3 Common Mistakes That Ruin Your Chances Of Receiving Interview Calls

October 25, 2022 | Sarabjeet Sachar |

Most job seekers share with me that their major pain point is that they do not receive an interview call in spite of sending multiple job applications. It is a frustrating experience as a job seeking professional but you can certainly turn this situation around by avoiding the 3 common mistakes. On the face of it, you may find it painful to go the extra mile to avoid these slip ups however when you take appropriate action, you will stand out as a candidate, attract the attention of recruiters and start receiving interview calls. So the gain far outweighs the pain.

 

MISTAKE 1: ‘Cursory’ homework

Not doing in-depth homework regarding the pain point of the job before you make an application. Simply studying the website and job description is commonly done by all job seekers which places you in direct competition with all other job seekers.

 

Solution: Even before you send in your resume, you need to literally behave and think as if you are already an employee of the company. It means getting into the shoes of the employer to understand the pain point of the job. You have to think of yourself as a business consultant who is marketing his/her services to prospective clients. Similarly you are marketing your skills and expertise to the prospective employers.  Studying LinkedIn company pages of target employer companies, connecting with vendors, employees, ex-employees to find out about the pain points of the job and the organisation gives you great insights and is mandatory.

 

MISTAKE 2: A ‘generalised’ approach

Using a generalised approach  across different positions is like gifting the same size shirt to 10 of your friends. Does that work? You know the answer.

 

Solution: A] Develop a pitch letter customised as per the pain point of the job. It should strike an emotional chord within the reader and not be limited to being a nicely formatted document with keywords.

 

B] Your communication across the career tools and other forms of communication with target employers needs to address the pain points and find that connect by demonstrating with relevant success stories that you are the solution provider. Your resume needs to be tweaked as the job’s requirement and your LinkedIn profile needs to be optimised as well.

 

MISTAKE 3: No networking with target employers

Depending upon online job applications and not reaching out to target employers to explore the hidden (unadvertised) job market.

 

Solution: You need to develop value based relationships with target employers by networking. Using the referral route to get introduced with the key decision makers and getting a foot into the door to start a conversation is important. Having a structured approach and using LinkedIn as a platform to network to present yourself as a solution provider is a crucial step. With this kind of an approach you cut the clutter and are able to engage with recruiters. The chances of your application receiving attention goes up dramatically.

 

So with these tips since we are more learned now, let us now avoid these common mistakes and start receiving interview calls from prospective employers. Start becoming evolved job seekers.

 

Happy Job Hunting!!!

 

Sarabjeet Sachar
Seasoned Career Coach, Founder & CEO, Aspiration, Job Search Coaching

2 thoughts on “3 Common Mistakes That Ruin Your Chances Of Receiving Interview Calls

  1. Point no. 1 and 2 are essentially pointing to the same topic of finding the company’s pain point.
    Understanding an organization’s pain point is not something that you can find on their websites, LinkedIn page or any other page for that matter. An organization only portrays “positives” about themselves or nothing.

    Once someone gets hired, it takes about 2 to 3 months to settle in and understand the various issues that an organization/customer is going through and that is the KT phase.

    If I take your example of applying for 10 job posts, the candidate is expected to understand the pain point of 10 companies, tweak their profiles to match the requirement of 10 companies and updated their linkedin profiles accordingly ?? Doesn’t sound like a practical solution here. And what happens the next day when I apply to another 5 companies and so on for an entire month ….. My profile or resume will become a 30-page book if I try to keep updating my profile for every job post and try to fit myself everywhere.

    Secondly, if you get the pain point wrong – you may straight away get rejected and this approach can back-fire.

    The logical and practical answer I found on this 3 mistakes post – is of “Networking with target employer”. – Again, this is not easy unless you know someone inside the organization who can enable the connect.

  2. Hi Alfred! Thanks for your comment.
    1] To understand the pain point one has to use multiple sources. The websites, LinkedIn company pages are only a part of the source. Talking to employees, ex employees , vendors are important too because identifying the pain point is essential.
    2] When I say customise your resume for each job, it has to do with tweaking it , not revamping your entire resume. You have to pick up few core skills and keywords and tweak it. And that is the way for 10 jobs you will have 10 tweaked resumes. For addressing the pain point you need to use customised pitch letters for each job. So for 10 different jobs, you will have 10 customised pitch letters and accordingly tweaked resumes for each job.

    3] Value based networking requires investment of effort and time in a disciplined manner. It is certainly possible and yes it becomes easier if you know someone in the target company.

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