I Keep Applying to Jobs But I'm Not Getting Any Responses

Welcome to roadmap to the executive suite podcast, a place where we talk about accelerating your careers all tailored to the ambitious woman. We're here to have fun, feel empowered and get actionable steps to get you closer to your dream job and salary, no matter where you are in your career. I'm your host, Claudia Miller,

Athena, career coach and corporate trainer who helps ambitious women get the jobs they want, almost getting them up to $100,000 in salary increases. I've been featured in Forbes MSNBC, and Business Insider put me there Top Global list of top innovative career coaches, and the creative 90 day job offer program where I teach career driven women like you my proprietary strategy on how to land a job you love in less than 90 days, all while getting 30 to$100,000 in salary increases, no matter if you're just starting in your career, or you're ready to pivot into the executive suite. My clients have been able to move to the next step in their careers successfully pivoted into new industries without having to take a pay cut and broke it into management without any prior experience. I'm coming to you with a new episode every week on Thursdays with mindset job search, interview skills and sound negotiation advice with actionable strategies you can implement today to help you get ahead in your career. Now let's get started with this week's episode. I am so excited for today's topic. Today we're gonna be talking about I keep applying to jobs from not getting any responses. And I get this a lot. And it's very common now for the intent of this episode specifically, I'm just going to talk about just applying for jobs not after you've interviewed, you got ghosted and didn't hear back are going to get the job offer. For this intent. It's going to be focusing more on the initial phase, you've applied to jobs. You haven't heard anything back or specific responses. And if you want me to do the focus off like, well, after you apply, you're not getting the job offer or you're being ghosted, or they're not following up with you, then put it in the comments. And I'll be happy to do that video. But for this specific episode, it's going to be talking about how to actually fix that. So you keep applying to Jasper, you're not getting a responses, and how can you change it. That's what I'll be focusing on today. So if you're currently feeling frustrated that you're not getting any responses to any of the Java applications you've submitted, or maybe your confidence has been shaken since you started your job search, especially because you're not hearing back. No worries, this episode is going to be all about how to fix that, and maybe the top five mistakes you may be doing, and most jobseekers make and how to fix those situations. So hi, if you don't know me, my name is Claudia Miller. And I'm a career coach. And I help career driven women get the jobs they want, at salaries they love. And on average, my clients get jobs within 90 days or less. And my clients get an average of 56% in salary increases. So I've had clients get up to $120,000, in additional earned income by working with me. And this episode is all about helping you land the job you want. So that is my primary focus. So when you apply to jobs, when we don't hear back, we start thinking some of the following. Not as good as you think you are, they haven't heard back, maybe I'm doing something wrong, maybe you just are lower, I thought I was really good. Maybe I should apply to this role. Maybe I should pull back, maybe I should, you know apply to roles that I'm already qualified for or over quote, especially since I'm not hearing back. Or maybe you just need to apply for more jobs, you just need to like buckle down and really go heavy on the job applications. And maybe you've already applied to 50 or 100 jobs, but you just need to apply tomorrow. That's the only way right. Or maybe you need to go back to school or get some certifications in order to make you feel competitive and make you stand out. Maybe that's what you need to do. So these are the typically the top reasons that I hear. They want people to start thinking when they're not hearing back when it comes to job applications. So these are some of the misconceptions I want to touch on because if you're experiencing them just know that you're not alone. Most people do, but it is not the right thinking. And it's not the right solution either. So I'll discuss a little bit towards the end the solutions and why they work and why these conceptions that your thinking or these thoughts are not being helpful to you, and it's not going to help you in your job search. So one of the things I want to do is talk about the top five reasons why you're not hearing back. So usually I'll start with your resume. It can be your resume right now you're not selling yourself the right way or the role you're going after. And this is very common. I hear this from a lot of seekers, even salespeople or even executives. I don't know how to sell myself. I don't know how to brand myself. have, I don't know how to put all my years of experience into like one or two pages, I just have so much I don't know what to pick a choose. And the problem with that is your resume, it should be a one or two page document. It is not a bibliography. And it's not meant to be a book, unless it's a