There is so much ‘noise’ out there about how to get a job and so many people saying so many things, it’s hard to separate the right stuff from the junk…
I recently saw a video by a “job search expert” who talked about how important it was for candidates to have a blog and all of the effort it takes to write a blog, etc…
Please remember that the most important… the most important… thing you can do to get a job is to interview well… the second most important thing you can do to get a job is to get the interview… you gotta pick up the phone, call a hiring authority who has “pain” i.e. the need to hire somebody… and ask for an interview… then go to the interview and sell yourself…
I interview candidates all the time who spend hours upon hours crafting resumes, developing their personal “brand,” designing their LinkedIn profile, developing “guerrilla tactics” for their job search, attending seminars and all kinds of other stuff that causes them to confuse activity with productivity…instead of trying to get an interview.
All of this stuff might be OK, but where the rubber meets the road in the job search is to get interviews and perform well on interviews… you gotta pick up the phone and get an interview, then perform well on that interview… these two things are the only things that really matter…
The major reason that people spend so much time on all of these secondary activities in looking for a job is because they can control them and they don’t run the risk of being rejected by doing them… the sooner a job seeker learns that being rejected as part of a successful job search process, the better off they’re going to be..
So, have a nice LinkedIn profile, write a great blog, craft a great resume, but quit doing this stuff instead of trying to get interviews…
Focus on what really matters…
