Good to Have a Friend in HR Tell It to You Straight!

This is my 3rd and final post in the “Joe Series”.

In my June 1, 2009 post, we met Joe. He lost his job and was surprised that for the first time a new job didn’t simply come his way. Months passed without a job in sight. Out of work. Money running low. A very scary time. And he offered us some great first-hand advice on how to handle this totally unsettling experience.

Well, he and I continued our discussion via e-mail and I want to share more of his thoughts, including some great advice he got from a friend in HR about how to handle the job interview process. It changed his entire job hunt. Here’s what he told me:

I was shocked at how poor my job hunting skills had become after 20 years of solid work history. Now I know how divorced people feel when they try to date again after decades of companionship. I never had to actually compete for a job. Sending a resume or filling out an application was usually a formality.

Your resume really really really matters. Please believe me!

Luckily, a good friend of mine who is an HR professional sat me down after listening politely to me whine and set me straight. She ripped my resume apart and then asked me how many jobs I applied for in an average week. When I told her about 10, she told me for a job hunt it should be 10 a day. I told her my skill set and experience don’t match that many local positions. She said I need to start looking in neighboring areas and if I was over or under qualified, the employers would weed me out.

It pays to have lots of resumes out there

What she didn’t tell me at the time was that it also increased my level of hope tenfold because I had a lot more lines in the water. It didn’t crush me to not get a second interview when I had 3 other interviews waiting.

One final piece of advice I would offer is to choose your advice carefully. (Friend in HR…good.  Well-meaning mother…not always so good.) In hindsight, my mother gave me absolutely horrible advice. She practically harassed me to take any $10 an hour job that came along (I made a little over $30 an hour previously). I’m not suggesting I should starve out of pride, but why would any company let me manage millions of dollars worth of their IT infrastructure if I currently sell flat screen TVs at Best Buy? I knew I was right, but she made me doubt myself many times when people weren’t returning my calls. One of the worst things that can happen when you’re unemployed is to lose your confidence.

The right advice can make all the difference

Choose wisely.  I was very lucky to have a friend who cared enough to tell me the truth. I should mention that I had at least a dozen other friends review my resume and they all told me it was great! She broke it down for me like this:

- The resume gets you the phone interview.

- The phone interview gets you the in-person interview.

- The in-person interview gets you the second interview which could be the final interview or lead to a meeting with the boss, CEO, owner, etc.

Your level of success should clearly tell you where you’re failing. For example, if you get plenty of phone interviews but no in-person interviews, you need to take a hard look at your telephone interviewing skills. I troubleshoot things for a living so this explanation made perfect sense to me. Once I straightened out my resume (and seriously improved my cover letter by making it less generic) I started getting offers for interviews.

After doing some phone interviews that didn’t move me to the next level, I next researched the hell out of telephone interviews…

And so on and so on. With a little help from his friend, Joe finally approached his job search the way he would any problem – using all his best business skills. And my favorite part of the story is not only did he  finally land a job, he’s even happier now in this new job than he was in his last one! Even scary times can turn into something good if you don’t lose hope and just keep working at creating your own luck.

Best to you, Joe. And thanks for all your great advice.

Ronnie Ann

Do you have your own advice to share? Have you ever been out of work for a long period of time? If so, how did you stays sane?

Other posts in the “Joe Series”:

How NOT to Waste Time While Looking for a Job (1st post)

Being Out of Work is Just Plain Scary (2nd post)

Some related articles from Work Coach Cafe:

Resume Help

How a New Resume and Cover Letter Got Her the Job Interview!

18 Things You Can Do to Ace Your Job Interview

15 Things I Look for When I Interview People

10 Things I Look for When I Screen Resumes

Please Help Me Ace My Phone Interview!