4 Ways To Increase Your Employment Chances

If you have been out of work for a long period of time, you have probably started asking yourself if you are doing something wrong. It can be tough getting back to work after unemployment, and you never know whether you are being overlooked because of something in your application, or if you are lacking in the right experiences.

The other thing that could be dragging you down though is the sheer volume of people that are applying for jobs at any one time. Some vacancies can receive thousands of applicants. Sometimes recruiters are not physically able to even process all of the applications in the manner that they deserve. Sifting hundreds or even thousands of applications in detail can be a resource-draining waste of time. When people have a business to be running, they cannot afford to be spending so much time over what should be a simple recruitment process. The simple fact of the matter is, that your application may not even be getting looked at. 

Getting Your Application To Stand Out

When you are applying for a job that may have potentially hundreds of other applicants, your application needs to really stand out from the crowd. You will need to come across as confident and provide justification for this confidence in the form of examples of your achievements. You will need to understand the role that you are applying for, and using active language; sell yourself. There is nobody else who is going to do it, so you need to make sure that you are really letting your potential employers know exactly why they should be recruiting you. 

Passing The Algorithm

Where recruiters are handling a large volume of applicants these days, they often set up a system for filtering applicants. This will allow them to automatically pick out the people who are scoring over a certain amount for their application. 

These automated systems will work by picking out keywords from the original job description within the application. If you are applying for a vacancy, you really do need to be talking about the things that they mention in the job description. Find ways to relate these back to your experiences. If you are not meeting the criteria that have been set out in the original job description, then you will not get passed the automatic assessment. 

Increase Your Skills

If you feel as though your resume is quite slim, then it may well be time for you to add a few strings to your bow. There are a number of ways that you can do this. Firstly, you could be looking at completing some online courses. There are lots of different institutions where you can complete courses from home around your own schedule. You can find a course in almost any imaginable subject. Having these additional qualifications on your application will show that you have a propensity for learning and that you are willing to develop yourself. They may also be subjects that are going to provide you with valuable skills that are relevant to the industry that you are applying to. 

Another way that you can develop your employability skills is by taking up some unpaid work to gain experience. You could try and ask a number of businesses that work in the sector that you are looking to work in if you can go and get a few days of work experience with them. While a lot of companies have policies that prevent this, some companies will never turn down the opportunity for an extra pair of hands at no cost to them. It will be a win-win because you are gaining experience and they are getting the benefit of your efforts. 

Using The Right Examples

One area that you may be falling down is by not providing the best possible responses to application questions. You need to use active language in your responses. Appear dynamic and confident in the things that you are saying. If the application is asking you to give an example of a time when you have dealt with a certain thing, you need to take the opportunity to tell a story that they will pay attention to. A story always has a setup, so in this case, you will talk about the problem that needed solving. Then in a story you will get to the meaty bit; the action. So for you, this will be about what you did and how you did it. Then you will talk about the results. Make sure that you don’t forget this bit, the results are your achievements. Don’t sell yourself short.