other applicants that are as qualified as you. Stand out by describing how you can bring unique value to the position.
- Be Choosy – When you have been out of work for a while, it can be tempting to advertise that you will “do anything.” But this approach is repellant to hiring managers. Instead, focus on what you want to do and highlight why you would be great at it.
- Get the Right Information – If you have a contact inside a company, don’t waste their time by asking about job openings. You can probably find this information online, and your contacts are unlikely to have secret leads. Ask them instead about the company’s goals, problems, and plans to help you refine how you present yourself as a candidate.
- Follow Up Selectively – It’s alright to follow up with a hiring manager after an interview, but you have to do it in the right way and you can’t reach out more than once. If you are calling or emailing daily/weekly, it makes you look especially desperate.
- Limit Your Applications – A company might have 10 vacant accounting positions that you feel vaguely qualified for. But if you apply for all 10, it looks like you will accept anything and have special skills in nothing. Find the vacancies where you can excel and ignore all the rest.
Developing your professional brand is tricky, and it can look completely different from the outside than the inside. Get help refining your brand into one that recruiters will love by working with the experts at The Squires Group.
