A Critical Mistake Job Seekers Make And How To Avoid It

If you're following the Work At Home Minute on YouTube, you'll know that I've been helping a friend of mine who recently relocated from Florida to New York, find a new job. It's been a rough three weeks for him as far as the job search process goes, since he's having a tough time getting a response from the jobs that he applied for.

His daily routine includes checking several career and job posting websites which cater to vacant jobs in the state of New York. Additionally he subscribed to several RSS feeds that deliver vacant jobs to his rss reader and I even convinced him to set up a Google alert for the type of job he's looking for. Basically Google will send him updates when the keyword he entered is mentioned online.

He finally lucked out a few days ago and not only found one job that seemed perfect for what he was looking, but in a matter of 24hrs he found another one that was very similar to the first. Both jobs were located fairly close to where he live in New York, but as an added bonus they allowed for telecommuting. So he had the option of working from home a few days a week, providing he landed the job.

He crafted an excellent cover letter and tailored his resume for the first position and sent of his application with his fingers crossed. The second job he did the same thing and was excited at his prospect of landing either job as he felt he had the skills the employers were looking for. However in his haste to send the second application out, he failed to edit his cover letter with the correct company and contact details, not to mention he didn't edit the position title he was applying for. Basically the cover letter he sent out applied to the first position and had nothing to do with this job.

What can we learn from this? Always double check everything before sending out an application to an employer. After that application leaves your email program, is faxed or sent by traditional mail, it's gone. There's no stopping it to make edits or changes. Make it a rule to not only double check things, but have someone else look it over for you as well. It's always good practice to have an extra set of eyes look for errors etc.

Here's one more tip as far as emailing out your resume and cover letter to a potential employer. Email a copy to yourself as you would an employer. This will allow you to see exactly what an employer will see when you send out the actual application. Look for formatting issues, check to see if your email goes in the junk folder or inbox and pay attention to the attachments if you included any. Ensure that you can open the attachments without any problems. If you're using a jobs list or career websites, many of them do allow for sending a "test" email, so I suggest you make use of this to avoid being like my friend who will not be hearing back from that second job he applied for.

To learn more about Chris De La Rosa and the help he gives to job seekers who are interested in a a work at home career, which allows them enjoy the work at home lifestyle, visit his jobs list. A free career service that's used by thousands of job seekers monthly who are all interested in working out of their home.