Submit Your Resume More Effectively

Searching for a new job is time consuming.  It's great when you find one you want to apply for.  So it's just a simple matter of "click here to apply", attaching your resume and you're good to go.  Nope.  It's not.  Once you actually find a job to apply for the application process itself can take an eternity.  And when you're trying to apply to as many jobs as you can, it gets frustrating.  Especially when you don't get much response from all those applications.  So what can you do differently that would get better results and not make you so miserable?

Related: What Should be on Your Resume

Looking for and applying for jobs can lock you to your computer for the entire day.  First, you're asked to upload your resume.  Easy.  You've taken some time to tweak it to reflect the language and requirements of this particular job so it's ready to go.  You upload the resume and the next field asks for a cover letter.  Ok, it's not unexpected.  So take some more time to write a thoughtful but concise cover letter demonstrating how you're a perfect fit for the job.  There goes another half hour.  Maybe an hour, depending on how good of a writer you are.  

So you got your resume uploaded and wrote a great cover letter that you copied and pasted into their form.  Yay!  Done!  Oh.  Wait.  There are questions to answer.  All of which is information contained in your resume.  Now you get to fill in their form by repeating your resume.  And once you're done with that, some sites have another round of questions.  The entire process can take hours.  For one job.  It gets to the point that I wonder if some of these companies really want people to apply at all.

Trying to apply to as many jobs as possible, every single day is not only exhausting but it's not a great use of your time.  It gets frustrating, boring and demoralizing.  Being in that frame of mind when you're writing a cover letter isn't going to let the dynamic, confident, successful you come across.  And you'll stop customizing your resume for each position because it's a lot of work.  And when you're doing a lot of work without much to show for it, that makes anyone miserable.

Related:  How Your Attitude Affects Your Job Search

A more effective way to go about this whole process is to find two jobs each day to apply for.  Just two.  And apply the hell out of them.  Give your best effort on tweaking that resume for each position.  Write two different very well crafted cover letters.  Take your time filling out the forms giving a bit more detail than your resume does.  This extra effort will come through and show that you're serious about this job, not just any job, but this one in particular.  Each resume and cover letter you submit will be of a higher quality than if you make yourself crazy trying to submit as many as you can each day.  And higher quality submissions will get you more responses.  Which is what you want.


The best part is that this will free up your time to do other things.  Just because you may be unemployed doesn't mean you can't still enjoy life.  Instead of spending time frustrated at your computer you can go for a walk, spend time in your garden or start working out (you know you always say you're going to). The time spent unemployed can be used to do things that enrich your life, not just applying for another job.  Besides, when you do go on an interview, and you will, what are you going to say when they ask what you've been doing while you were out of work?  Looking for a job isn't a good answer.  Talking about all the other cool stuff you did, is.  At the least, it makes you more interesting.  Which is good because nobody hires boring.  

So apply for two jobs a day and use the rest of the time to enjoy life, learn something new, get fit and enrich yourself in a way that you can show off to the world.  Then your time looking for work will have been very well spent.  Because you're going to find a job, not if but when.  And this time will pass either way.  Be productive.  Don't waste it.