Coffee & Career Hour
A genuine & informative podcast on all things career - hosted by two career counselors and friends. From practical strategies to motivational & reflective content, this podcast is here to empower and guide you to find meaningful work, make informed career decisions, and reach your full potential. So, grab a cup of coffee and join in for some career talk.
Coffee & Career Hour
Stop Applying to Hundreds of Jobs and Do This Instead
The modern job search feels increasingly like shouting into a void – applications disappear, algorithms filter resumes before human eyes ever see them, and the infamous "easy apply" buttons tempt us with convenience while sabotaging our chances. If you've found yourself submitting dozens or even hundreds of applications without response, you're not alone, but there's a better way forward.
In this episode we take a refreshing dive into what actually works in today's complex job market. They challenge the quantity-over-quality approach that leaves so many job seekers frustrated and demoralized. Instead, we discuss how to be strategic and intentional with your applications, like leveraging modern tools like AI and LinkedIn without sacrificing authenticity.
Our conversation explores how AI can transform your job search when used ethically – analyzing job descriptions, highlighting relevant skills, and even practicing interview questions. You'll discover efficient and specific approaches for using free AI tools that enhance your documents rather than replace your unique voice.
LinkedIn emerges as the essential platform not just for finding job postings, but for being found by recruiters searching for candidates with your exact skills. For those uncomfortable with self-promotion, we provide practical approaches to authentic engagement that builds your professional brand without feeling inauthentic.
Join us as we help you transform your job search process from an anxiety-inducing obligation into an intentional process of growth and connection!
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There are so many tools that can support us and I think, just as long as you use it in the right way, we definitely endorse and encourage people to use the tools to support them and make their process more efficient, because job search can definitely be overwhelming and then also it can be something that kind of demotivates us when we keep submitting applications and not hearing back us when we keep submitting applications and not hearing back.
Speaker 1:So we want to minimize that as much as possible. If the applications are more intentional and they're better developed, then you get better responses and you're not submitting as many applications and then overall it's just a better, positive experience. You are listening to Coffee and Career Hour. We are your hosts. I'm Armina and I'm MJ, two career counselors and friends chatting about all things life and career.
Speaker 2:So grab a cup of coffee and join us.
Speaker 1:Welcome back to Coffee and Career Hour. This is your go-to space for real talk about building a meaningful career, one sip at a time. I'm Arminette, your host, and today we're diving into one of the most talked about topics in career development right now how to search for a job in today's fast-growing job market. And yes, we're talking about AI, linkedin and how networking still reigns supreme.
Speaker 2:The job search isn't what it used to be. It is way different now, and resumes can be scanned by algorithms. Recruiters are searching you before you even apply, which is where LinkedIn kind of comes in, and, of course, opportunities as we've shared in a previous episode live in the hidden job market. So, armanay, I guess we're going to talk about how should we really keep up? How do we make sure that we're not just sending out applications into this empty black hole that we can consider a void?
Speaker 1:Oh my gosh. Yes, I mean. It is so difficult applying to jobs like countless 10s, 20, 30 jobs and not hearing back and having a void. So today, what we want to do is talk about practical ways to boost that job search right. Maybe it's using AI to tailor your resume, or maybe it's keeping your LinkedIn updated and fresh and searchable, but ultimately, it's also how you connect with people right to help you with the job search. So, no matter how things evolve, how the job market evolves, how tech evolves, relationships are still going to be a really key part in finding jobs. So let's talk about that, mj.
Speaker 2:So grab a cup of coffee, get cozy and let's get into it.
Speaker 1:Let's do it. So what are you seeing as one of the biggest challenges among our students, our clients, people who are job searching?
Speaker 2:Besides, the lack of opportunity, or the emotional toll or what Raising inflation. What do you want me to say? What's your pick today?
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:I think there's a lot of just overlapping challenges and issues that job seekers are currently facing, and job seekers are year-round right. People are searching for jobs all the time, and I think, right now, what we've been hearing in the news different individuals, influencers, people been hearing in the news, different individuals, influencers, people who are in the career space are currently talking about how, right now is a particularly hard time, right Because of overlapping issues at a national, state and then even city level, sometimes too, honestly. What I find to be the hardest part, though, is, yes, you can be someone who's great for this position, qualified, have the education, the skills or requirements, whatever, but getting your application through to a human being to actually see that, understand that and bring you in to offer you an opportunity to interview, offer you the job, see how you do that's the hardest part is getting through to the human beings yeah, it really is.
Speaker 1:I mean, when we talk about job search with our clients and our students, everybody will be saying like, oh my gosh, I've applied.
