Career Coach Office Hours: March 18 2025

By Jeff Altman, The Big Game Hunter

I answered questions about #jobsearch.

The Post-Interview Checklist

00:00 Intro

04:45 Are job interviews done by phone usually easier or harder?

06:22 Can an employer track if you have used the same resume and cover letter for multiple job applications?

08:23 What is the significance of an interviewer saying they are still interviewing other candidates and will get back to you soon?

10:22 What are the key indicators of a strong resume versus a weak one? 12:34 Is it rude to ask for an update on a job application?

13:21 Commercial

14:33 Is it necessary for your LinkedIn profile to be different from your resume and cover letter, or can you simply copy and paste the same information into each document?

16:32 Outro

 

Hi, it’s Jeff Altman, The Big Game Hunter, and welcome to Career Coach Office Hours. Tuesdays at noon Eastern, I’d like to spend a little bit of time answering questions from you. So, well, the reason is really very simple.

The skills needed to find the job are different from those needed to do a job. And, you know, I’ve worked with people for many, many years, first as a recruiter, and now as a job search coach. And in doing my work, it’s been very apparent to me how amateurish many of you are.

And I hate to sound disrespectful, but I’m just telling you like I see it. You need help. It’s one of the reasons I created JobSearch.com community because I want to coach you.

And I’ve set my prices out there. But I’ve also put in information about job search, video courses, books and guides that I’ve released, all as part of one price, if you join. And you get access to coaching from me, except at the lowest level of service.

So, go to the site, download some of the free stuff. It can help you as well. But I also want to encourage you in addition to doing that, hire me by going to the insider section.

Becoming an insider is what you look for. And you can hire me for a half hour of time, an hour of time, four hours of time that could be used as a 30 minute sessions and even more. So, again, that’s JobSearch.community. Also, I want to encourage you, connect with me on LinkedIn at LinkedIn.com forward slash IN forward slash The Big Game Hunter.

Mention that you watch this. I like knowing I’m helping some folks. Once we’re connected, your network is going to be a lot larger because I was linked in number 7653 of the more than 1 billion people on the platform.

And although I didn’t accept connection requests from recruiters while I did search work, I do now and I’m here to help you. So, connect with me on LinkedIn at LinkedIn.com forward slash IN forward slash The Big Game Hunter. It’s pretty apparent that there’s a little bit of turmoil in the labor markets these days.

Last month came out as plus 150. But you know, I made a mistake in reading how the process works. They didn’t include anyone laid off after the 12th of the month.

This month should be pretty shocking. Because government workers have been experiencing layoffs. They should start showing up in the numbers.

I don’t think we’re going to have positive numbers to counteract all the job cuts that have occurred. And thus, we’ll probably have negative employment growth during this most recent period. We’ll see soon enough.

I also want to say to you that you’ve got to continuously be upskilling yourself, particularly with AI, in order to remain competitive. You may not be using it in your current position. But your next one is going to want to see that you’ve been taking time to get more proficient with it.

So, take the time to understand AI. Start using it. It doesn’t have to be in your work.

You can have some fun with it. I don’t care which model or program you work with. You know, I work with all the large language models at different points based upon my interests.

I’ve noticed one or another serves my needs a little bit better. But I want you to do the same thing. You need to experiment and work with AI in order to remain current.

Otherwise, you may wind up in a disastrous situation where you’re going to start seeing job descriptions where they’re looking for people with certain expertise that you don’t have, because you haven’t taken the time to work with it. And to stand out and start thinking about how to incorporate AI into your work, how to use it in the work that you do. So, take the time.

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It will really help you for many years to come, because this is the next big wave. We’ve seen waves before, and this one is going to be enormous. It’s already large, but in terms of jobs, not quite there yet.

But it’s about to be and you don’t want to miss out, do you? You don’t want to wind up in a situation where you’re on the outside looking in because you didn’t take the time to do your work. Okay? Again, just going to remind you, if you’ve got a question for me, put it in the chat so I can answer it live. Now, I received a number of questions in advance.

And, you know, people can do that. If you can’t make it live, you send me your question in advance of the show. And I try to cover it in that particular episode.

Now, the first question I was asked is, are job interviews done by phone usually easier or harder? The answer is both. They’re easier in that they can’t see you. They can’t see that you have your resume out.

They can’t see that you have notes that you’ve taken, a job description, or anything else. All they have is your voice to go by. And that’s where it becomes harder.

Because it’s only your voice, they’re not influenced by what you’re wearing, how good looking you are, and a variety of other attributes that occur from appearance. They just have your voice, which for most people, their voice doesn’t . . . we know that you don’t like the sound of your voice, but you don’t know how to sell very often. And the result winds up being, you know, it’s both easier and harder than doing a face to face interview.

So, is it easier? Is it harder? The answer is both. I know that’s not a clear answer for many of you, but it’s the truth. Okay.

Another question I received was, can an employer track if you’ve used the same resume and cover letter for multiple job applications? Certainly in their system that they can. Certainly in theirs. So, you know, if you’re just generically sending the same resume and cover letter for every job, whether it’s a similar job or a dissimilar job.

I remember interviewing someone from my other podcast, I discontinued many years ago. And he was a search professional working with one of the large accounting firms, or a hospital. I don’t remember which one it was.

And what he said to me was that if we start to notice that a person is submitting their resume to lots of different jobs in lots of different fields, we can block them as a quote, serial applier. Ooh, a serial applier. Oh, the horrors.

But they’re trying to save themselves time. So, they can see in their system that you’ve applied multiple times. Of course, they can.

They can see that you’re applying for things that don’t relate to your background also. So, don’t make that mistake. Don’t keep spamming your resume and thinking you’re going to get a different result.

