Recessions and market crashes can play upon the nerves of any executive making decisions and actions in a panic mode. Career management becomes a route instead of an informed, well modulated, thorough and patient process that reaches the targeted goal.
We can sabotage ourselves when seeking new employment without realizing it out of panic, fear and knee jerk reactions.
Here are some of the top panic, pitfalls to avoid:
• To expedite our search, we pay several thousand dollars for a costly service that mass markets our resume or letter of credentials to tens of thousands of companies by mail and email yielding the same percentage of results as any direct marketing campaign while commoditizing your image.
• Mistakenly thinking that we have a better chance of being hired if a company doesn’t have to pay a search fee, we fail to develop valuable relationships with executive search consultants who often can provide key insights and perspective on the marketplace as well as an interview opportunity.
• Avoiding change, we update the same resume template that we have used for decades without regard to how bad it looks on-line or the dated image it projects.
• Concerned about omitting important career successes and achievements, we insist on including positions that go back 25 + years showing companies that no longer exist, obsolete products and technologies or we build an overdone list of key words and job functions at the top of our resume that leaves us truly undifferentiated.
• At the first sign of a job search, we call up and burn through all our great contacts without a focused goal or we proceed to wear out our welcome with the best contacts by continually checking in with them to see if anything has come up.
• We do the minimum job on our linkedin profile and then we wonder why recruiters aren’t calling and nobody accepts our requests.
• Most of our time at networking events is spent at the buffet, the bar, finding a parking place or in a corner.
• We assiduously push our needs, wants, and desires onto any unsuspecting contact we meet without first building a viable relationship with the person.
• Contact business cards become drawer lining as we forget to follow up with people we can’t remember meeting in the first place.
Some lessons we learn the hard way, others can be simply checked off one at a time. Career coaching can steer you away from all of the above and towards ways to leverage your assets, talents and time to land the next great gig.
Email us for a free career evaluation: admin@careercompany.com. Find out how we can help you avoid the list and move successfully to your next opportunity.
Regards,
Patti Wilson
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