Reply to Help - Former USAID contractor -- zero interviews in a year

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]If he’s not getting interviews, it’s the resume and cover letter. Without seeing them I suspect the skills and positioning aren’t transferring well to the kind of position he’s looking for, or they are written in governmentese.  Or he’s looking at the wrong kinds of jobs that aren’t realistic for his background. People who have been in one industry / org for 25 years often don’t understand how insular and irrelevant they sound to the outside world.

It’s a tough market but he should be getting interviews even if he doesn’t land the jobs. [/quote]

I have to disagree with you here. I know excellent candidates who have worked with career coaches, adapted resume to non- USAID language, etc., applied to literally 500 jobs and nada. It’s brutal [/quote]

I only started getting traction once I rewrote both my resume and cover letter to personalize for each position. Time consuming but AI helps and also thinking about the personal connection to each job, which AI can't help with.

Also, look at the level of responsibility. Some jobs you will want to highlight how senior you are, some jobs you need to downplay that. When I applied to jobs where it looked my supervisor would be less experienced than me, I tried to reorient or remove language that made it clear that I had managed X staff. I was in a senior leadership position in an acting capacity for a long time. In some cases, I emphasized that; in others, I included it as a bullet under my old job title. Not lying at all, but highlighting those things wasn't going to be helpful for that job. [/quote]

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