By Melisa Marzett
Are you worried about having a reputation as a job hopper? Job hopping can be good or bad, depending on how often you’ve changed jobs and the reason for doing so. Maybe you graduated from school not knowing exactly what you want to do, so you’ve taken a few different roles trying to find a job you like that has long-term potential. But if you’ve had many jobs in a row that lasted only a short time, it could indicate a problem.
Frequently, the difficulties in this matter arise not due to the fact that you lack skills and knowledge. More often than not, problems arise because you do not know how to look for the right job and do not learn it properly so you don’t get any satisfaction from your work. Most people would like to have a prosperous professional career, and the ability to find a good job is an essential part of career technology.
A competent job search can be divided into five easy steps:
Step 1. Preparing for a job search.
If you are engaged in some business, but not prepared for it, mistakes and omissions are inevitable. Searching for a job requires preparation too. However, this is exactly what job seekers usually overlook. What is included in this preparation? Here are the main things:
- Determine what work you want to do as your goal. Usually, it is secure. A person has chosen one’s path and knows what he or she wants. However, some others need to think and decide. In such cases, the help of a career counselor may be helpful. In the course of the search, the intended goal may be refined in terms of pay expectations and a few other points. This is normal. Professions with low job-hopping rates tend to be those that require a substantial amount of time to gain education and professional experience and those where employees have consistent long-term career goals. But for certain people, a job that has less repetition and more novelty could hold their attention longer.
- Study the labor market to set realistic goals. As a claimant to the job, the receipt of that job is the goal. When employability is viewed in its basic form, we are all products attempting to sell our skills in the job market. What is written about the labor market in the media often does not contain useful facts, and sometimes it can be disorienting, so we need to do a more in-depth study of our desired field. Now then, the applicant is not required to write a scientific report on the results of a study of the labor market. But there is a lot of job information available online, and having studied that, the applicant can find out what he or she needs to know.
- Define your pros and cons, or strengths and weaknesses. The ability and desire of the applicant to benefit the employer is a commodity that the applicant promotes in the labor market. However, to help the product compete, you need to know your strengths (advantages) and show them well to the employer, and you need to know your weaknesses (disadvantages) to work correctly with them. For example, do you have a high need for stimulation and a low tolerance for tedious or repetitive tasks? Find a way to put a positive spin on it.
- Master the right job technology and techniques. As they sometimes say, master the technique of self-marketing in the labor market. Especially if you’ve had a habit of job hopping, you don’t want future employers to think that you have attitude or personality problems that stop you from being able to work with other people. Self marketing helps you to improve your image and reputation to advance your career..
All this is not so simple so that in one small article we can give specific advice on how this is done. However, there are rules, and you can master them.
Step 2. Drafting a resume and cover letter.
People of various professions post their resumes on recruitment sites and send them to employers and recruitment agencies. Tips for resume writing are abundant in books and on the internet. Nevertheless, well-made resumes are rarely found in the labor market. The reason is simple. The resume is usually done on a given template that badly adjusts to the specific needs of a particular employer. Experience shows that even after studying a good manual, it is necessary to improve the resume 5-7 times so that it reaches the goal.
Although job hopping is more acceptable than it was a decade ago, it can still raise concerns with hiring managers and recruiters. To counteract this, make sure your resume shows a steady increase in responsibilities. If you can do so without leaving huge gaps in your resume, don’t include short-term jobs that aren’t relevant to the one you want next. If you worked for two years at one job, two months at the next, and then two years at the next job, leave off the one where you only worked for two months. A series of short freelance jobs can be lumped together under one heading. Add an accomplishments/skills section to put the focus on your achievements rather than the time you spent at positions.
It’s important to write a strong cover letter to address any possible red flags right off the bat. Find the job changes that you think will cause the most concern for employers and offer a brief, logical explanation for why you made the decision you did. You want to come across as well-reasoned rather than impulsive. Keep it positive and never complain or bad-mouth former employers or bosses.
Step 3. Establishing contact with employers.
Sometimes a job seeker reminds of a child who pushes a piano with his fingers and thinks that he plays the piano as a grownup. Many applicants use narrow channels for establishing contacts with potential employers and the fact is, it is applied very ineptly. These concerns are not only for such relatively new tools as social networks like LinkedIn, but also applies to the long-used job search through personal connections.
Your approach depends if the job was advertised, if you are following up on a recommendation from a company contact, or if you are cold calling to see if there are any job openings. Generally, you should send an e-mail before making a phone call. You can search online for the name and title of a person you wish to contact. If you know someone within the company, be sure to mention it in the opening sentence of your cover letter.
Step 4. Passing interviews and other filters with the employer.
Applicants usually master the art of self-presentation at job interviews by trial and error with a lot of practice. You should not just hope that the interviewer would notice your good qualities and appreciate your essential business skills. The more skillfully you help him in this by confidently answering the interview questions, the higher the chances for the employer to see you as the most exciting candidate and offer a job.
The fact that you’ve had three different jobs in one year is definitely going to come up in the interview. The interviewer may wonder if you lack responsibility and commitment, or he may think that you don’t take work seriously. Now is the time to convince him otherwise. Show what you’ve gained by job hopping, to ease the employer’s concerns.
Step 5. Negotiation and adaptation in a new place.
A job search does not end when a job offer is made to you. Upon receipt of such a proposal, the most appropriate time comes to clarify any details of the proposed work to minimize the risk of error, and this is the right moment to bargain with the employer.
Many do not understand that such bargaining is not only appropriate but also useful. Bargaining convinces the employer that he does not overpay for the purchased goods. Hiring new employees isn’t cheap, and employers don’t want to invest in training you if you aren’t planning to stay there for long.
Most people have to change jobs more than once in their lifetime. On average, employees stay with an employer for close to five years before moving on to another. Although many hiring managers and recruiters still frown against job hoppers, more frequent job hopping doesn’t necessarily have the negative stigma that it used to. These days, employers know that millennials want a job that seems worthwhile and where they can feel fulfilled — and that they will keep looking until they find it.
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