With more and more people fighting over fewer and fewer jobs, it can feel impossible to stand out from everyone else. It doesn’t have to be this way. By embracing your individuality and daring to be bold, you can make yourself far more attractive to employers and even increase your earning power.
Here’s what you can do to make yourself stand out to employers right now:
Learn a new skill
The most important way you can stand out to employers is by having a better collection of skills than everyone else. In the same way, businesses find their product’s unique selling point; you must find a skill that makes you unique.
Of course, finding a unique skill isn’t easy, especially if you’ve specialized in one industry during your career.
However, just because you have existing skills doesn’t mean you need to stop there. By taking a course in a new skill or profession relevant to the jobs you want to apply to, you can both make yourself more attractive to employers and even increase your earning power. You can find courses that will help you learn new skills at https://ce.fresno.edu/.
Expand your experiences
Using the same logic as with learning new skills, you could use this opportunity to gain experience in fresh environments and industries. Whether this is volunteering for a charity you’ve always felt passionate about or writing the book you’ve always had in you, diversifying your experiences is a fun way to stick out from the crowd when job hunting.
If you’re looking to keep things closer to home, why not take on a part-time internship or job in an area that would help you in your dream job. For example, trying a sales role if you’ve always felt nervous about selling or a receptionist job if you want to improve your interpersonal skills.
Give your resume a spring clean
The simplest step you can take to improve your chances of standing out to employers is to take a long hard look at your resume. It’s easy to overlook this step, especially if you’re sending off hundreds of applications and take it for granted, but the quality of your resume can seriously affect your chances of being employed.
It could be worth paying someone to look over it for you. If you can’t stretch to this, make sure your resume is short, precise, and pleasing to look at. Don’t waffle and focus on how your previous experience can benefit your future employer, rather than listing off boring job descriptions.
Look in the places no one else is
A final step is to look for jobs with less competition. This doesn’t mean you have to change your career or only search for undesirable jobs. It simply follows the business maxim of finding your own unique niche. Think outside the box. There are many businesses out there that need your particular set of skills but either aren’t advertising or don’t even know they need you yet.
Think of creative ways to apply to these businesses and appeal to what they need, not what you want. The vast majority of applicants never think to do this, which gives you an enormous first-mover advantage.
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