Speaker 2:I've had students say like I've applied to like a hundred jobs I had someone a couple days ago share with me that they're like yeah, I've before, like I've applied to over 250 jobs oh my god and I, I jokingly, not jokingly, because this is true, is it?
Speaker 1:well then, something's wrong with the resume, yeah no, seriously, I mean if if there is a pattern of like applying and not hearing back, then we look at resume and cover letter and what's being submitted. But just the fact that like people are submitting applications and it does feel like it's going out into the void right, especially if people are using like easy apply features which, oh my gosh, as a career counselor, I'm always like cringing at that easy apply because it is so attractive to just like quickly submit that button.
Speaker 2:It auto fills your information and that's where I think those like vast numbers are coming from, like those 500, 700 I've seen people post all the time about that yeah, it's not like people are being intentional and writing 700 cover letters.
Speaker 1:It is. It's so easy to just click that button. Uh, your information auto fills. Everything from your resume gets dumped into the application itself. But what we know is that it doesn't get. It's not a smooth transition from resume to application and the information gets jumbled up. It's not always in the right place and if you're not careful and you're not rereading and adjusting and being intentional about what you're submitting, those easy apply features are actually not helpful. They're working against you.
Speaker 2:A hundred percent. Those easy apply features are actually not helpful. They're working against you A hundred percent. I can't tell you how many times I share with people to not use those features. Or I ask, when I'm asking, like, can you walk me through your job search process on these different platforms, like, oh, you know, like I do use the easy apply, apply that kind of stuff, the amount of times I spend saying like don't do that, explaining why, and then people kind of get it sometimes, but then I feel like they'll still do it.
Speaker 2:But to our listeners please hear us, listen to us. We're telling you this because we care, not because we don't. We want you to work harder. You have to be very strategic and intentional with what you're doing in this job search, because when you just do the easy apply, the world's a small place and it looks like you can be careless and it looks like you have no direction into what you're doing and you're just trying to find the next best thing yeah, and the reality is that we don't know what the software looks like on the receiver's end, true, right?
Speaker 1:so with easy apply, imagine they're getting thousands of quick applications that are coming at them and it it could easily be lost in the crowd. Easily, right? So what are? I know some strategies we've talked about offline too, but what are some things that you recommend to people instead of the easy apply?
Speaker 2:man, people are gonna hate us for, I think, going the long way, because it's like when you do, you know division and math and you can either do like the long division or the short division.
Speaker 2:The short division is the easy apply we're going to walk you through. Like the long division. One of those things is again being strategic and really being thoughtful in this process, right? So I think if we go back to step one, it's like okay, what are you looking for? What type of role, what type of industry? Right, when you're doing that, then that really does cut down a lot of the different things. If you're someone who's just trying to find a job of what we call a survival job, okay, then that leads to a broader open door, but you should still have some directional points.
Speaker 2:From there you can really better understand, like, okay, from these 20, 50 opportunities I'm applying for what of my experiences you can go through and see match the skillset, match the relevancy, and how can I really strategize, format my documents to really go through that. That does take time, but guess what? There's tools to help you get there faster and be more efficient in that, and those tools are the AIs. They're the little robots that Arminia once did not like, but now. But now, um, we are using them in everyday life to make our lives more efficient, and I think that using your tools, the free tools that you literally have access to at your fingertips is so smart and is such an efficient opportunity for you to get ahead in this job search process.
Speaker 2:And what I mean by that is like how or how you can use them, because I know we've talked about it before is like, when you're going through 50 applications, throw them in to ChatGPT, throw them into Google Gem and I throw it into Microsoft copilot, whatever AI that you use. Those are the top three that are coming to my mind because they can tell you it, the chat, the, the AI, the models thing. They can tell you what are the skills, what are the opportunities, what are the experiences that they're looking for. You can feed it your experience, your master resume per se, and then it can correlate things and align stuff. But there's a lot to there.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we love the robots now, yeah.
Speaker 2:I'm going to send you food one day, one of those things and I'm going to see if you really love them.
Speaker 1:Oh my gosh, I do still get freaked out when the robots are delivering food it's. I do definitely endorse using AI any kind of AI tool to help with this process, because we're not saying use AI to replace your content replace your documents.
Speaker 1:Write it for you, absolutely not your resume, your cover letter. Your applications still need to be in your own voice. They still need to reflect your own skills and your own abilities in your own voice. They still need to reflect your own skills and your own abilities. But AI is there to help improve things and make things more efficient. So one thing that we definitely recommend is download that job description and upload it to whatever AI you're using and also upload your resume. Then you can ask the AI compare my resume to the job description, highlight the most relevant skills and experiences from what the job description is asking and based on what I have on my resume, and then it will give you some of those talking points. So then you can actually highlight even more so on your resume or even use that to prepare for your interviews yeah, you said that way better than I did.
