The Dangers of Applying for Every Job

You’re new to job searching or you’ve been out of work for months or years. At some point, it may seem like a good idea to apply for every job posting you see.  While there may be something to the technique of blasting your resume out to every job posted….Don’t do it!

While you may just be thinking you would be happy doing any type of work as long as it brings in some money or you genuinely believe you are equally qualified to be a Research Scientist or a Certified Public Accountant, think some more about that before you submit your resume for both.

If you actually have a CPA license and a PhD in Chemistry and have done both jobs over the course of your career, you should have two separate and distinct resumes tailored to pursue these two completely different jobs.

The dangers of applying for every job should be obvious.

First, you dilute your image. If you are submitting your resume for everything, you have likely spent some time rewriting it to make it as generic as possible so you seem to be somewhat qualified for everything.  So when you submit your resume for a job that you truly want and have a stellar background that applies to this job, your resume has been watered down to the point where you’ve left all the good parts off.

Second, if you are applying to the same company or the same recruiter for every job posted, after seeing the same resume multiple times, it will just stop looking right for anything. Most likely, we’ll just stop looking at it at all.

Third, it sends a message of desperation. While you may feel desperate and things may seem desperate to you, the last thing you want to do is present yourself in a manner that makes you look desperate.

One of the most difficult parts of a job search is attitude. Getting to a positive state of mind and staying there is vital.  Do whatever it takes to keep your confidence level up, your sense of self-esteem and that includes being selective about what you are applying for in the first place.