Dont Look Desperate During The Job Search - Personal Branding Blog - Stand Out In Your Career

Dont Look Desperate During The Job Search - Personal Branding Blog - Stand Out In Your Career When youre desperately looking for work, that desperation screams to hiring managers during your interview. Youre eager in your answers. You stress that no problem is too big for you to handle, no request too crazy. You even try the occasional Jedi mind trick, just in case. It can be a little off-putting. So do the follow-up phone calls, emails, and repeated requests for updates, and sending additional information. Believe me, I know its tough. You have a family to take care of, bills to pay, and your self-esteem is going down the toilet every day the phone doesnt ring. Let me tell you a secret: the employers dont care. They dont care that youre desperate or that you have to take care of your family. Theyre looking for the best fit for the company, and dont take anyones circumstances into consideration. You cant blame them â€" they need to find the best person to do the best job for the company, thus ensuring its long-term success, and they cant make a bad hiring decision based on personal feelings. (Of course, that does not include the heartless jerks who will automatically and purposely exclude people who have been unemployed long-term because they think theres something wrong with them.) What that means for you is that youre not going to get them to change their minds by appearing eager, by continually following up, or by being so persistent that you stand out from the other candidates based on sheer volume of phone calls and emails. You dont want to stand out that way. This blog post, along with all the other blog posts and articles on the subject, are telling you the same thing: Be patient. Be calm. Just trust that it will happen in its time. And youre saying, You dont understand. You dont know how bad it is. Except I do. The six months I was unemployed were the worst six months of my life. And it was only through a stroke of good fortune that I found the job that ultimately led me down the path to owning my own agency. But I made the very same mistakes Im urging you not to make. And I made them again and again, no matter how many times people told me, Be patient. Be calm. Just trust that it will happen in its time. Here are the two things you need to do during your job search to avoid appearing desperate: Stop calling and emailing employers. They havent forgotten about you, and they wont decide to hire you just because you sent an email or five. Theyre going to pick the best person they think theyve found, and an extra email or phone call wont make them think youre competent. They will hire you based on other factors though; focus on those. This blog is filled with posts about those factors. Become a freelancer or start your own business. Ive said this many, many times. There are too many cold, heartless employers out there who see long-term unemployment as a sign that youre not employable, and not that were still in an economic recovery. But there are also a lot of employers out there who will see your initiative and work, and think that youre probably better than the other candidates because youre still working, even when you dont work for a company. And, as a freelancer, you can meet with the decision makers who are also the hiring managers, and you get to bypass the HR circuit completely. Do good work for them, and they just may decide to hire you full-time. Persistence is a noble virtue, until you bug the bejeezus out of people. Its a fine line between dogged determination and being a pain in the ass. Dont cross that line. Send a thank you note after the interview (hand written, of course), and then let it go. If you didnt persuade them in the interview, youre not going to. It doesnt matter how much you want it to happen, if they dont, thats it. You cant force the issue. After the interview, get back to your freelance work, and make your next phone call to your next prospective client. Who knows? They may end up being your next job anyway. Author: Erik Deckers is the co-owner of Professional Blog Service, and the co-author of Branding Yourself: How to Use Social Media to Invent or Reinvent Yourself and No Bullshit Social Media: The All-Business, No-Hype Guide to Social Media Marketing. He is also a travel writer and theater reviewer in his spare time.