Speaker 2:Um I, I do want to add something you do not have to. You don't need a paid version to do this oh no, not at all you can use all the free versions on all of these tools.
Speaker 2:So there are prompts. You can literally google prompts out there. Um, you can google, you can youtube stuff. Tiktok has. Instagram has a ton of stuff too, but exactly what armin is saying? Feed the chat, the ai, what it is that you're working with and what are, and tell it the goals that you want right. Tell it to do the things that you're looking for. If you are looking for how to embed more transferable skills that are in the job description onto your resume, tell it to help you do that, to identify opportunities where you can do that in your resume or feed it your resume. And if you're looking to understand how to create a tailored resume, share with it. I'm looking to create a one page resume focused on this, this, this and this. What are the experiences that you think that will help me best showcase that skillset or level of relevancy? Those are the things that you need to be talking to the chatbot with. I know it can feel so weird, but you're only going to get the best results like that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely so. Ai is there to help us and as long as you're using it ethically, you're using it in a way where it's not presenting you inauthentically right, you're still going to be able to talk about your knowledge, your skills and abilities when you're interacting with employers. Then go for it, use it. Use it to help make your job search process easier. But it is still taking the long way where you have to dig deep into those job descriptions. You have to understand what it is that they're asking of you and then be able to look back at your own experiences and your own documents and figure out how do I best position myself to showcase that I have the skills and I can do this job. So there's actually a lot of thought that has to go behind each job application. So, as career counselors, we definitely do not encourage you to apply to hundreds of jobs. We encourage you to have more quality applications versus quantity.
Speaker 2:Yeah, 100%. I think the AIs can come really easy to Armine when I'm like, oh, I have to write a cover letter for this opportunity, and we know the general population disagrees and does not like cover letters anymore. And you and I are in the business of teaching people how to do this, because it is an essential skill when job searching. Right, it's a way to showcase your communication skills. If you want to look at it in a more technical space, I will say that AI is an easy route to go. That is again short-term division where you definitely need to think about how are you showcasing your skills I lost my skills, yes, abilities and your cover letter.
Speaker 2:Yes, in your cover letter. Sorry, I completely lost my train of thought, but what I was gonna say was your. It's easy for it to pull from what you give it right. So if you're having a chat with it about your resume, you're talking about skills and a specific job. It can put together like a three out of 10 cover letter. Why do I say three out of 10?
Speaker 2:Because they're all so generic and what we're hearing is that people are starting to now tell when people can tell, because there's a certain tone when AI is used so specifically for cover letters, letters of interest, um or any other type of documents you're being asked to write, or supplemental responses you're asked to submit, cause, sometimes even after an application. You can be like asked a couple of questions to speed up the interview process. On the other, the other person's end, it can be so tempting to use the AI, right. It can be so tempting to say here's my stuff, write this for me, because then that's going to help you apply faster. Again, go the long-term route, have a draft, have something started, or instead use the AI to help you brainstorm, but don't use it to write the material for you, because it's not. It's inauthentic, right, it's definitely. It's not coming from you, so it can be making up stuff that you may not catch.
Speaker 1:And the other thing is, it's the reflection of your skills and experience that you want to really hone into, unless you feed it that directly yeah, I know it's so tempting because it's like you have this tool at the tip of your fingertips that can actually write a letter for you.
Speaker 1:But we've heard repeatedly from employers that they even have tools sometimes now to assess whether the document was written by AI. They have programs where they can run your documents through. So that's going to be an automatic rejection, right, if they see that it's been written by AI. So take that extra five minutes or extra 30 minutes, I should say Think about it, brainstorm it, write it out in your own words and then you can ask the AI to review it. Make sure it's aligned with the job description, make sure it's highlighting the skills you want to highlight, and it can essentially maybe advance it slightly or make it sound a little bit more professional, but the thoughts and the and the skill sets and the main concepts are still yours. That's. That's the most important part, because when you're going to go and get an interview, you're still going to have to present yourself in that way.
Speaker 1:So if it doesn't match your resume and your cover letter, guess what? You're still not going to get the job right. It all needs to be aligned and authentic, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, cover letters are tricky because they're the more so personal aspect of the application, whereas a resume can be very objective because you're talking about skills, experience, tasks, whereas a cover letter is more talking about your person, your personal interests, your passions, your purpose, your reasons, your why, right, so it's very different. Yeah, a really cool tool that I will I do want to spotlight because this is new, it's recent, um, I saw it. I want to say, like at most a month ish, a month and a half ago is if you have a Google account, a Gmail, and you click, if you're going to your Gmail like Google Chrome page, and you click like the nine dots, that has all of the Google apps, you'll see that it has Gemini. Gemini is Google's AI. But if you look on the left-hand side, there's a menu that and there's an option that says explore gems.
