Corporate Survivor with Mei Phing : Career Growth In The Corporate World - Ep76: I applied for 800 jobs and got NOTHING.

Starting point is 00:00:00 Welcome to the Corporate Survivor Podcast, where we talk about how to grow your career confidence, build your skills and value, increase your salary, and the many lessons we learn in the corporate world. For more career support, click on over to www.mayping.com. This is Mayping, your corporate leader turned career coach. I hope you enjoy, like and subscribe. Hello and welcome back to another episode of my Career Career Online and Offline podcast. And we are still in week three of my 30-day client success story series, wherein this week we'll be focusing on the client successes in their job search process.

Starting point is 00:00:43 So if you're one of those who have been struggling in your job search, you have been applying for jobs for months, you have barely gotten any interviews, or you have not actually been successful in any of the interviews as well, then this series is definitely for you. This episode is definitely for you. So in today's story, I actually want to share with you one of my biggest client

Starting point is 00:01:05 transformations as well so um if you are a job seeker i'm sure you know that you know applying for jobs is a really frustrating process and for this particular client when he first came to me he told me that maybe i've actually applied for 800 jobs over one year 800 jobs so the moment i heard about it i felt so sorry for him because it must be such a frustrating process to apply for like 800 jobs and um he only got about 10 interviews and he also didn't do well in those interviews as well so um he told me that okay i mean the reason why i decided to reach out to you was because I saw that you had quite similar career background to me and I really like how you have grown your career.

Starting point is 00:01:49 So I need to know right now what is actually wrong in my job search process. Is there something also wrong with my career planning? Because it is kind of frustrating after 12 months, 800 applications, like I've been tracking my job applications until I'm actually pretty pissed off already. So like, what do right for like a better word so um so as usual right like i said normally when i first work with my clients we will start with a foundational program of

Starting point is 00:02:16 three or four sessions so the first session really we talked about um career clarity what are the options is one thing but second thing we also talked about what are some of the mistakes that he has been making in his job search but he didn't even realize it and of course because of a lot of frustration the first session was um there were a lot of mindset blocks there were a lot of frustration there were a lot of um feelings of like unfairness right um because he has also been a you know performing quite well at his job and he felt that you know he was a strong candidate but again he felt that why that was it was unfair why he was not given the opportunity what's wrong with

Starting point is 00:02:57 his job search process what's wrong with his resume what's wrong with his networking process because he is just not getting the opportunities and he's seeing all his peers and friends moving on to better companies outside of the industry because he's looking to transition but he's not getting the same thing so that was when he decided that he was going to reach out to me um just to get some perspective on basically what he's done what he has been doing wrong and basically what are some of the more effective steps, right, to actually get results in his job search process. So first session really talking about options, but I actually managed to identify a lot of mistakes

Starting point is 00:03:35 that he was making in his job search that he didn't think it was mistakes just because, you know, he worked in two companies, grown in the company over the past 10, 11 years. But what that also meant is that he didn't have much experience in the job market, meaning that the methods that he had learned for, I don't know, resume writing, LinkedIn, job search, was actually pretty outdated methods. Those were actually outdated strategies that don't actually work anymore.

Starting point is 00:04:08 So that was something that he didn't really realize. in the first session was really tackling that and make sure that we infuse back a lot of confidence in him to make sure that you know it's just a it's just a problem around positioning it's a positioning point problem it the only miss the only thing that he didn't have skills that to be honest is writing a strong resume to position himself that was the only skill that he lacked't have skills at to be honest is writing a strong resume to position himself that was the only skill that he lacked he didn't lack any education he didn't like any real technical skills he didn't like any soft skills right leadership qualities he actually had all of that the only thing he didn't have was how to position himself well in a resume and how to actually utilize effective modern job search methods. And that is actually a very unique skill set.

