How to Find A Job Faster In A Crappy Labor Market

Getting a job in a good labor market isn't particularly easy, but getting a job in a bad labor market seems nearly impossible. So I'm going to give you some tips in this video on how to do that more effectively. Hey everybody, it's Brian from Only Factor Layoff. And today I want to share with you some tips on how to get a job in a crappy labor market. Now, if you've been doing any job search in today's labor market, you realize that it's not particularly fun to find a job right now. There's a ton of competition. There's fewer and fewer good jobs. And what that means for the average job seeker is employers are pickier than ever. And unfortunately they can be. So it's never been more important for you, the job seeker to put your best foot forward. If you want to land a job quickly in today's crappy labor market. So in this video, I'm going to share with you some tips that you can apply to stand up from the crowd, hopefully land your next job faster. But before we get into that, if you're interested in learning how to approach your job search and as an extension of that, your career with more conviction and authority and actually reclaim control back from those pesky employers, then you want to sign up for my free newsletter because I share concise actionable tips on how to approach your job search, resume writing, interviewing, and a whole lot more with authority and conviction. In other words, I teach you how to become the CEO of your career. Keep in mind, it's absolutely free. I will leave a link in the comments below and I hope to see you there. Okay. So how do we stand out from a crowded market? Keep in mind, this is coming from a recruiter's perspective, and I'm going to give you some tips that I would do if I was looking for a job today. Well, first things first, I got to take a litmus test of what's going on in the market, particularly from my job and how I stack up against it. So I'm going to head over to some job boards, maybe just get a flavor for what kind of jobs are being posted, how frequently they are, and more importantly, what it is that employers are demanding. And I'm going to look at myself with a very objective and non-emotional eye and say, how well do I truly stack up to the jobs that are out there? And if I find anything that I'm gapping on, I'm going to figure out some creative ways to try to fill those skill gaps so that I can be a stronger candidate on the open market. Now, keep in mind, this is going to be a lot more difficult to do if you're actively looking for a job and you're unemployed because you don't have the ability to demonstrate the things that employers might demand. So if you're currently working and you're looking for a job, I would recommend that you look around your workplace today, see if there's any opportunities to gain some of those skills that you might be missing because you have an advantage over the unemployed job seeker, but not to worry if you're an unemployed job seeker listening to this, because there are some ways that you can get some of those skills on your resume, but you might have to be a little bit more creative. You can search out some online training. There's lots of free options out there or relatively low cost. Or if you're in a technical field, you can check out things like course careers or simply learn. The most important thing here is to try to get some of those keywords on the resume and preferably with some demonstrated experience to go along with them, but where you can potentially work on a pet project or may even volunteer your services to a charity or something where you can leverage those skills in a real life setting. But the main thing here is you want to skill up because you have to keep pace with the open market, especially if your competition has those skills that you're missing. And the second thing is you've got to be able to convey that to an employer. So when you're applying for these jobs, especially ones that have thousands of applications, your resume absolutely has to stand out. It has to be airtight, razor focused, and very aligned to the jobs that you're applying to. And I'll say this nine out of 10, probably even 19 out of 20 resumes that I see in my career coaching sessions have some issues on their resume that need to be addressed. And so even though you may think that your resume has no issues, chances are, it may not be conveying you in the best possible manner. Now it doesn't mean that your resume might not get you some results, but in a very tight labor market where you want to get hired quickly, having a very aligned resume is going to be absolutely crucial. So you want to go through your resume with a fine tooth comb, remove any non-value added fluff or clutter and make sure that it reads very cleanly for the jobs that you're applying to. And I would recommend that you take a look at readability because recruiters are scanning your resume very quickly. So if you've got funky fonts, you've got a bunch of crazy colors or graphics or charts or columns and all that kind of stuff, it actually slows down the recruiter from finding what it is that they're looking for. And the ultimate goal here is to try to get noticed among a sea of candidates. Now, here's the thing. We can't control what we've done in the past, but we can present how we behave going in the future, how we present ourselves with a clean resume, but also how we approach our job search. And if it's me, I'm not being a one trick pony because here's the deal. When most people look for jobs, they all race to job postings and everybody applies to them. And it gets so cluttered. And I'll say this as a corporate recruiter, despite the number of applications that come through our ATS system, when we post a job in a bad labor market, there's a very small percentage of them that actually meet the requirements of the position reasonably closely. And I'll say it's a shockingly low number. And so therefore a recruiter who's worth their salt, especially for very hard to fill positions that are very particular, we're going to go out and do sourcing at the same time. That means I'm going out and looking for candidates in a bunch of creative ways to try to find the exact fits for my hiring manager. So you can put together a great resume and pray and hope that I see it, or you can try to be discovered in alternative ways as well. And I would suggest that you don't be a one trick pony. So be creative, look for ways to get involved in your local job market, check the chamber of commerce and see if there's anything going on there. Be visible in other places than just your online application. And while you're at it, and I fully realize there's going to be some people who won't like this tip, but it's actually true. And it actually works is that you have to work harder than everybody else. So I see a lot of people complaining in the comments about, Oh, I don't want to customize my resume. I tried it and it didn't work or saying I'm tired of this job search. I don't even care. I just blast out my resume and hope for the best. But the fact of the matter is, is that there are people who are looking for jobs and the ones who are finding the best jobs quickly are going above and beyond. They're the ones that are outworking you. And I know that that's painful. I know that there's people out there saying I shouldn't have to do this much to find a damn job. And I agree with you, but the reality is, is that the people who are landing the great quality opportunities are probably outworking you. I mean, when's the last time you sent a thank you letter to an employer after an interview. And that leads me