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If you have been on the job market recently, you know how challenging it can be. Lots of tech companies, for example, are pulling back on hiring. Federal workers are being laid off by the thousands. And some types of jobs are simply not as available as they once were. Particularly in short supply are those prized white-collar positions paying $94,000 or more. So, any serious job seeker must sharpen their skills to land a job. You can increase the likelihood of a successful search by avoiding the following six big job search mistakes: Mistake No. 1: Applying for too many jobs The first mistake is applying for too many jobs and, as a result, not giving enough time to any one application. Some individuals send in applications for 100, 200, or even 400 jobs. That is far too many. Statistics reveal that job seekers who apply for 21 to 80 jobs have about a 30% chance of receiving a job offer, while candidates who apply for more than 81 jobs have only a 20% chance of receiving an offer. More applications typically get worse results. To get that next big job, focus on applications where you’re a decent fit, and give more attention to each one. Mistake No. 2: not customizing your résumé The second (and very common) mistake is sending every company the same generic résumé. Contrary to popular belief, most hiring companies do scrutinize résumés. After the interview, its the second-most-important vehicle for assessing a candidate. Providing boilerplate wont often get you the job. Focus your work history and the bullet points under each job youve held. Align this material with the job youre applying for. For example, dont put down that you optimized supply chain operations if you are applying for a leadership role. Instead, say you led a supply chain team. Avoid jargon and technical language that might be misunderstood. Be sure to include only relevant work experience. If you have waited on tables at your university or worked in a donut shop, leave it out unless youre applying for a service- or people-focused job. Mistake No. 3: Not tapping into your network A third job search mistake is overlooking your network. A LinkedIn study shows that 70% of job seekers get their jobs through successful networking. Dont go it alone. Ask those you know for leads and introductions. Successful networking is usually a multistep process. Most of the time, success is not through your first-degree network but through your second- or third-degree network, writes career coach Sarah Felice on LinkedIn. This means you have to have a lot of conversations, coffee meetups, Zoom meetings, and phone calls. If you are interested in a position in a particular industry, approach an acquaintance who is knowledgeable about that field. Ask them to connect you to relevant people. If you’re interested in moving up within your company, do your research and find out which department head you should talk to. Introduce yourself with a well-written letter. Such steps may take time, but they will be much more likely to get results. Mistake No. 4: Poor interview prep To ace the interview, you’ve got to research the company and the job, prepare a script to guide you, and develop answers to possible questions. The knowledge you gain as you prepare will enable you to align your background with the companys culture and the job. It will also help you ask intelligent questions and show that you take the company and the job seriously. An interview script will provide an all-important guide for you. It doesnt have to be memorized or delivered verbatim. It simply will remind you how you want to open the conversation, what your message is, how you are going to develop your message, and how you will close the conversation. Without a script to guide you, you wont come across as clear-minded and confident. (For more discussion of how and why to prepare a script for your job interviews, see my book, The Job Seekers Script.) Mistake No. 5: Using weak language Be mindful of the words you use throughout the interview process. Eliminate anything that has negative overtones. That includes phrases like I cant, I dont, Im not sure, or I dont know. Eliminate filler words like um, ah, and you know. Avoid overly casual speech like You guys. And dont judge the questions by saying things like, Thats a good question. You’re there to answer questions, not evaluate them. Apologetic language, such as Im sorry, also tests poorly. You may think you are being thoughtful when you apologize, but doing so can make you sound weak. Mistake No. 6: Not following up The final job search mistake to avoid is not following up after your interview or a conversation with someone you networked with. Write a note of thanksan email or an actual written noteand do so promptly. People appreciate that thoughtfulness, and often it will make all the difference if somene is deliberating about hiring you.
