It’s a jungle out there. Sometimes it feels like the job hunting world is survival of the fittest, and we all know some people at the top of the food chain. They are the ones that seem to nab positions before they are even posted, make amazing impressions in interviews and overall snag most jobs they apply for?
What is their secret? Honed psychological skills.
Within 200 seconds of a job being posted, the first resume will generally be submitted. In many corporate jobs, up to 250 resumes will be submitted for one position.
In 8 Secrets of the World’s Best Job Hunters, Jane Bianchi of LearnVest interviewed Bill Knaus, a psychologist who specializes in personnel selection, and Russell Grieger, a psychologist and organizational consultant, the authors of Fearless Job Hunting: Powerful Psychological Strategies for Getting the Job You Want. Here are some of the traits these authors found top job hunters to have.
They accentuate the positives.
It is not the end of the world when you get rejected for a dream job. Your worth is not dictated by your career. When you find yourself going to the “I’m a failure” dark side, take these steps, Greiger suggests:
- Ask yourself if what you are thinking is logical (If it has to do with being a failure, it’s not).
- Flip the script and tell yourself that you can do it; also, give yourself the permission to fail without labeling yourself a “screw-up.”
- Write down a list of your best qualities as a person, as well as an employee, and then read them aloud. Be your own cheerleader!
They know their hang-ups.
Job hunting is stressful, and it can get so stressful that you just put it off. Top job hunters understand what stresses them out the most (is it interviewing or a poor resume?) and confront those issues head on in order to move forward with a job search.
They are patient, persistent and resilient.
Top job seekers show what Grieger calls “high frustration tolerance.” They understand that looking for jobs is not just a one-time event. It’s a process … sometimes a long one. Consider some of these statistics next time you get antsy that one resume isn’t producing results. According to BeHiring, in 2013, over 400,000 new resumes were posted on the jobsite Monster.com each week. Within 200 seconds of a job being posted, the first resume will generally be submitted. In many corporate jobs, up to 250 resumes will be submitted for one position. Those stats aren’t meant to discourage job seekers, but they do show that your search may be more of a marathon than a sprint, and you can’t take it personally when you don’t hear back from each position you apply for.
In addition, the best job hunters just know how to go with the flow.
“Did bumper-to-bumper traffic make you late for an interview? Or did you spill coffee on your newly pressed button-down right before you met with a recruiter? These types of scenarios are less likely to derail the confidence of a fearless job hunter because they accept—and expect—setbacks,” writes Bianchi.
They convey confidence, not arrogance.
Knaus suggests living by the motto “show, don’t tell.” The best way to do this is to let facts back up your skills and achievements.
They learn from letdowns.
We have all sworn we were going to get a position, only to get a rejection letter, call or email. The best plan is to do a post-mortem after those experiences and look for patterns of weaknesses. Maybe you did not prepare as well as you had thought or did not sell your skills well.
“If you can identify your weaknesses, you can improve on them—and turn them into strengths for the next round,” writes Bianchi.