From 2-Year Unemployment to Job Winner in One Month

The economy downturn makes job hunting ever tough, even for highly experienced professionals. One of my clients, Jon have over 20 years of experience with big five firms and large financial organizations. After he got laid off, he was eager to hunt for any job available, even willing to start at a lower level. But it seems employers lost interest in his qualification.

When he came to me for help after two years of unemployment, he was discouraged, hopeless, and didn’t know what to. At that time, I first advised him to stop new job search but reivew his qualificaiton and job hunting methods. I noticed that because he had been in corporate environment so long, he carried a lot of preconceived notions but had less sense on today’s job market. His resume and job hunting approach made employers hard to know where he could fit. He was unclear himself.

Fortunately Jon worked with me to completely rewrite his resume and cover letter, and we developed effective approaches to start job hunting campaign. In about three weeks Jon received call for interview, then more followed. In the next month, Jon accepted an offer and since then he has been working as a senior analysis for a government agency.

How to turn a hopeless 2-year unemployed guy into a happy job winner within a month? Here are some helpful tips for anyone who may have similar situation.

First, you must be clear about your job hunting goal (what position you are looking for, what industry you prefer) and your qualificaiton (what you are able to do for the employer). Make your qualificaiton clear and bullet listed on the front page of resume with header called “Qualification”. I read a lot of resumes, quite some of which are missing the most important part, – Qualification. Remember, hiring managers are busy and they have pile of resumes waiting to be read. Don’t count on them to figure out. If they cannot understand what you can do, you are done.

In both resume and cover letter, you should emphasize on your achievements and contributions. Recall what you accomplished in previous jobs. Ask yourself, did you increase revenues, cut costs, improve quality, or increase organizational efficiency? For each job, write down the problems you solved and how. What were your achievements? What would managers say you did well? Then your answers should lead to a brief phrase that says who you are professionally and why a company would hire you. Make sure you fine-tune the wording to make it match current needs in today’s job market.

You may write a separate achievement summary sheet to provide more detailed information such as a situation-obstacle-action-results. Describe what the problem was, what needed to be done, how you did it and what the results were. An alternative is to provide this information in the cover letter.

In most critical part of resume is the “Professional Experience” section. In it, describe each position you held, in chronological order. List the employer’s name, location and the dates you worked there. Underneath that, list each position and the dates you held it. For each job, include three to five accomplishments or awards you received. Make sure you use action verbs to describe you work. Some information are less important, thus you don’t need to include. For example, you don’t need to explain you started as a temporary employee and being hired permanently at one company; what counts is how you helped that employer.

Get your education, training, and credentials listed in the last section of resume. Also include a list of professional organizations you belong to. Depending in the industry, some employers weight credentials and professional organizations higher than others.

The finalized resume and cover letter must be clear, succinct and have passion to it, Double check for spelling, typographical or punctuation errors. Then you are ready to start to job hunting campaign. My advice is to aim for openings that match your abilities and experience. Don’t look for lower level positions that may label you as over-qualified.

Prepare interviews seriously. During interview, you should explain clearly why you want a specific job, why you’re qualified, and how you can help. Be sure to smile when speaking to hiring managers, even by phone so you’ll sound upbeat and confident. Believe it or not, that smile comes through on the phone. It is almost certain you will be asked what you’ve been doing during your unemployment. Don’t tell the truth saying you are looking for job with frustration. Instead, mention any consulting work, volunteer work, and education you’ve done. Any help provided to others can be considered as a consulting task, meaning you work as an indenpendent consultant. If none of them occurred, at least you can come out some positive self-education activities, tell you what new technology or skill you have acquired and how it can help you contribute to the company.