STRATEGIES FOR EFFECTIVE ONLINE NETWORKING
HOW TO WORD YOUR PROFILE IF YOU’RE UNEMPLOYED
Firstly, honesty is the best policy – because employers can always check your employment background and get references to build a true picture of your work history and experience
With that said, saying you’re unemployed – or having a profile or C.V that clearly indicates you’ve been out of work for a while looks bad and employers will tend to overlook these types of people
Coming out and simply saying that we’ve been unemployed for a certain number of months or years is going to look bad in the eyes of any hirer, (that is because there are certain things that employers and recruiters look for when hiring, and an established employment history is one of them!)
Therefore, we need to be truthful, while at the same time not driving the employers and recruiters who view our C.V away – but instead convincing them that we have the necessary skills they are looking for
In this regard then, if we lack an established or regular work history, instead of merely saying, I’ve been out of work for 7 months, or 7 years, we need to consider how best to deal with this crucial detail on our C.V – and when we consider how limited our options for doing this are, we should come to the realisation that our best approach is to put a spin on why we’ve been out of work for so long
Maybe you have a hobby, cause, pursuit, have been a carer for someone, or maybe you really wanted to get back into higher education and have prioritised this over looking for employment while you tried to get onto a course. Maybe you wanted to pursue art or write a book. Listing your current position as ‘self-employed’, can potentially be another effective means you have at your disposal too. Whatever the reason, if you can come up with something that sounds credible, all you need to do is be able to talk about this confidently. If your reason sounds credible, you will instantly become a much more viable candidate in the eyes of an employer. What works about this approach is that a personal background or individual rationale is not something that can be readily checked up upon or verified. Therefore, if you’re able to tell a story that has a viable basis to it, then it becomes a superb way to explain long and damaging gaps in your work history, and, while an employer will still be concerned with your work history (or lack thereof), a convincing reason as to why you’ve not been able to find suitable employment over a given length of time will certainly go some way to convincing an employer that you’re a worthwhile candidate for the role
If you cannot come up with a viable reason, it’s advisable not to take this approach because it will sound untruthful, and will hurt your chances instead of helping them. Some people may simply feel more comfortable saying that they’ve been out of work because they couldn’t find a job, and that’s fine. However, if you’ve been unemployed for any length of time, ideally what you want to do is to find a reason, a personal angle or personal interest, that has kept you until this point from getting the job you seek
Another approach could be to say that you had been looking for work in another area of the job market, but that after re-evaluating your qualifications and experience now feel you would be better suited to this area of the job market instead. A couple of flaws with this approach is that it will only work if you’ve been unemployed for a limited amount of time, say a few months, any longer and it will start to seem implausible to an employer. Another drawback to this method is that it may raise questions about your loyalty or motivations for pursuing a job in the area of the job marketing you’re now applying in
People sometimes also use the tactic of omitting details, or of giving vague details and answers on some forms or online profiles. Remember that you should never openly lie on an application or anytime an interviewer asks you a direct question – but out with these situations – on online profiles or other types of forms, this is a strategy that people sometimes use and can be used legitimately. Just keep in mind this is only a delaying tactic to get you closer to the interview. At some point questions will be put to you directly and you need to be prepared to answer them as such. However, with that being said, it is also true that the closer you get to an interview, the more your chances of getting the job increase. So until you get to that point, it will be down to you to decide what information its best for you to give