CV and you're going for like the academic, then those tend to be longer. But for the most part, it should not be longer than two pages. Why? Because honestly, the more that you're going to read probably the second page, more than likely, they're going to focus on the top half of the resume, that's primary real estate, when it comes to resumes. That's really what they focus on. That's what's going to tell them whether you're a good fit, and why it makes sense for you to be applying for this role, or why you're qualified better than other candidates. That's really it. And then they'll focus on your most recent roles. That's about it. Everything else is more for the computer system or keywords, depending what systems they're using. But overall, that should be your primary focus, it should not include everything you've done, it should include the best work that you've done. So there's a difference. The other thing I've seen resumes is too generic, very bland, it really doesn't say anything, it's very task focused, no works with different departments. Or it could be something like manages various projects at the same time. doesn't really tell me much. And if you're applying to a job, more than likely all the other candidates are saying the same thing. So imagine everyone's saying the same thing over and over again, no one stands out. If you're a project manager, and in your resume, you have manages various different projects with different timelines. Honestly, it doesn't really tell me anything more than likely, there's going to be at least 250 applicants for that one job posting based on the data and stats that I've seen. And this was pre COVID. So it might be a little bit higher now. But we don't currently have data for that. But imagine 240 of those people say, I know how to manage projects, I work with various teams and departments. That really doesn't tell me anything, it just tells me what everyone else has been saying, of course, I expect you to manage your pipeline project manager role. So you want to be a little bit more intentional. And sometimes the information is outdated. And what I mean by that is if you're an individual contributor, and you're applying for a manager role, more than likely I see resumes that speak to the individual contributor role, then don't talk anything about their leadership, any of the mentorship that they've done, maybe some of the classes they've taken, or some of the work that they've done alongside their managers to help develop team like there is no management and leadership experience whatsoever in the resume. And maybe there is it's all the way at the top. So instead, you want to make sure your resume reflects for the role you're applying for. So if you're applying for the senior director role, and you're currently director, which should speak to senior director, responsibilities and accolades, for the most part, you've already had done some of those things. And you've already managed the team. So that's what you want to focus on, not what, you know, kind of going into the weeds of it. The other thing is that there's not enough metrics. It's just, you know, I work with various clients, I manage, you know, various product developments. I work with different systems. And there's no specific metric, which tells me nothing, or I produce higher than my other peers. Okay, by like, how much by like, one more unit? Is it by $1? More like, what are we talking about here? So in your resume should definitely include more metrics. And some of the quick metrics that I could think of is, how big or how much annual revenue is your company generating, it could be I work with financial and tech industries, with revenues of up to $50 million in annual revenue. And if you don't know the revenue, just look up your company on Google and just look up Acme annual revenue. And I'll tell you that annual revenue, so there's a metric right there really quickly. So also, like, how long were you able to finish a project? Or on average, what are the riches of projects, you worked with projects ranging from three months all the way to two years? Now that gives me a little bit more landscape that I can give you small projects, middle and big projects, and you can handle them all? It could be how many people you serve. If you're in tech, or your software engineer, or product development will how many clients Does your company have? Do you serve on average, or bank? Do you average of 50,000 clients or customers that you have? Whether you can say you're a software engineer, working on projects, serving over 50,000 customers? Again, you see how the metrics are evolving. It also helps with increasing the imagination. You telling me that you exceeded or you manage something doesn't tell me much? Like oh, I'm the highest producing sales rep. Okay, buy like $1 More $10 More 50 A million. Tell me more and that way we can take control of the read There's imagination, because everyone's going to have a different concept, or an idea of what that looks like. So make sure that you're specific, it could be time, how much savings, and then do it for the length of the project, I actually currently am working with a client where she was able to save $100,000 in savings in one month. But that also means that for the length of the project is going to be about a year. So she's saving $100,000 a month, in one year, it'd be around 