Category:
E-Commerce
Barbara Corcoran is one of Shark Tanks longest-running sharks, with an estimated net worth of approximately $100 million. But shes also one of 10 kids from a working-class family. By age 23, shed held more than 20 jobs. By 52, she sold her real estate company for $66 million. Corcoran knows how to build wealth. Her financial strategies are bold and unconventional. They buck traditional financial wisdom andfull disclosurethey can be also risky. But could they help you build wealth? 1. Dont Bother Saving Money Ive never saved a dime my whole life, Corcoran told CNBC Make It in 2023. Rather than letting her money sit idly in a bank account, Corcoran immediately identifies the best way to spend anything she earns, often investing it into something with the potential to grow her wealth. Of course, investing all your earnings is risky. No one knows when an unexpected expense or income loss is coming and youll need to live on your savings. But consider the root of Corcorans advice: How much money can you safely risk investing in yourself or a business venture you believe in? How much money could you reasonably put into a stock or other fund with the potential to grow at a higher rate than your savings account? 2. Be The Highest BidderOn Valuable Assets I am always willing to overspend on any property thats good, Corcoran said in an interview. Overspending on anything might sound counterintuitive, but Corcoran is specifically referencing quality assets with high growth potential. Corcoran especially believes in using this principle for real estate investments. She says that if youre willing to spend more than anyone else on a property you know is quality and be patient, you will eventually make that extra money back and then some. 3. Put All Your Eggs in One Basket One piece of advice people hear all the time, and I just dont believe it, is Diversify. Dont put all your eggs in one basket, Corcoran told CNBC Make It. Diversification is investing in different areas so you dont lose everything from a downturn in one area of the economy. In Spring 2025, you might hesitate to even put all your literal eggs in one basket, but Corcorans advice here is about investing in areas where you have expertise rather than diversifying just for the sake of it. Corcoran has historically focused all her money in real estate, where she can constantly leverage her knowledge and experience to evaluate current and potential investments. Corcoran isnt alone in this view. Warren Buffett famously called diversification protection against ignorance. His late Berkshire Hathaway cochair Charlie Munger also referred to the practice as diworsification. Both investors made billions by focusing their investments in industries where they were already experts. Focused investments can lead to outsize returnsbut also outsize losses, so the expertise piece of Corcorans advice is vital. Dont just toss all your money into one thing you dont understand, she said. Stick to what you know.
Category:
E-Commerce
A few years ago, if you turned on the heat in an apartment in Helsinki, the energy typically came from coal. But the citys power company shut down one coal plant in 2023, and the remaining one closed this weekfour years earlier than a target set by the national government. Within two years, we have completely phased out coal, says Olli Sirkka, CEO of Helen, the power company, which is a subsidiary of the city. The city has one of the worlds biggest district heating systems, with a network of underground pipes filled with hot water that deliver heat to buildings. It takes a huge amount of energy to run. One large chunk of that now comes from wind power, which has more than doubled in Finland since 2020. Helsinki is now building the worlds largest heat pump, which will send heat to 30,000 homes when it starts running in 2026. At the site of one of the closed coal plants, the city is also building a new facility that will capture heat from the Baltic Sea. Some of the energy also now comes from wood pellets, which Helsinki is using temporarily as it transitions completely away from combustion. (Wood helped replace natural gas from Russia after the invasion of Ukraine, but isnt a good long-term solution. Burning it still produces CO2, it puts pressure on forests, and its more expensive than other alternatives; Finland plans to phase it out completely by 2040.) Helsinki also uses some hydro and nuclear power, and as much waste heat as possible. That includes capturing heat from local data centers and wastewater. Though the coal plants shut down quickly, the push to close them started more than a decade ago. In 2015, a campaign called Coal Free Helsinki convinced the city council to commit to closing the first coal plant. I think activists played a really big role, says Amanda Pasanen, who previously studied the coal phaseout and is now a city councilmember. It was very much due to public pressure that they decided to quit coal burning. At that point, it still wasnt clear how it could happen. Then, it was considered a completely impossible goal, says Sirkka. It was only maybe four years ago there was a solid decision that this has to happen. And then it started to roll really, really fast. [Photo: Helen Ltd] The steep drop in the cost of wind power, thanks to technological advancements and scaled-up production, was key. Wind power decreased electricity prices so much that its actually a very good business case to replace coal with electricity, he says. On the day we talked, it was windy enough that electricity prices in Finland had dropped to zero. (Finland is a fairly windy place and well suited for the technology; while it also has some solar power, it’s so far north that it isn’t sunny in the winter, and solar can’t really be used to power heating.) The power company continually monitors energy sources, shifting from one source to another to optimize costs. The city’s layout, with the district heating system, helped make the switch easier than if every single building had to be retrofitted with different technology. “It’s easier to implement these environment-friendly solutions in a centralized system where you have district heating and where you can use your economies of scale,” says Helsinki Mayor Juhana Vartiainen. Other factors also pushed the company to act quickly. The EUs emissions trading system increased the price of coal as carbon prices rose over time. In 2019, Finland passed a national law to phase out coal by 2029 as part of its climate plan. Changes in national tax policy made coal more expensive and clean power cheaper. In 2021, Helsinki decided to speed up its own plan to become carbon neutral, moving the target date from 2035 to 2030. “There is broad political consensus on the issue [of climate action],” says Vartiainen, noting that when he took office in 2021, there was nearly unanimous agreement that Helsinki should move faster on its already-ambitious plans to cut emissions. Yet even with that political mandate, it wasn’t guaranteed that the change would happen quite as quickly as it did. “It’s been quite surprising, Vartiainen says, to see how fast this shift to electricity has taken place.
Category:
E-Commerce
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