Starting point is 00:04:51 It's totally fine if you don't have it because, like I said, not everybody is a hiring manager. So that means that not everybody actually has that knowledge or exposure to know these things. And it's completely fine right so if you're feeling like oh you know um a bit disgruntled a bit demotivated that you don't know some of the mistakes you're making completely fine so just make sure that you speak to an expert somebody who can actually point it out to you then you'll be on you'll be on your way in no time so again back to this client right first session options but i think what was actually very interesting was that once i pointed out to him all the mistakes that he was making in his past 12 months 800 applications it was like a

Starting point is 00:05:31 a light bulb just appeared on his mind he was like oh my god i wasted so much time beating myself up thinking that i am useless thinking that my experience is not valuable even though i'm an associate director like how can my experience be invaluable but now learning about all this mistake i am so shocked and i felt that i should have reached out earlier because i could have avoided all this drama for like 12 months right but the good thing about when we first when we first ended the first session was that he walked away knowing that hey there is a solution there's a better strategy and now at least i know my mistakes i know what not to do because i always tell my clients right if you you guys want to know what to do the first thing even before you apply

Starting point is 00:06:15 any tips any strategies or any actions is learning what not to do because if you're taking actions in the right direction but you're carrying a massive baggage around all the mistakes, then like you can't go far. It's like you're driving a car, but you're hitting accelerator and brake at the same time. So you're not going to see much progress because like there's a lot of push and pull and you can't actually go full up.

Starting point is 00:06:37 So knowing mistakes is like one of those things that are so fundamental to make sure that you eliminate and make sure you don't make these mistakes again. and that's something that i normally cover in my first session as part of career clarity and direction to make sure that we identify mistakes make sure we get rid of them as we focus and looking towards the future so that was what we did in the first session so it came back a lot more clarity in the second session he was actually able to tell me more clearly what he actually wants to do right what kind of industries he wants to work in and some of the areas that he is considering but he's still a bit worried whether his resume is strong enough or not so in the second one-on-one session i was actually able to focus on better position positioning himself and actually

Starting point is 00:07:20 bringing out a lot of these strong points that would make sense in a commercial and MNC. So his actual situation was he has been in the consulting and advisory industry for all of his career. So if you have been in the advisory, consulting, auditing, you know, those kinds of professional industries, right? If you have been there for a long time, sometimes it can be quite frustrating of not knowing how to get out of those industries, right? industries right if you have been there for a long time sometimes it can be quite frustrating of

Starting point is 00:07:45 not knowing how to get out of those industries right so the transition from a advisory consulting company to a global mnc to a i don't another commercial company be the startup right sme or mnc actually is a very delicate process and it can actually be done with the right strategy because I have actually helped a lot of my clients make that transition but it's a very intentional transition because don't forget there are hundreds and thousands of people also in advisory and consulting also wanting to move out to the commercial world right so you are in competition with all those hundreds of people who are potentially applying the same jobs as you so that's why the positioning point comes in right the achievement the positioning point

Starting point is 00:08:29 what makes him unique what makes his experience experiences way more valuable than the other person that was something that we actually went deep dive in the second session to make sure that he is very clear and not just he is clear the recru recruiter HR hiring manager who is reading it is absolutely clear what he can actually do. So that was something that we went through in absolute detail in the second session. And when he came to the third session, he actually cleaned up his resume quite well. There were just some minor tweaks that we made, but it was already very clear. And also the other thing, when I do the foundation program with my clients, right, for the foundation job seeker to win a program that normally is six sessions. But the short version is about three to four sessions is I will normally also include a LinkedIn video training, which covers the how to build a LinkedIn profile and how to find a job on LinkedIn, which covers the four key methods on how to do that.

Starting point is 00:09:24 All right. The job search and networking methods on LinkedIn, which covers the four key methods on how to do that. The job search and networking methods on LinkedIn. So before the third session, he did the video training. He made changes to his profile. Also started applying the job search strategies on LinkedIn as well. So the third session, I had a final look at his resume, made some final suggestions on just making it a little bit more precise in some areas that was just a little bit off then we went into his linkedin profile again some final feedback on

Starting point is 00:09:51 that was actually pretty well done already i say that like this client is a really good client from the training itself he was able to capture a lot of the key points actually able to implement it really well like even before the one-on-one training like i say that he got about like 80 85 percent of what i wanted him to take away from the linkedin training which was actually really good for him then in the third session where the last part of the third session we also talked a little bit about the career options available so the good thing is that when he started updating his resume started sending it, he was getting some opportunities. So that's why in the third session, we were actually able to talk about evaluating jobs, evaluating suitable jobs, evaluating potential job offers that his network was sharing with him as well.

