Top Ten Job Seeker Mistakes – #2

Mistake #2 is “You don’t know what you want to do. So you try to go after everything hoping that something will work.”

This is when you don’t really know where you will find a job so you shotgun and respond to every potential opportunity, whether it is in your sweet spot or not. After all, you need a job – desperately!

A similar mistake is when you tell others that you will take any job with any industry, any size company, or any level position as long as it pays in the range that you need.

Here is why these are major mistakes.

1. A resume “plays” to certain audiences. If you send out a generic resume to different audiences it is likely to not target anyone and get little to no interest. You cannot send one resume to a Fortune 100 and another to a $10 million company.
2. When you are networking, people can try to help you if you know what you want to do and where you want to do it. If you are targeting all the stars in the heavens, how can they help you to one star? They will usually be nice to you but not spend much energy.

This is a Sales and Marketing 101 mistake that almost everyone makes. Most accomplished people can work in a wide variety of areas. That is not the issue.

The issue is a sales and marketing issue. You have to target what you are passionate about doing, what you are most qualified doing, and where you are most likely to find the opportunity to do it for the level of compensation that you need to enjoy doing it.

Let me put it this way. If you had a rocket ship with just enough fuel to get to one star system, which star system would it be? If you bounce around the universe, you will waste rocket fuel and time. If you know where you are going, you will arrive there sooner and others can help you get there because you can tell them where you want to go!