1.2 million. So instead, we put saving to capital with a project has Excel over 1.2 million, and to date has saved over $100,000. At this point, you see how the numbers start evolving, you want to be very specific and not generic. The other thing is, it could also be your LinkedIn profile. There are so many LinkedIn profiles that I've seen when clients come to me that are just not updated. I know it's kind of a hassle, updating your LinkedIn and you don't want maybe your company or employer to know, depending how active they are. But you still need to update your LinkedIn, it could be even your position, what you do there, it could be like the skills portion, it could be your understanding of things. And if you really don't want your employer to know, at least update the skills portion, I don't think that there's companies that actually audit like what skills you currently have and what you don't have. And if you're like well, I don't know, if a company is like looking at my LinkedIn, look at people who viewed your profile in the past 90 days, to any of these people look like HR within your company, or anyone that works at your current organization. If you don't see anyone 90 days more than likely, they're not going to remember what you had on your LinkedIn profile. Because I bet you, I told you, who's the last person you went and looked at their LinkedIn profile? Now tell me by memory, what is it that they had in their LinkedIn profile, most of you won't even be able to remember, I wouldn't even be able to remember. So don't always be wary about my employers gonna know they're gonna find me or I see people peeking. They might be peeking. But they're not going to remember the updates that you make or how much you change the verbiage. So make sure your LinkedIn profile is updated, and that it matches your resume. A big red flag for recruiters or HR people is when they have your resume, and they see your LinkedIn. And there's kind of a huge difference that makes them think that potentially you're lying. Because LinkedIn, it's something public. And resumes are sent more privately. And if you're let's just say you say you mentioned in your resume, you saved over 1.2 million. But in your LinkedIn profile said you saved over 50,000. That seems like a little bit off to me. Like I think like, which one is true. And it might be like, Well, my, I haven't updated my LinkedIn. Well, we want to make sure the LinkedIn matches the resume, we don't want to give them any potential red flags or any ideas that potentially you may be lying about it. So definitely update that. also update your LinkedIn for the brand or for the level of work you want. There's many times where I've had clients where managers and they're applying for director position and on their LinkedIn headline it says manager at company name. Instead, it should be maybe their suffering Junior manager, it could be sophomore junior leader, and blink company that's way better than sophomore junior manager. Because when I'm looking at the LinkedIn profile, and I see this person is branding themselves as a software engineer, manager, and I'm trying to hire for director position. To me, I'm seeing a disconnect. Why is this manager I rather focus on all the other candidates that are directors are ready, because I'm hiring for Director role. Especially they're only spending six to eight seconds on your resume and your LinkedIn profile. But when you say software engineering leader, 90 consider you as a leader. And now they're applying for director position director positions, our leader position, now you're still in the run, you see the difference. So make sure your LinkedIn profile is branded and updated for the role you want, not the role you currently have. The other thing is, you haven't found your competitive advantage. And therefore your branding materials, resume cover and LinkedIn are all bland, you haven't done any you don't know like the top skills are for this specific role in industry, you haven't understood like, even if you're transitioning industries, that can actually be used as a huge competitive advantage because we know more than likely other candidates don't have your specific experience. So it's all about the packaging and brandy, you need to find your competitive advantage and I promise you, everyone has a competitive advantage. You might say like well, no con i just started or maybe I'm entry level or maybe I don't have all this experience or anything. But everyone from my experience from working with hundreds of clients, they all have a competitive advantage. So it's, you want to figure out what that is for you based on your experience and background. There Next thing is you're applying to roles that have already been filled. And you may need to start networking to tap into the job hidden market, especially with those job postings the job posted was over two, three weeks ago, more than likely, they have already started. Sorry to say that. So you want to focus on the jobs that have been currently posted. And even LinkedIn, there's a lag in my show LinkedIn, like it got posted six hours ago. But on the company website, it was posted over two weeks ago, they probably already started filtering resumes. So if anything, keep an alert, especially look at the company, job postings. And so keep an eye on LinkedIn if you're indeed or ladder or angel list, whatever