Friday, April 19, 2013

5 Common Mistakes That Can Make You Miss an Opportunity When Applying for a Job

These days there is a lot of people looking for jobs and whenever a company advertises for a job, the amount of applications received is overwhelming. So any mistake could get you disqualified and cost you a great opportunity. Here are 5 very common mistakes that could mess your chances of landing that job.


1. Spelling Mistakes
Now a company is looking for a professional to work with and especially in some positions, a company cannot afford to send out mail or any other documents with spelling mistakes. When you are jobless, I believe that the most important document you write to any company is your application and if something of that much importance has mistakes, it means everything else around you could have the same mistakes. You cover letter and your CV need to represent you and whenever you send them out, you are sending a picture of your professionalism. Take time, make sure you have no single mistake on your cover letter and CV.

2. Attaching all your documents, certificates and testimonials to your application
Unless the advertiser asked for this, usually the only thing a potential employer wants to see your cover letter and your CV. When you send me an email with heavy images and I have 200 other applications to look at, you are eating into too much of my time and I need to get to the next one. Usually this will give the employer an over-advertisement impression so avoid this. In fact, the only attachment your email should have is your resume/CV. Your cover letter should be the body of the email and ensure that your subject line is clear too. If an employer advertised more than one job, you might get him looking at your CV for the wrong job and get you disqualified while you were actually qualified for the post you were applying for.
3. Forwarded CV
While it is clear you are looking for a job, an employer is not specifically interested in all the other companies that you sent applications to. I received emails that had been forwarded to many other companies and one of them included over 30 companies, all there with their email addresses. This also shows that you are too lazy to compose a new email or even just delete the old email threads, this is not what an employer is looking for.
4. Badly Formatted CVs
Your CV should speak for you, it tells of your skills, your experience, your education and everything else. One thing that it also tells is your organizational skills, your research skills and much more. There are standard things that should be on a CV and if yours is missing one of them, it translates to bad research on your side. There is also a specific sequence that you should have your CV listing information, it is standard and all over the internet. Research and make sure your CV represents you.
5. CVs Sent on Your Behalf
There is a breed of people who send their CVs to other people and tell them to forward it to anyone they think would need their services. So one of the CVs I received (for a really great person who I ended up employing) had been sent by another person. So, the email came from a Guy and the applicant was actually a lady. She had no idea we had her CV and when we called her for an interview, she started interviewing us on what job this was and all that. Like I said, she persisted, she called again and again and we still gave her a chance but by the time I realized she had not applied for the job herself, I had written her off. Send your own CV or at least ensure you have an idea of where your CV was sent.
So, there you have it, this should improve your chances next time!

Original Source: Niaje.Com