* Failing to Stick to Application Guidelines: Some months ago we helped in recruiting front desk officers and office assistants for a firm in the southeastern part of the country and stated quite clearly that such applicants should be resident in that part of the country. Surprisingly over 50% of applications came from outside the specified area. Automatically such applicants were never considered.
If the employer gives specific instructions and qualifications which you do not have don’t bother applying. This is the main reason why many applications don’t see the light of day. Recruiting companies get many applications and so do not have time to invite everybody. What they do is to eliminate all applications that don’t fall in line with their guidelines.
So first you have to stick to specifications for the job you are applying for.* An Armature CV: Many times, without knowing, it is the CV of job seekers that let them down. Your CV is your spokesman in your absence. It is your identity and it is what makes an employer decide to call you or not.
Use active words in your CV.
We get lots of crap and useless CVs where the job seeker continues to write garbage about their excellent motivation and on the job skills. The problem is most people generalize their CV. They submit the same CV to numerous employers. This makes the CV lose the individual touch. Your CV must appear to be tailored to the particular company you are applying to.
Avoid overused and useless words and phrases like;- Excellent Communication Skills
- Strong Work Ethics
- Good Computer Skills etc
Instead be more specific and show examples that will indicate you possess those qualities instead of repeating what almost everybody says in their CV.
Under your skills heading show how good you are with those skills by giving short description of accomplishments you have made in the past.
eg instead of writing, ‘Excellent Communication Skills’ write something like, “Developed and presented over 100 multimedia presentations to prospective clients resulting in 23 new accounts worth over N4 million in revenue”
Get the gist? replace all those worn out phrases with concrete and brief sentences showing how you actually demonstrated your excellent communication skills for the benefit of your former employers.
Instead of writing ‘Strong Work Ethics’ specify something that shows practically that you have strong work ethics. Eg, you can write, “Developed a new sales application 4 days before deadline”
When listing your work experience, write in the active and not passive.
Instead of writing ‘Was responsible for the training of new salespeople,’ Write something like, “I trained 5 new salespeople every month”
Make use of relevant Referees in that Industry you are applying to.
It is of no use using your university head of department as a referee for a job in a telecoms company. They will respect your application more if your referees are experts and established individuals in that industry (eg using senior workers or consultants in the telecoms industry as your referees will stand you in better chance when applying for a telecoms job than using your former lecturer as your referee which is the mistake most people make) What this means is that you have to network and meet and know people in the industry and sector where you want to work.
