What To Do When You Don’t Get the Job You Wanted

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Have you ever applied for a job that you were absolutely sure was a perfect fit for you? You met all the qualifications, and the interview went beautifully, but…you didn’t get the job.

How does that happen? Why does that happen?

There may be several reasons:

  • There may be a flood of applicants for the job (which is very typical these days).
  • As qualified as you are for the job, there may be another applicant who has even better qualifications (or an inside reference).
  • You may lack an important skill, or be not as strong in a skill as the employer wants.
  • There may be a bad reference in your past.
  • The interview may not have gone quite as well as you believe it did, at least not from the employer’s perspective.
  • There may not be an actual job – the employer may just be on a fishing expedition for reasons you’ll never understand.
  • The job may have been eliminated before filling it.

As you can see, there are a lot of reasons why you won’t get a particular job. Your one consolation is that it happens to all of us, and usually more than once.

[How to take a tax deduction for your job hunting expenses!]

There’s no point being angry or bitter of the job that got away, but you can find ways to use the situation to your advantage.

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Find Out The Reason You Didn’t Get The Job

Even if the application and interview process went well, employers will often terminate your candidacy either through a form letter (that gives no concrete information), or they will ignore you completely in the hope you’ll “get the message”. But if you do get the word from a live person, you should get as much information as you can. This will be considerably easier if your application and interview was arranged by an employment search firm. Though the employer may not speak to you, they will usually give information to an employment agent.

Though it may hurt to find out why you didn’t get the job, this information can be critical in preparing you for the next prospective employer. If you are turned down because there was a stronger candidate, or because the position has been eliminated before filling it, it may be unfortunate, but it will not reflect on anything personal about you.

If on the other hand, the employer felt that there was a weakness in your skill set, or didn’t feel as well about the interview as you did, these are things you need to know so that you can make improvements in the future.

But most important – something you absolutely need to know – is if you received a bad reference. Out of fear of lawsuits, most employers will not give references whether positive or negative. But there are some who do, if only in an indirect way. Even more important, you may find that a reference that you gave has less than positive things to say about you. If you find that out, you want to drop that person from your reference list going forward.

Ask For Constructive Criticism

It may be that you came very close to actually landing the job, but failed to get it because you’re weak in a certain critical area. For this reason, you want to get constructive criticism that will help you to learn where you are weak so that you can make improvements in future job applications.

[When is it time to make a career change?]

Ask For Job Leads!

If the person who interviewed you does make contact with you, either by phone, by email, or by written mail, you should seize the opportunity to ask that interviewer for other job leads.

Just the fact that the interviewer took time to contact you to let you know that you are no longer in the running means that you are viewed as a credible candidate. Take advantage of that status – and also the opportunity to play on the interviewer’s sympathies – to ask the interviewer if they know of any competing companies who are looking to fill a similar position where you might be a good fit.

If the interview went particularly well and you built a rapport with the interviewer, you might even ask if they would give you a referral. You may not get it, but it never hurts to ask.

NEVER Let It Get You Down

If you have ever worked in a sales related job, you are well aware that you have to approach many prospects before you actually make a sale. The same is true when it comes to finding a job. You are being a salesman, and the product you are selling is you. It is the reality of sales that you will not be able make a deal with all prospects, or even most of them. For this reason, you should enter the job hunting process fully prepared for rejection.

You will have to be prepared to accept many rejections on the path toward landing a job, but no matter what, you can’t let it get you down. Upon learning of a rejection, you need to immediately spring into action to land more interviews. Getting down about the rejection, or worse – feeling sorry for yourself – will accomplish absolutely nothing productive.

[Tips on finding a job when unemployed.]

When looking for a job – as in sales – you should have “several coals in the fire” at all times. That means that you are working on more than one potential job at any given point. More important, you should never view any single job as a make-or-break situation for you. Sure, you may need a job, but you don’t need any particular job. The right one will come sooner or later.

