5 Job Hunting Tips For People That Dread It

There are lots of reasons you might dread job hunting. There’s the fact that you’re putting yourself out there professionally, the pressure of needing to make money and expectation by others to have a job, the fear that you won’t find a place that fits you, whatever the reason might be, job hunting can cause even the most confident and diligent person some stress.

You don’t have to love job hunting, but there are ways to make it a lot easier and cause you less trouble. It can feel like you don’t have much control during the process, but you’d be surprised by how much you can influence just following a few simple tips and best practices.

Use Cover Letter + Resume Templates

When you apply to a new job, it’s no secret that you should include a professional history and skill set that meets the requirements in the job advertisement. Creating a resume and cover letter can be one of the biggest hassles when it comes to job hunting though.

You have to think about the layout, the theme, choosing the sections you want to include and what to leave out – it can be quite the tedious process – even before you get to writing a personalized cover letter to stand out.

Skip a lot of the hassle by doing two things.

  • Use plug-and-play templates for both your resume and cover letter to make it easier on the design front.
  • Look at examples of resumes for the position that you’re looking for (examples: “administrative assistant,” “accountant,” “editorial assistant,” followed by “resume”). In that way, you’ll find new ways to list your skills or sections you didn’t initially think were relevant, like “relevant coursework” or “technical skills.”

Where To Find Resume + Cover Letter Templates:

  • Canva
    • Sign in or create an account. After that, you can search the many templates available and find the ones for “resume” and “cover letter.”
  • Google Docs Template Gallery
    • Once you log into your Google Suite/Gmail account, you can navigate to the Google Docs application and at the top of the page, you should find a template gallery that you can expand that features a great selection of resume and cover letter templates.
  • Microsoft Word Resume Templates
    • Microsoft Word was one of the original best sources of free templates for resumes. It continues to offer a great range of basic template options, along with ones that cater to certain industries like marketing or service.

Tailor Your Application to The Job Ad

If you find that you aren’t getting callbacks or responses to jobs that you apply to, the reason could be that your resume’s content doesn’t fit the specifications for the position. The first qualification you need to meet for almost any job is experience related to the role.

If you’re applying for customer service jobs but your resume doesn’t mention any experience or background in that industry, it’s an easy way for employers to eliminate or prioritize certain applicants over others.

It’s actually becoming more common for applications to never be seen by an actual person – with an estimated 80 percent of resumes being reviewed by an applicant tracking system (ATS), rather than an actual recruiter.

That’s why you’ll save time and increase your chances of getting a response from employers if you initially tailor your resume to the requirements listed in the job ad you’re applying for. That doesn’t mean you can’t apply to a job if you don’t meet all the requirements – just that you should try to feature the most relevant qualifications you have to what the employers are looking for.

At the end of the day, the company needs to validate that a candidate can meet at least some of the requirements for a role that was carefully thought out and developed to fulfill their needs.

Related: What To Do When You Feel Like The Odd One Out At Work

Read Employee Reviews

Have you ever found yourself in a new job and thought that it wasn’t what you expected? Maybe you realize that it’s not the best working environment or the culture doesn’t fit your expectations and needs as an employee. You can avoid being blindsided by looking into the work culture ahead of time for a company that you’re considering joining.

It’s common to get caught up with getting a job based on the title you want or the salary + perks, but no job is worth having if it makes you unhealthy or really unhappy. Get some insight into what your new job will be like by looking up reviews by current or previous employees through job boards like Glassdoor or Indeed.

You’d be surprised how honest reviews are and what you might find online just by conducting a simple Google search on that company. Besides online job board reviews, you could stumble upon a testimony from a Reddit post or elsewhere. It’s also always worth it to look up the company on Linkedin and see how long their employees have worked there on average.

If it’s a smaller company you’ll also usually be able to tell, if that’s a concern of yours whether you work for a larger company or want something more intimate with a small team. You could even stumble upon your future coworkers and get to know them a bit before you even meet them through their social media updates.

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Look Up Related Job Titles

There are usually multiple titles associated with a job. The keywords you enter into a job board search are often not the only ones that will get you the type of position you’re looking for. For example, Marketing Specialist and Marketing Coordinator are titles that can be used interchangeably. You could end up doing a similar set of tasks and responsibilities regardless of the title that is used in the job posting.

That’s why it’s important to look into related job titles for the position you’re looking for or the different types of titles used for the industry you want to work in. When you look for jobs, don’t just use one job title, search for multiple related titles that can expand your reach for the type of position you’re looking for – otherwise, you might miss out on applying to a job that fits your criteria.

Practice For Interviews

If you’ve never practiced for an interview before it’s never too late to start. Landing an interview is a major step for getting any job, so it might seem like an achievement all on its own that you celebrate. You should definitely reward yourself for getting an invitation to interview, but you also shouldn’t disregard your preparation for it.

Most people prepare for interviews by reading up on the company or thinking about responses to common interview questions for the job that you’re applying for. Which are all great strategies that you should use before the day of the interview, but rehearsing for the actual interview can be just as helpful.

You’d be surprised by how much confidence you gain by hearing your voice out loud. Tip #1:Try both asking the questions to yourself as if you were the interviewer and then answering it. By placing yourself in a similar situation before the actual event happens you’ll feel more comfortable and think more clearly when it matters.
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Tip #2: Consider watching videos of interviews online as well, to see by demonstration other ways that you can approach answering questions.




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Hana Othman

Hana Othman is the founder of SimpleHermit.com and identifies as an INFJ. Most days you can find her typing away or reading a book. Beyond that, she keeps busy as a dog and cat mom.