My favourite ‘F’ Word for Jobseekers

Yep – I confess to using the ‘F’ word on occasion, such as when I got a flat tyre, lost my passport or was escaping a street riot (tear gas was involved).

But in this article, I’m not referring to THAT ‘F’ word – I’m referring to the word ‘FOCUS’ and how having the right focus can totally transform the way you conduct a job search.

Want to know what the biggest mistake jobseekers make during their job search?  They lack focus.

You might have done this yourself and it goes something like this for most people.

You start off your job search with lots of optimism, apply for a few jobs and then this what happens:

NOTHING! No job interview invites, no recruiters hounding your door, not even a miserly rejection letter.

So next thing we know we start applying for anything that comes our way and get really scattered with our job search approach.

Sound familiar?

Unfortunately you have just fallen into the biggest job search trap you can, because this is simply going to make matters worse.

If you apply for anything that comes your way, you are going to be applying for jobs where you are not necessarily a good fit and this is going to result in a whole lot of rejection letters, or worst still no acknowledgement that you even exist.  This is the LAST thing you need, as a ton of rejection letters will turn into a vicious cycle of stress and fear.

The second reason, why you should not apply for anything that comes your way, is because if you are going to have any success using this approach, you will need to adapt your résumé for each and every job.  (And I don’t know of any job seekers that do this effectively).

This is not only time consuming, but you are spreading yourself way too thin in terms of research and networking and you might even miss out on opportunities.

So for an effective job search – you need FOCUS.

The narrower and more focused your job search, the more successful you will be.

SO identify a job target and stick with this.

Sounds counter intuitive, but with a narrow focus comes greater success – so you can quickly secure your ideal job.