Starting point is 00:10:38 So this is actually a really great proof that your job search and networking strategy is actually working. But again, as usual, as I said in all the other episodes as well, a really great proof that your job search and networking strategy is actually working but again as usual as i said in all the other episodes as well your foundation is so important because if you don't have the right foundation if you go out there networking you go out there doing your job search but the moment they the moment you send your resume or the moment you know the hiring manager sees your linkedin profile they'll be so like, you know, turned off by the poor quality that they're seeing either in your offline version, which is your resume or the online version, which is your LinkedIn profile. So that's why the foundation is so, so, so, so, so critical.

Starting point is 00:11:15 So anyway, for this client, basically the bundle that we worked in was the three one-on-one sessions, which is number one, career options and direction number two resume number three linkedin profile and a little bit of job suitability because he was able to progress a little bit further and of course the two and a half hour linkedin video training as well that actually taught him the step-by-step so that was actually the bundle that we worked in and since then he has received multiple job offers. And just a couple of months ago, he actually dropped me a message and just said, hey, you know, like all the methods that you've been teaching me, it's been really great. And it gives me more opportunity to actually consider the multiple job offers and really ask myself, what do I really want?

Starting point is 00:12:02 And is this something that I'm willing to commit to as part of my career growth? And recently, he actually gave me an update saying that he just signed a job offer with a very interesting startup in a really emerging space that is a great opportunity. It's very niche. That means that highly specialized, which also means that he can actually get paid

Starting point is 00:12:22 the number that he wants. And it also means that he adds an additional expertise in his resume and his skill set that probably most people will not have. So the moral of the story, the takeaway of this story is that you may be struggling right now and you may be at the point where my client was struggling with 800 job applications, right? 10 interviews, 800 job applications, 10 interviews in 12 months,

Starting point is 00:12:48 not a comfortable situation, not a happy situation, extremely frustrating situation, right? So if you're ever at that point, similar to my client, the point that I want to share his success story with you is that don't give up, don't give up. But what you need to do is to make sure that you are learning the right strategy learning and applying the right strategies because if you

Starting point is 00:13:13 if you have been searching for a job for more than three months you have applied to like you know more than 100 applications you don't hear back or you get very very few interviews something is wrong with your strategy so don't keep doing something that you know is not working because that is a really frustrating process. And eventually, it will also hurt your self-confidence and it will make you question whether you are a valuable professional or not. And that should not be the case. Okay, so like I said, what you're actually lacking is you learning

Starting point is 00:13:42 and applying the right strategies. And in most instances, you probably don't have resume writing skills. like i said what you're actually lacking is you learning and applying the right strategies and in most instances you probably don't have resume writing skills you don't really have like a proper linkedin um linkedin strategies that probably you're or you're getting advice from the wrong people just that could be multiple reasons but the most important point is to recognize that if you have not been getting results after hundreds of applications for months, then whatever that you're doing right now is not working. So don't keep going down a path that is not working because it will definitely hurt your self-confidence.

Starting point is 00:14:14 So with that, I hope that this client success story actually inspires you that no matter how many hundreds of applications that you have submitted in the past, it is not the end. The moment you tweak your mindset, tweak your perspective, tweak your strategy and action plan, you can see results fast as long as you're always focused on career growth and like I said, applying the right strategy. So with that, I'll end this episode. I hope that this episode and this entire series and this

Starting point is 00:14:40 entire podcast inspires you and empowers you to really take action in the right direction and move towards career growth move towards career success whether it's in the pandemic or not it does not matter because you are in charge of your career success so if you enjoyed this episode remember to like and subscribe and if you want to share your own story remember to tag me at meepinglim on linkedin and i'll see you in the next episode bye

Corporate Survivor with Mei Phing : Career Growth In The Corporate World - Ep76: I applied for 800 jobs and got NOTHING.

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