Stop these habits – they are killing your career

Stop worshiping the job board

Job Boards are the worst invention ever for job seekers. No matter how many times I tell my clients that job boards are the least effective way to progress their career, job seekers continue to flock to them, as they have been lulled by the media and job boards themselves, that the only steps they need to make to progress their career is to use sites such as SEEK, or Career One.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

I’ve spoken at length about job boards being the black hole to nowhere. Yes, people do secure jobs via this method, but the estimated numbers are very low.  Did you know that in spite of spending hours researching the job boards themselves, I could not find one job board providing data of the success rate of jobseekers?

Now job boards have argued that compiling this data would be impossible. That is rubbish, as they could compile the success rate of jobs successfully filled via a job board, but they don’t. Job boards dazzle with statistics on visits to job boards and profiles searched, but there is NO data available on the success rate.  We can only work with estimates done through surveys by career experts not associated with job boards and these vary from 2% to 5% of users being successful via a job board.

That number is pretty low, so stop worshipping the job boards and focus on job search strategies that are more successful.

Stop being passive and become active

Job seekers complain about the length of time it takes to secure a new job and that is pretty accurate – as the average time it takes to find a new job has risen by 25% since 2008. But the primary reason it takes so long is because job seekers are too passive and dare I say it, complacent.

The bulk of my clients only actively network, get involved in LinkedIn discussions and update their profiles when they are actively looking. If you had set aside 1 hour every week in the last 6 months to network, connect and engage, when it came time to move on and make it happen, your job search would be easier.

The reality is, there is no easy way to get hired and secure your dream job. If you want a great job, you need to make it happen and to make it happen, you have to be active, not passive. The candidate that gets out there, networks, asks the right questions and makes personal contact with the right people will secure the job. I know this sounds harsh, but most hire’s are made via trusted referrals and personal contacts. So waiting for the job fairy to arrive with the ultimate job is not going to happen. You have to make it happen.

Stop being so complacent with social media

If you are not aware of social recruiting, then you need to be. Social recruiting is quite an old practice (by technology standards) and since 2012 there has been a rise of tech companies using social recruiting applications to find and screen applicants.

That’s right – they view your Facebook Page, Twitter Feeds, Pinterest Board and Instagram Account and make judgements and decisions on you, based on these accounts.

Now I personally find this trend alarming, (I find myself in the minority with this opinion), simply because in spite of evermore-sophisticated algorithms, the data being collected on you is flawed. Our social media world, is NOT an accurate reflection of our true self’s, our skills, capabilities and career ambitions, yet this is the information being used to assess you. So with this in mind, you need to be aware of what you post and how you interact with others online. Put simply, stop being so complacent with social media, it is not private.  It is public information and can impact on your career.