job boards you're using. So keep an eye on that. Because there could be a discrepancy in timeframe. And again, you're just coming too late to the job market or to that job posting overall. So that may be a reason why you're not hearing back, they're probably already trying to finalize and send an offer, and you just submit your resume, they forgot. And it's very common. Recruiters or HR, people forgot that they still have the job posting in the job boards. And therefore they just leave it there. And of course, people continue applying and they're like, Oh, we forgot to close this, we actually already hired someone, this person is already started and doing the work, let's bring it down. So it's very common to do that. So like the rule of thumb would be like, if I already have some identified companies, then I would just put an alert or go into the organization that themselves and see when it's posted. And of course you want to apply, you want to be the first few applicants. And you may be applying to like a few roles that usually don't come by through job boards, like executive or leadership roles. If you're applying for an AVP head, or, you know, sometimes like CEO or senior director roles. They don't always show up in job boards, it could be for many reasons, especially when it comes to executive level positions, they might not want to put the job posting on a job board, because one, it can impact the stock, oh, there's a new the company is looking for a new CFO or CIO or CTO like what's happening, you know, there's something going on, maybe I should sell my stock now. And it could plummet stock right there. So they might want to avoid that because they want to maintain confidence in the company itself. Another reason is, maybe they're trying to kick out that current CEO or Executive in that position, but they don't want them to know. So they might go and hire a recruiting company to hire in their behalf. So that way, they're able to stay anonymous, and the person doesn't know that they're trying to be kicked out out of that role. Or it could be like, it's a really hard specific role to hire for, especially when it comes in tech, like a Cecil RA or someone that specific application that's done integration within financing who's a sec regulated, and there's so much regulation going around it, that it's going to be hard for them, they already know, or maybe they've tried to hire, but they just can't. So they're going to go again, with a recruiting form, looking for someone with that talent. So some of the roles you may be applying for or looking to apply for are just not going to be able to be found in a job port, you may have to go through an executive recruiter or recruitment firm to find those specific opportunities. So we talked a little bit more of like the top five reasons why you're probably not hearing back. And what I want to talk about now is, you know, what to do instead, how to fix it like, okay, maybe you identified Alright, here's what I'm doing. Oh, that's exactly me. Alright, I found out what I'm doing wrong. How do I change and fix my situation? Well, well, you want to just actually start tracking, I love metrics. Let's look at the data. You want to look at how many jobs you're applying for. When did you apply? You know, how many interviews did you get like first round interviews? How many second round interviews? How many third, round interviews? And like what is that percentage and data across that? Now, the other thing is, you want to make sure you start auditing your resume is resume, the issue is your LinkedIn profile is your branding. When it comes to your resume, there's two ways you can take an audit. So the first one is, if you already started applying, he get immediately rejected for roles you know, you're qualified for, you need help with your resume. Or if you're applying to 10 jobs, and you're not getting at least one or two interviews for jobs, you know, you're ready for and then you're qualified for you have a proper resume. There's something happening there. That's not right. And for whatever reason, that's why it's not getting you interviews. So grilla metric 10 jobs, you apply to 10 jobs. And if you're not getting one or two interviews, there's something wrong with your resume. Another thing that you can do, which is you can use job scan, I think it's a really great resource. And then I'll include the link, as well as here. I'll send it over to everyone but jobscan is a really great resource and it's free for the First Pacific, five scans, I believe, but you're able to submit it, paste your resume, post your job posting or the job that you're interested in applying for. It'll scan it, and it'll say how well is your resume aligned for this position? What keywords are missing? What keywords, you did a great job and included in there. And it can give you a really quick audit in your resume, it literally would take maybe like a minute to do the entire process. And it also mimics like an ATS system. So the applicant tracking system. So if you keep going into a black hole to getting rejected, it might be because you're not finding yourself the right way, you're not using the right keywords, and jobscan is a really quick fix for that, that you can access. And that could be a really quick way to audit your resume. So those are the two primary ways to audit your resume. The other thing