Patra Frame: Silly Self Sabotage - Job Search Mistakes

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Don't sabotage your job search by making these mistakes.

Silly Self Sabotage. What do I mean by that? And why would you even care? Many of us, yes including very senior management like the vice-president candidate for a great job who called himself NoViagra@yahoo.com. Many terrific technical professionals, make stupid mistakes in their job search. Stupid mistakes always hurt you.

What do I mean by that? First of all it's a matter of the silly little mistakes in presentation that none of us think of. That e-mail address is a classic one or "blondebabe" or any other number of very unprofessional email addresses. Your friends love it, but it's not what you want when you are doing a job search. Kinds of e-mail addresses. Voicemail. Nothing like calling a candidate for an interview or to bring him in and talk to him or whatever and getting some three-year-old's message. The phone message that's really adorable to grandma but not so adorable when it goes on forever and you are a recruiter in a rush.

Those things all hurt you. They hurt you almost as much as those resume errors that are simple and yet you didn't catch them. A technology spelled wrong. An error in grammar that is obvious. A set of sentences that are bullet points and are great but some of them are present tense and some of them are past tense. All these things sound very obvious and yet many, many people make these mistakes. So that's the first part of how you present yourself.

The second part of the sort of things that we do that sabotage ourselves are an attitude of I know better. Well when you know better than the recruiter, than the hiring manager, you are not going to get the opportunity. Maybe you think a certain specification for a job is ridiculous and it's not useful. But while you can ask about that requirement, either to the recruiter or the hiring manager, you shouldn't be arguing with them and telling them that it's not right. You don't know that. It's their work, their business, it's what they want.

Third is how you treat people. It's amazing how many folks, great talented professional folks, who somehow think the receptionist or secretary or human resources employee, that the little people are beneath them. They treat them poorly. They dismiss them. They aren't useful to them. Many people do that with some of the recruiters for that matter in a company. Yet what the employer is thinking is how would this candidate treat our customers? Our clients? How would this candidate negotiate with our vendors if they treat some people poorly thinking those people are less important than they are?

All of these things sound so petty and yet for many people it is these simple self sabotaging behaviors that really hurt them. So when you are thinking about your job search talk to a friend. Ask somebody to look at your resume. Take a chance at having somebody you know tell you what they think are your strong points and what are not, and to give you that feedback. How do you present yourself and how professional do you really come across every day?

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Education

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• job search mistakes