10 Silly Mistakes Job Seekers Make

Silly Mistakes Jobseekers Make During
Application Or When Submitting Their CVs
For Job Openings.
1. Sending mail without attachment: We
sometimes make this mistake during our
correspondences by sending mail and
forgetting to attach the required
documents, until the recipient of the mail
call our attention to it. Unfortunately,
Jobseekers don’t enjoy such luxury. No
matter the number of applications you
send without attaching your CV, be rest
assured of not being shortlisted for
interview.
2. Sending mail without content: This may
look harmless but trust me, a recruiter
won’t find it funny if he opens an
application and the only message in the
mail reads: “Sent from my BlackBerry
wireless device from MTN” with the subject
“my CV or my application”. This is exactly
what some applicants do, yet they expect to
be invited for interview.
3. Sending mail without cover letter:
Most job seekers send out applications
without cover letter. I personally don’t give
too much weight to cover letters (especially
if it is online application) because I hardly
read them, and many HR professionals
don’t either. You are however sending
signal of an unserious job applicant if I
open your mail and there is no form of
introduction at least about yourself and
what you are applying for (even if I did not
read the content). I must quickly say most
of us don’t read the cover letters because
we want to access as many CV as possible
and the time spent reading one cover letter
is enough to read another CV. God help
you if I have limited CVs and I am
interested in reading your cover letter and
you have none or you send hard copy of
your CV without cover letter.
4. Group application: I have received
applications from multiple candidates
through a single source at once and I have
also received applications that have been
forwarded to many other companies before
I received them and I kept asking myself if
those applicants really wanted the job or
they were just testing their skills on the
usage of the internet. Yet they wanted me
to invite them (as unserious as they were)
for interview.
5. Not following instructions: Due to the
volume of applications we receive, HR
professionals device means of separating
each of the advertised positions. In doing
this, we either formulate code for each job
or give each of the job a particular ‘subject
of the mail’. But funny enough most
jobseekers just ignore these instructions
and follow their own regular way of
applying for jobs. Little did they know that
the complex application instructions are
sometimes used to test their willingness to
follow instruction and attend to details if
employed.
6. Sending scanned CVs: Sometimes I find
it hard to understand why applicants go the
extra mile of scanning their CVs before
attaching and sending it when no
instruction told them to do so. And in most
cases those scanned CVs were never well
scanned; what I still do not understand is
whether they were actually scanned or
snapped with phones, and of course sent
to a friend to help them apply for a job
they know next to nothing about.
7. Inaccessible CVs: I sometimes wonder
why, despite all the software on my system,
I still cannot open some CV’s. I have not
met any hiring manager who will go out of
his way just to open a CV to enable him
invite the candidate for interview. Simple
MS word is enough, except otherwise
instructed. I wonder where the
complication is coming from.
8. Being Too eager for the job: There is
no crime in contacting the hiring manager
if you have his contact, but when your calls
begin to distract/disturb him, he begins to
have a rethink about you, if hiring you will
not be a problem to the company. Except
you have a personal relationship with him
and that should not be abused either.
9. Not applying early: This is an aspect
many jobseekers take for granted. By
practice all advert should have at least a
week window for application, but in reality,
the CV’s of the first set of people who
applied for the job are considered, except
where the job attracts limited applications
or CV’s sorted electronically. We can
imagine how many cases of the exceptions
abound.
10. READ 1-9 AGAIN
http://www.jarushub.com/10-silly-
mistakes-job-seekers-make-i/

Published with Blogger-droid v2.0.10