is, like I mentioned, make sure you include metrics, like who did you work with? How did you work with how fast how much savings? How big is a company? How many customers do you serve? How big is a project? Is there a budget, how big and small are the ranges of projects or budgets that you've worked with? How many people have you managed not just your direct reports, but your entire department, those are all metrics that need to be included in your resume. So you want to make sure you have a very strong resume, because that's what's going to get you in the door. That's what's going to get you interviews, it will never get your job offer, but it will get you interviews. The other thing is also lead with achievements in that task when it comes to your resume. Like I said, a lot of people put in their resume, you know, managers different projects, uses A, B and C and D Systems, worked with various departments and, you know, looks into dues savings and manage budgets. That doesn't tell me, especially if you're applying for like a manager role, more than likely all the applicants are going to have the same experience or have already been in manager and had that experience. So you need to stand out against them. So how can you do that lead with achievements, very few people lead with achievements. Instead of saying you manage different projects, it could be lead to facilitate projects within for both technical and non technical teams with an average range of over nine months. And it could be something like nine months. And 90% of projects are completed with an on time and within budget. And it could be something like IE most recently just finished a million dollar project within a two year timeframe. And able to go to market and have a successful launch, which generated in its first year over $5 million in sales. Like, again, talk about the achievement not just what you've done. Because again, everyone is saying that but achievements very few people have and do so start quantifying them and start leading with achievements. The other thing is on to your LinkedIn. Again, you can also use job scan. So you can run job scan with different job postings you're interested in. And it has a specific skill sections, and LSA hard skills. Once you get those hard skills and you get that feedback, go to your LinkedIn profile and look at your skill section. Do you have these hard skills in your LinkedIn profile if you don't start adding them, and the more you run job postings, the more of a list you have and continue beefing up that LinkedIn profile, again for the roles you want and not the girl you currently have. And then you have a list of like the top skills you keep seeing over and over again. And now you know to embed that either in your headline in your about section or in other areas of your LinkedIn profile. And you want to make sure your LinkedIn really resembles as close as possible to your resume. Now if you don't want to disclose client information in your LinkedIn, but you're comfortable doing it on your resume, then you can say something like, oh, just say it's Amazon, that current client or something that was successful to Amazon. But uh, you don't want to put that on LinkedIn, because you don't know if you're gonna get in trouble, then you can say something like, worked with Amazon successfully and saved over, you know, $100,000 in contract value every month or saved over $1.2 million in contract negotiation through Amazon, or Amazon vendor, you might put that on LinkedIn is like saved over $1.2 million in contract value for a top reputable ecommerce, or a top reputable tech company with over$5 billion in annual revenue. Again, they know it's the organization so they're not going to be too iffy about it. They just know you probably don't want to just disclose that on a public profile. But that could be a good way to get around it. The other thing is you want to start networking and identifying like the top three skills that are hardest to hire for, especially when it comes to your role and then If you want to also tap into that hidden job market, sometimes, like I said, you're not going to be able to find those jobs or job boards. Or if you feel like these roles have already been filled, and you're coming too late to the game, you definitely should consider networking to get into that job. Even if you don't have a network, you can always build a network. And it's easy. And if you don't know how to do it, I show you in my 90 day job offer program, how to identify and build a network when you don't have one to get you the job you want. But network, it's also going to help you identify those unknowns, do you really need to get that certification? Do you really need to go get that MBA? What about this experience? How is this going to be important for me or not? That's when you want to tap into your network to answer those unknowns for you. So that way, you are clear and not assuming what you want or should be going after. It's also going to relieve you from guilt. Oh, I know I should be getting the certification, I know I should be going back for my masters. But I just don't have the time. But then you find out you don't really need it. Now you can say actually, I don't need to get a certification or masters, I don't need a for this role that I'm looking for, or what I'm looking to achieve in the next 10 to 15 years. And then