Many job searchers miss the point. A potential employer doesn’t really care where you went to school or how many years you stayed at your last job.

by Tom Mason

Profit is a potential employer’s bottom line

Employers really only want to know one thing: how are you going to help their company make more money? Communicating how you intend to help them solve problems and impact their bottom line is a sure way of ending up on the applicant short list.

Cookie cutter resumes don’t work

Employers aren’t interested in a comprehensive list of your major life experiences. They want a resume that focuses on the specific work you are applying to do. Focus on how you solved problems and met challenges in the past, not on a poorly targeted, disjointed life history.

Forget the number’s game

Most job searchers eventually realize that sending out hundreds of resumes to potential employers simply doesn’t work. A more effective technique is to study a target company, find out what they need in terms of new blood and then tailor an approach designed to fill that position.

Don’t confuse an executive recruiter with a “personnel expert.”

When it comes to a job search, most of our bad habits stem from advice given to us by so-called human resource professionals: people who give out job advice and collect a counseling fee or a salary. They get paid whether you get the job or not. Executive recruiters don’t cash their cheques until they successfully match a candidate with an employer. Their bottom line depends on your success.