Being out of work makes it a lot harder to find a job compared to currently being in employment. When you’re employed, job hunting might have its own challenges, but at least you have a current reference and recent experience. When you’re unemployed, it can make employers wary of you, leading to difficulties finding any work at all, let alone a job in your preferred field. If you’re struggling to find work, maybe you feel like your job search is futile. But there could be some steps that you could take to change things and make yourself a more attractive candidate.
Clean Up Your Past
For some people, a criminal record can hold them back, which makes it more difficult to get your life on the right track. Sometimes you might even be having trouble from a wrongful arrest, which still shows up on your record and puts employers off hiring you. If this is the case, you could be eligible for expungement, which wipes the arrest from your record. But what about other criminal history? Being willing and prepared to talk openly about it may help you. How have you changed since then, and what do you want your future to look like?
Get More Experience
A lack of experience can really hold you back when you’re looking for work. Sometimes just having any work experience will help you, but employers often want to see that you have experience in a specific field. Sometimes it’s enough to be able to show that your skills are transferable, but there are other times when it definitely helps to get more experience. But how can you if you can’t find work? Some things that you can do include volunteering, looking for freelance work if possible, or spending some time building your skills.
Rewrite Your Resume
If you’ve submitted lots of resumes and haven’t heard anything back, it might be because your resume needs to be rewritten. It’s good to have a template that you can adjust for each application, but you should be sure that you’re sending a tailored resume for every role. When you write your resume, make sure you’ve done your research first. As well as reading the job description thoroughly, find out about the company and its values. Make sure you align your resume or application with the role to show why you’re a good fit.
Brush Up on Your Interview Technique
For many people, interviewing is the most difficult part of finding work. You might get interview offers aplenty but then fail at the last hurdle because you’re nervous or never know what to say. The best way you can win at interviews is to put in the time to prepare. By practicing, researching the company, and preparing answers to some common questions, you can go into interviews feeling ready to convince the interview panel that you’re the right person for the job.
Finding work takes a lot of effort, but you can find a job that works for you if you know where to look and how to present yourself. Your job search will have to start somewhere, and a job board would be a decent start.