if you're interested in executive or leadership roles, then you want to start looking with executive recruiters and how to work with them as you do and I would say it's a job in itself, sometimes finding the right recruiter, especially when it comes to executive recruiters and filtering them out. And sometimes it could be a part time job just managing them. So again, if you're like caught out, this sounds great. I don't know how to do that. Again, I discussed this, and I show you how in my program, 90 day job offer, where it's a good coaching program where it gives you access to everything I just discussed. Now the reason why this strategy works, it's because it's very intentional and strategic. We're not assuming we're collecting data, we're looking at the data. And we have benchmarks. Remember 10 jobs, you should be getting one or two interviews, not there's nothing wrong with your resume. You no longer are second guessing yourself, or the situation or maybe I'm not good enough, or you need to go back and get the certification or MBA, or maybe I'm not as good as I think I am I get getting passed up for promotions for jobs I thought I was even overqualified for those things just tend to go away with this process when you focus on the data and you start being intentional and strategic. And as we've heard, insanity is repeating the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. And you're like, Well, I don't do that. Or maybe I don't do that. Well, if you've applied to like 50, or even more than 30 jobs, and you haven't heard back, and your solution is why just need to buckle down and apply to more jobs. That's the definition of insanity. Instead, do the quick resume audit, like I mentioned earlier, follow those steps and how you can do that. But make sure again, that you're not repeating yourself over and over again. Instead, you want to go back and see like, Hey, let me look at my data. Is this even working? Am I converting at the level I should be? And if I'm not that I know what's wrong. And here, this is what I need to do instead. The other thing is like why it works is because we're tapping into the market, we want to make sure again, what are the hardest skills to hire for, for answering those unknown, instead of making assumptions and spending, sometimes 1000s of dollars and hours, hundreds of hours, especially if you're decided to go back to an MBA for something probably didn't even need to do. And then again, getting ahead of the game, a tap into the hidden job market. Also, it's aligned with the market is needing, we're going to line ourselves up, it could change, it could be very different from today than from a year and from two years from today, the market does change based on what they need. So that's why you always want to keep a pulse in the market by networking. So I hope this was helpful. I try to give like the top five things that I've seen job seekers do wrong, when they're not getting responses when they're applying to jobs, and what to do about it. And if you still need help, and you're not sure how to get started, like I mentioned, I have my career coaching program called 90 day job offer. And I'm offering a complimentary career strategy call where you could just get on a call with me and tell me ADIA honestly, I don't know what I'm doing wrong. But here's what I've done so far. And I can quickly do a diagnosis on like, what you're doing, what's not working and why it's not working. I've been doing this for such a long time over seven years. Now. I know exactly what you're doing wrong. I can just look at your LinkedIn profile and ask you what job you want. And I can already tell you what you may be doing wrong just alone from your LinkedIn or your resume. So if you want to figure out what is it that you're doing wrong, and how to change it, and that strategy, I haven't, like no risk, no obligation free career strategy column can get on a call and like I said, I can give you a quick feedback on what you can do what you're doing wrong. And if you want proven step by step strategy system to help you get a job in less than 90 days and already been negotiating while still getting a fitness 6% salary increase, let me know, either private message me or I'll include the link the complimentary career strategy call. And if you're on Instagram and following me, you can click on my bio link, and then it'll have the link right there on how to schedule a call with me. So I hope this was helpful. Please bring me over, let me know any other job search questions, you have challenges. I'm here to help you. Like I said, I'm running this and I'm doing these specific episodes to help you land the job you want. So I hope this was helpful. And if you can, please share with me your big aha moments or things that maybe you didn't expect or that really surprised you that you found very valuable, let me know. All right, till next week, take care. Did you know I have started 100% free Facebook group dedicated to making job searching easy for career driven women and help them master their interviewing networking inside negotiation skills. And we're doing free weekly trainings, covering everything from how to sell yourself to increasing your salary by 30% minimum. Plus, you'll be in there with a network of other ambitious women. So make sure to join us by texting us the word join 28449951523 And we'll see you there