to the next point is that you need to be different than everybody else. Sure. The resume is good and hopefully you have some differentiated skill sets and you're customizing for the resume, but I would take that step further. And I would say, can you define how you are truly different than the rest of your competition? Because you've got to keep in mind for that coveted role, only one person is landing the offer and there might be two, three or 4,000 people vying for it. So how do you stand out from the crowd? And if you can't clearly define how you're different and more importantly, what your value proposition is to the employer, then you've got some homework to do. And I would be going back to the drawing board today and really thinking long and hard about it. The next thing I'd absolutely be doing, and this is a non-negotiable, especially in a very tight labor market is I would actually start to leverage networking. Now, networking on LinkedIn is one of the best places to do it because that's where recruiters are. That's where hiring authorities are. That's where the people who are in charge of filling these roles hang out on a day-to-day basis. And if you're somebody that says, I don't use LinkedIn, I deleted my account. It's a bunch of bullcrap and a bunch of people clout chasing, then that's fine. That's your prerogative. But you have to keep in mind that you're putting yourself at a huge disadvantage because the fact of the matter remains, that's the number one platform that recruiters and hiring managers use to recruit talent. But it's not to say that LinkedIn is the only place that you can network. Think of where the hiring authorities are hanging out in your space. It could be a Reddit forum. It could be some other depository of knowledge. It could be a blog. It could be some website. It could be some physical location or group or club, whatever it is. I would strongly recommend that you get involved because that's how you differentiate yourself, especially in a very tight labor market. But the thing is, is once you get the coveted job interview, you don't want to blow it by not being prepared. So I would absolutely be studying up on my interview skills before I walk in the door. You should have your interview strategy down well before you start your job search because your networking, your interview strategy, your resume strategy, and your career strategy are all related. And if you wait to the very last minute, it's unlikely that you're going to be a very effective interviewer. And again, there's people out there who say, I don't need any help there. I do an effective job. I've never had a problem before, but oftentimes they're the same people who in a very tight labor market are complaining that no employers ever want to hire me as much as we like to be proud. And I'm as proud as they come. As far as my skill and my competency, I still have to recognize that maybe the times have changed and maybe I don't present myself in the most effective manner possible. And listen, when there's not a lot of jobs and I'll take it even a step further and say, when there's not a lot of good jobs, you don't want to be winging it for a very valuable and coveted position because the stakes are too high. So learn your interview strategy. And if you don't know exactly why you're delivering the answer that you are, the chances are very, very high that you're just winging it and you're hoping for the best. And the final tip that I want to talk about and how to find a job faster in today's crappy economy is that you can leverage some tools, but I would be very careful here, put a little asterisk and say, leverage the tools, but don't rely on them because so many people joyfully look for ways to give away their power and their career, whether it's to a professional resume writer or some AI system, that's the promised land for them. And listen, there's nothing wrong with leveraging a tool like teal to help customize your resume, but it shouldn't be used as a crutch in place of actually learning the core skill because learning the why and the how of writing your own resume is a core career skill that will directly impact your earning potential and how much opportunity you have. In other words, how fast you can move up the corporate ladder. So don't just give away your power there instead of actually taking ownership of your career. But then once you actually learn how to write that resume, then you can leverage tools like teal to maybe help facilitate speeding up the customization process. Same thing goes for job application tools like massive, which can help get your resume out to a lot of different job types. But I would be very careful there and make sure that you know exactly what you're programming into the system and what you're applying for, because you don't want to just spam your resume out to a billion different employers and get a bunch of garbage back. Because if you actually want to have control in your career, you want to know exactly what you're applying to, and it should be part of your career strategy. So if I'm looking to land a job as fast as possible in today's crappy job market, those are the things that I'm doing. And I know that some of them don't sound very fun, but the fact of the matter is, is that in a bad job market, you got to go above and beyond. You can't just do what everybody else does and expect a different result. But for those of you who are actually trying to get ahead in your career and you legitimately want to get the tools necessary to move up the corporate ladder with authority, you're actually my target audience. And I created a site called lifeafterlayoff.com in order to help you in the newsletter. But I also created a bunch of articles that you can go and check out a whole bunch of free content. And I share my deepest and most intimate knowledge in the form of some training courses. The first one's called the ultimate career blueprint, which teaches you how to approach your career with conviction, with strength, with authority strategy is key here. You have to know exactly what you're doing and why you're doing it in order to achieve your career goals. So check out that one first, then we get into the tools of our trade and that's where the resume rocket fuel course comes in. So it teaches you exactly how to write a resume that will give you the best chance at those recruiters taking notice of you. And I make it as easy as possible to follow along. I created a template and you can actually watch me write my own resume so that you can learn exactly what recruiters are looking for. And then hopefully give yourself the best opportunity to get that phone, the ring for that first round interview. And once you can do the interview process, it's up to you to market yourself expertly through each stage. And I give you tips, tools, and strategies on how to do that in the ultimate job seeker bootcamp. And then we hopefully get you to that job offer. But if you want to skip the recruiter altogether or your week on your networking game, that's where unlocking LinkedIn comes in. Cause I teach you exactly how recruiters use that tool to find candidates just like you and give yourself the advantage of hopefully not only getting noticed by the recruiters, but potentially skipping the recruiter altogether and going right to the front of the line. And I teach all that more and unlocking LinkedIn. So I know the job search sucks in today's market, but hopefully some of these tips have helped you get a little bit perspective on how you can set yourself apart from the competition. And that's the name of the game. Appreciate you watching. We'll see you on the next one.