Some Top Mistakes of Job Seekers

When it comes to your career, taking a long view is often wiser than working for short-term rewards, according to Ken Sundheim, a career coach and the founder and president of KAS Placement, a New York-based sales and marketing staffing agency. 

We asked Sundheim for more of tips on how to manage your career--here's what he had to say:

The $5,000 Sprint
Sundheim says that the career mistake he most often sees people make is taking a job for a little bit more money--and no other reason. He says that true rewards (financial and otherwise) come from being passionate about your job and your career.

"When someone takes a new position for the extra few thousand, they feel fresh and excited," he says. "But that new energy lasts only for so long. A career is a marathon, not a sprint. When candidates take jobs for a small salary increase, they burn out--often, they become so burnt out that they then welcome hearing about opportunities that pay less, because they need to pursue their interests."

Sundheim thinks the career-success-happiness formula is simple: "If you like what you do, you'll work harder, learn, and--in the long run--are likelier to earn a healthy salary."

Blind Salary Requests
When negotiating a salary, candidates often don't know what to base their target salary on.

According to Sundheim, candidates need to know that the job market is simple economics. "It comes down to supply and demand," he says. "We never know what we are worth until people make offers to us."

"All job seekers--and all people--tend to put a higher worth on themselves than others do. Therefore, job candidates should be very careful when stating a salary request," he adds.

(For more advice, see Monster's collection of salary-negotiation tips.)

The Resume That Isn't Tailored to Online Job Boards
Most people read computer screens in a way that's different from the way they read the printed page. Sundheim suggests that job seekers keep some Web-display tactics in mind when they design a resume.

"Simple tricks include not putting any lines in your resume," he says, adding that lines serve as a subliminal stop sign for people who are reading something on a screen.

"Moreover," he says, "only 30 percent of readers scroll down to the second page of a multiple-page document. So it's imperative that you have compelling wording, right off the bat. Candidates should get their most important information on the top half of their resume."

(For more formatting tips, see "Resumes for a Digital Age.")

Failure to Grow and Learn
Sundheim says, "I've relied on constant reading and ceaselessly teaching myself relevant information to help me further my career. When speaking to the job seekers I work with, I often explain different theories--on persuasion, negotiation, and other topics. They seem to be engaged and usually ask, 'How do you know this stuff?' And I tell them, 'From reading books.'"

He says that he sees many candidates making the mistake of not bothering to learn good interviewing skills: "If a candidate can’t take it upon himself or herself to at least learn about interviewing techniques, it suggests to the interviewer that that person might not take the initiative to learn much else."

The "It's All About Who You Know" Myth
"Nobody is ever going to hand you a job unless you can actively do something for their company," explains Sundheim. "When I was younger, I always thought that sons and daughters of wealthy individuals got to work at their parents' firms and would have a pretty easy life."

But while this may be true in some cases, Sundheim says candidates can all too easily give up trying because they feel that they don't know the right people.

He adds, "When you look at the most successful people, like Warren Buffet, Bill Gates, and Jack Welch, they tend to be self-made. Nobody is ever going to hand anything to you. Contrary to popular belief, it just does not work that way. Regardless of industry, you must have the mentality that you are the only one who is going to make something of yourself, no matter where you come from."

(Share your top job-search mistakes in the Comments section.)

 

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