After everything is perfectly structured and the resume looks and reads professionally, most job seekers do not critically think about the next phase. For most job seekers, the interview phase which is the next phase if you succeed in your application, is where many fail 'impress' and are often not considered. These are applicants with the right education, the right skills, and have demonstrated high professionalism from their past experience.
The secret of 'impressing' is knowing that employers will not be interested in education or past job experiences if they do not add value to their company. Hence what this means for a job seeker is that they need to show how their competencies can be of value to the prospect employer. Otherwise they may always find themselves hitting the wall of failure at interviews.
Here are some valuable tips if you find yourself in such a fixed situation:
Draw attention to the positive - This tip mostly works if your previous work experience is not related to the job you have applied for. Apply this tip by talking about how your previous work experience taught you how to work on an actual deadline, how it taught you to work in a team and sharpen your interpersonal skills, how you learnt how to use high-end equipment and software hence you may not need much training, and above all how you got to learn practical skills that could not be learnt in your college.
Focus on solving the employer's needs - Employers work on a strict budget and therefore you have to show them your value to convince them to bring you on board. Hence before you respond to an advertisement on a newspaper or a job board, study the details keenly and understand what type of employee is needed. By this understanding you can look into your past work experience and try and list down any attributes during your work experience that match up or are closely related to what the ad is looking for. Focus on the problems you can solve with this attributes which will show how valuable your past work experience is to this new job position.
Stay clear of assumptions - When pitching during the interview process, try and cover all loose ends. This means, never assume that your prospect employer will figure out how your skill set and maybe education will accomplish his or her goals. Explain further. For example if her problem is viewership and you are interviewing for a job as a journalist, don't mention how you have the necessary skill set and education that is required in journalism. Instead explain how you once came up with a new idea for a series of features that aired and overtime increased viewership.
Take a proactive approach - By being proactive you can get the job even if you fail during the interview phase. A friend of mine once interviewed for a position as a Digital Copy Writer and was not successful in getting the job. However by being creative and applying a proactive approach, he used his well-researched knowledge of the company to persuade the employer to bring him on board as a temporary hire. This got him a chance to prove himself and he was later hired under a permanent basis.
Do not wait for the employer to help you in the hiring process. Whether by following up on your application or taking up certain lower job positions. Success is always within your reach. However if you find it difficult,try and get some coaching from a reputed human resource management firm.
Maina works as a copy writer for Executive Edge Consulting, a company that is dedicated to helping clients link their human capital to their business strategy hence improving their growth. Connect with Maina on Executive Edge consulting
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Maina_Karoki_Ijohn
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