Always tailor your resume to demonstrate your fit for the role. If you’re applying for a programming position and an orderly job at a hospital, how does that work? You don’t have the skills in one of these, or both. So, the long and the short of it is, don’t fool around with this stuff.

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Yes, they do track it. They do block people. It’s not worth it.

Okay. Let’s continue on with another question someone sent to me. Again, for those of you who are watching on, I believe it’s YouTube.

Yep, on YouTube. I want to encourage you, send me your questions so I can answer them live. Okay.

What is the significance of an interviewer saying that they’re still interviewing other candidates and will get back to you soon? God, you know what that means. Let me crack the code for you. It means they’re still interviewing other people and they’ll get back soon.

Why are they saying that? Because they’re just not that into you and they want to keep dating other people. So, I always compare interviewing and job search with dating, because there’s so many parallels. They have to fall in love in order to propose marriage to you.

They’re not in love yet. And we don’t even know if they’re in lust yet. All we know is that they interviewed you, they’re still interviewing other people, and they’ll get back to you when they made a decision.

The correct follow up to that is, well, how many more people do you have to talk with? Quite a few. Okay. And when do you think you might complete this round of interviews? Sometime around when hell freezes over.

Okay. That tells you, right? It tells you they’re not interested, the statistical probability is very small, and keep interviewing. And that’s my advice all the time.

 

Keep interviewing until they get back to you to say that they want to get married, that they want to propose marriage to you. Because otherwise, all you’re doing is putting all your eggs into a single basket. And they don’t care as much as you do.

That’s the fact here. They don’t care as much as you care. And thus, you’re going to wind up being out of luck.

Okay? More questions. What are the key indicators of a strong resume versus a weak one? Easy. You’re getting interviews.

A weak resume isn’t getting you interviews. A strong one is. Now, we could look at, are we talking about a generic resume or a tailored resume? You always tailor your resume for each individual position you’re applying for, because otherwise, you’re a little more than a spammer.

So, strong resumes. That’s the way I’m gonna look at it. Strong resumes versus weak ones.

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Strong resumes that you generate per job get you interviews. Weak resumes reflect the fact that you’re not getting interviews. And as a matter of fact, your resume may not make a case for why you’re qualified to do these positions.

So, the long and the short of it is, keep plugging, keep tailoring your resume, keep looking until such time as you have the offer letter in your hand. And even then, wait a month or two before you pull yourself off the market. I can’t tell you how many times, you know, people I knew took positions and discovered that what they were told about the new job wasn’t true.

And thus, they were stuck. They were stuck. And you don’t ever want to be in that position.

So, I’ll just simply say, focus in on demonstrating to them that you have a world class background, so that this way, they always want to be talking with you. Okay? Let me just come back here for a second. Good.

Okay. And again, if you’ve got a question for me, put it in the chat so I can answer it live. Okay.

Yeah. So, here’s the next question I received. Is it rude to ask for an update on my application? There we go.

Sorry, that’s the wrong one. There we go. Is it rude to ask for an update on a job application? It’s not rude, but it’s the wrong question to ask.

The question you should be asking is really very simple. You don’t want to be asking, hey, you want to talk? What you should be doing is very simply asking, I submitted my resume to you. And I’m curious whether you’ve had a chance to review it as of yet and what your thoughts were about inviting me in for an interview.

Real direct, real straightforward. You’ll get information that makes sense for you. Okay? And before I continue on, I just want to mention, JobSearch.community, where you can sign up for coaching from me and get access to video courses, books and guides that I sell individually, all as part of your program.

Again, JobSearch.community. And connect with me on LinkedIn at linkedin.com forward slash IN forward slash The Big Game Hunter. Mention that you watch this. I like knowing I’m helping some folks.

And once we’re connected, your network is going to be much, much larger. Because frankly, I was LinkedIn member 7653. Why would you put yourself in the position of constantly interviewing people when your firm, when the employer really isn’t interested in hiring anyone? Seriously.

They’re not that into you. They want feedback before they’re ready to commit to another role. Okay.

Oh, this was a good one. Bear with me for one second. And let’s see.

Now, there it is. Is it necessary for your LinkedIn profile to be different from your resume and cover letter? Can you simply copy and paste the same information into each document? That’s what it says. There we go.

So the answer is, you can do that. But the broken watch is right twice a day, right? That one resume will work sometimes, but most of the time, it won’t. And thus, all you’re doing is spamming your resume.

You don’t want to be a spammer. You want to demonstrate a fit for the role so that firms are ready to turn over the keys to the car to you. So, very simply, don’t spam your resume.

Yes, you can do that. You can submit the same resume. I’m sorry.

Wrong answer to this question. I apologize. Is it necessary for your LinkedIn profile to be different from your resume or cover letter? Or can you copy and paste the same information into each document? So let me deal with the first part.

They should be congruent. They don’t have to be identical. So, is it necessary for them to be different? They should be different.

Because your LinkedIn profile is the equivalent of the same generic resume. And your cover letter should be focused on each individual position that you’re applying for. Then from there, could you simply copy and paste the same information to each document? Yes, but why should you? Again, the broken watch is right twice a day.

Most of the time, it’s not going to demonstrate your fit for a role. So what you want to be doing is plugging along. You want to be out there submitting your resume to demonstrate your fit for different situations.

I am beat up today. I apologize. I’m going to cut today’s show short.

It’s normally a half hour, but I’m not feeling right right now. So I just want to encourage you. I’m going to be back next week.

Again, it’ll be a more typical show, which goes for about 30 minutes. I’m Jeff Altman. Visit my website, again, JobSearch.community, where I’ve got video courses, books and guides to help you.

Also, connect with me on LinkedIn at linkedin.com forward slash i n forward slash TheBigGameHunter. Have a terrific day. Be great

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