It’s no secret that the economy is rough out there these days. There are so many people on the hunt for a job, and this can go a long way to explaining why you might be having difficulty finding employment. Fortunately, there are a few things you can do to get an edge.
Be Prolific
If you don’t have a job, then you should make finding a job your new temporary job. If you want, you can make it official in your head by setting hours for each day for your job search. There are so many people looking for jobs these days that you really can’t just send out an application once every two weeks and expect to actually have your job hunt find you something. You have to be applying every day; however you want to do that.
Make a Killer Cover Letter
You have to kind of split the difference between standing out and being polite in your cover letters. Firstly, you should absolutely write a cover letter every time. Don’t use canned letters either. Employers can tell when you do that because they review cover letters all day. You can consider them to be experts on the ones that are actually written out and the ones that are written from a form. It might seem like you can just change the form for each, but in order to get enough details in there you might as well just write it out in the first place. Talk about the job in particular filling in details to show off that you read their entire ad. But at the same time, it will definitely help to try to stand out. Tell a joke in the beginning, or a funny related anecdote, or anything at all that will convince your very tired human resources person to actually consider your application instead of going onto one of the other hundred letters they have to read. Remember, they want to be done, to fill the position and not go through any more drudgery. Write a great cover letter and help them help you.
Specialize
It’s a good idea to narrow down exactly what type of job you want as much as is practical. Basically, you don’t want to narrow your search further than there are jobs available, but you want to get it narrow enough that you aren’t overwhelmed with choice, and also so that you can show of specialty skills in your field. If you want to break into writing online, you can better your chances by narrowing your search to a field like Technology. However, if you also have experience writing about topics like Android, and even took a class or two in college about it, then it can help to look even more specifically for Android writing jobs in order to increase your chances.
Get a Phone
It can be a deadly spiral if you don’t have a phone because you need a phone in order to get a job, and that’s a given. Most jobs require you to have a phone of some sort so that they can contact you, partly to even conduct interviews in the first place, but also for communication during your potential future employment. But if you don’t have a job to begin with, you might not have money to get a phone. Fortunately, there’s the Lifeline program, and this program allows you to sign up with various different providers in order to get limited free cellphone service. Generally those that are making money under the poverty line in their state will qualify.