What do you do when you learn that you didn’t get a job you hoped you would?

photo credit: freedigitalphotos.net

How NOT to Get a Job

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Most of us are very interested in how to get a job, but since that doesn’t always work in a tough job market, it might be helpful to take a look at the situation from the back side. As in how not to get a job. Sometimes the best way to get a job is to identify the factors that are hurting your effort, and then do your best to reverse the situation.

What are some of the ways that you can sabotage your efforts get a job?

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Not Customizing Your Resume And Cover Letter To Match The Job

It can be tedious, but it’s extremely important that both your resume and your cover letter match the position you are applying for. In every job posting, there are certain specific skills, credentials and experience requirements that are critical to the job. If your resume and cover letter don’t address those requirements, your application will be passed over.

An application that does not fit the job description is worse than sending no application at all. It’s not just that you will not get the position, but that you will have taken yourself out of the running for a position that you may in fact have been qualified for had you done a better job of matching your qualification with the required skills.

Carefully study any job ads or postings, and do your best to identify the most important qualifications the employer is looking for. Then do your best to match your resume and cover letter to those qualifications. If you have the qualifications, the job may be a good fit and you could very well be a candidate in contention. If you don’t have the qualifications required, it’s probably best that you don’t even apply.

Applying For Jobs You Aren’t Qualified For

Which brings us into another dilemma for job applicants. There sometimes the thought that you can use the “shotgun approach” to applying for jobs. You might think that if you apply for a thousand jobs that surely someone will hire you. Unfortunately, the qualifications required for most jobs today are so specific that a mass application effort will probably be a massive waste time.

If you’re not qualified for a job, there’s no point even applying for it. In more robust job markets, employers will often hire someone who is at least partially qualified. But in the market we’re in today, there’s no shortage of skilled employee prospects, and you’ll have virtually zero chance of landing a job you are not qualified for.

Save your time and energy for more productive activities.

Sloppy Resumes, Cover Letters And Job Applications

There is sometimes a tendency to believe that resumes, cover letters and job applications are little more than a formality. But that’s only true if you have a strong reference from an influential person within the company. In virtually all other situations, your candidacy for any job will rest entirely upon the information that you present.

Your resume, cover letter and job application should not only be complete, but they should also be as neat as possible. They’re hiring a whole person, not a collection of skills and qualifications. They want to know that you are organized and that you can communicate intelligently. Your application documents will either confirm or deny that.

Be very careful in preparing your resume and cover letter, and make sure that you have a knowledgeable third-party review it for you. No matter how may times you review it yourself, you could still have glaring mistakes that someone else will pick up.

For job applications (especially on site), it may help to have a detailed list of information that includes your education, employment history, references and specific skills. Take this information from your list and transfer it to the job application. Never rely on your own memory.

Weak Interviewing Skills

Many job applicants have very strong resumes and convincing cover letters, but they fall short during the interview process. Often this is not because of a lack of credentials and qualifications, but because of poor interview skills.

You should be fully prepared to provide intelligent answers to questions that you would reasonably expect to face at a job interview. In addition, it’s important that you have a list of relevant questions that will further demonstrate your understanding of the job and your ability to get the job done.

Resumes and cover letters are written lists of your abilities. Interview skills are way of demonstrating those abilities. Invest some time in improving your interview skills with a strong emphasis on being able explain why you are the right person for the job.

Looking For The Perfect Job

People who are looking for the perfect spouse often end up…single. People who look for the perfect job often end up…stuck in a crappy job or unemployed!

Don’t let that be you.

There are no perfect jobs out there, but you can waste an awful lot of time looking for one. In the process you may turn down a number of perfectly good jobs. A less than perfect job may not be exactly what you are looking for, but it could be the very steppingstone to the perfect job that comes later.

You should hope that the next employer you work for doesn’t have perfectionist tendencies. At the same time, you need to keep your own tendencies toward perfection in check. Unless you have the perfect job right now, finding one that is can be an endless search. And if you do have the perfect job already…just stay where you are.