Are You Scaring Employers?

Impressing an employer throughout your entire job-seeking process is not easy. You have 10 million things to worry about and 10 million details to remember. Avoid making major job search mistakes all costs, or else you may never hear from a prospective employer again.

Kellen McKillop explains five ways potential employees scare employers at any point during the job seeking process. Everyone makes mistakes, but McKillop states these job search mistakes instantly kill any chance of landing that posh job, no matter how great your qualifications look.

The first thing that scares employers is a lengthy resume more than one page long. A simple resume is a single page that lists your most important assets. If a prospective employer needs to know more, the company tells you or discovers more details from resources listed on the resume. One page is the industry standard for most jobs.

Spelling errors on your resume land that document in trash heap. Let your friends read the document to catch any misspelled words or missing letters. Imagine leaving out the "l" in "public" for your 10-year position as a public relations specialist. An HR expert suddenly wonders if you cannot rectify this simple job search mistake on a resume, what other, larger judgment errors you are likely to make in the future This typo cannot be fixed by a spell-check program because both words are spelled properly.

Instead of the adage "know thyself," in this instance you must know the company. Research your potential employer and know why you are interested in working for a particular firm. One of the biggest job search mistakes you can make involves not being able to describe the company's goals, assets or purpose. If you apply for a marketing position, explain the excellent marketing campaigns you felt worked well. Compliment your potential boss on what drew you to a particular advertisement.

Tardiness to an interview shows a lack of respect for what a company has already done for you. It takes staff time and resources to arrange an interview with prospective employees. Showing up late to an interview, no matter what the excuse, shows you were not prepared to arrive on time. Plan your route, get plenty of sleep the night before, awaken earlier than usual and be ready to get there 10 minutes before your interview time. If you get to the parking lot 30 minutes ahead of time, find 20 minutes to play an app game on your smartphone; you do not want to get there too early either.

Always follow up after an interview. One huge job search mistake is to fall off the face of the planet after the all-important interview. If you fail to call back, what makes an employer think you follow up with clients, customers or your boss? Think of the job search process as an example of how you treat co-workers and customers.

Avoid these glaring job search mistakes by researching ways to impress your potential employers and preparing to wow them at every step of the process. When you show confidence, creativity and know-how, employers notice. Getting noticed gets the position you want.

Photo courtesy of buyalex at Flickr.com