Speaker 2:That's what Google is calling these little features. If you click on that, there's four that are pre-made for Google already, and the third one is career, a career. It's called career guide, which is so funny and hilarious because that's one of our tools in our profession. Um, is what we'll call it too. But this program, you know it specifically says it's it's an AI. It's an AI that's here to help you unlock your career potential. It can help you get a detailed plan, refine your skills and achieve your career goals. It even has like prompts on like what to ask it If you're like confused. What I noticed about this versus like talking to the regular Gemini is this actually tries to have a conversation with you and it tries to get as much information out of you as possible to best help you.
Speaker 2:It was freaky to be a counselor and have this thing talk to me like a counselor. But I will say again we want you to go to humans, we want you to make sure that you're doing the right stuff, but this is. It's kind of pretty freaky how accurate it can be.
Speaker 1:yeah, yeah, I mean an ai is advancing so quickly too. It's literally already advanced so much since a couple years ago when it actually launched right. So who knows the future of ai and where it's going to take us and how we may evolve the way that we use it in the future? But, but as of right now, it is still a tool to support us, but not to replace our knowledge or our abilities, because ultimately, you have to be able to demonstrate that you can do that job right. I do have a question for you, mj. I've actually heard this question from some of our students. They've asked what about if I were to use the conversation feature in chat GPT to help me prepare for an interview, where it literally does like a mock interview? It acts as like a career counselor and we'll do a mock interview. What do you think about that?
Speaker 2:I, so I will say I can't speak on the feedback it may give you, right, as if you're using this, but what I will say it's actually, in my opinion, it might be, it might be beneficial, right, just depending on how you're using it and what you're saying or how it's responding to you. Why? Because many times, when we share with others how to prepare for an interview, one of our best, our top tips is you need to literally practice, and I think people get very nervous or anxious to practice with others or ask people for an opportunity for a mock interview or to help them out in that sense. So they end up preparing. They end up preparing in silence, meaning that they do like the research, but they won't ever do it out loud. So this is an opportunity where they do get to speak and practice their questions, their responses, they'll get to hear themselves and then, if the AI possibly can, it can give you feedback.
Speaker 1:Again, I can't, I don't know what feedback it's giving you, so I can't really tell if it's good or not, but it really is an opportunity for you to practice out loud yeah, yeah, I agree with that, because it can be intimidating to practice with a friend or a career counselor or somebody, because then it's like you're being vulnerable and you don't want to not put your best foot forward in front of people sometimes, and so this is a safe space essentially, and I know it responds to you.
Speaker 2:You just have to tell it to respond to you Like, like, for example, you can share with it like be, pretend. Or you could say you know, and from now on you are an expert recruiter in this industry. Um, focused on this organization. Right, I want you to help me prepare for my interview. Ask me 10 mock interview questions and I will respond Like. You can train it, you can tell it to be those things so it can give you the best guidance. So it's not just the plain old chat bot, um, but it is definitely an opportunity for you to speak and practice out loud your interview responses and see what kind of feedback you get.
Speaker 2:I am a fan of telling individuals to use like, zoom, google Me, whatever platform you can if it's like a virtual interview, to see and record yourself so you can watch the playbacks. I even tell people sometimes. One of my favorite features on our phones are like the voice memos. Every smartphone now has like a voice memo so you can speak and hear yourself Back. When I was interviewing, that was what I used to do.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, I used to and I still have them, which is very cringe, um. But I have a bunch of my self mock interview practice where I would ask myself questions, speak them out loud, and then I would listen to see if I was answering. The question had a great example how long I was speaking, for what type of pauses, what was my tone. I mean, you know me, armand Amo was a hardcore um, shared with you guys a little bit about my interviewing process for my current job, but it was like um intense interviewer for myself, so that's why I still have them. And then I would even practice with myself on zoom. I would record and watch my body language.
Speaker 2:I would watch my tone when I was looking at the camera versus the screen, if I had notes like all those kinds of things. That's kind of like my guidance amazing.
Speaker 1:Well, yeah, and so you were already using tools aside from ai, but other technology related tools, to help you, and it clearly has been beneficial yeah, I mean we'll see.
Speaker 2:Now I need an interview to see how like I feel, like I'm rusty.
Speaker 1:No, no interviews, let's keep you here. But yeah, amazing, I mean, there are so many tools that can support us and I think, just as long as you use it in the right way, we definitely endorse and encourage people to use the tools to support them and make their process more efficient, because job search can definitely be overwhelming and then also it can be something that kind of demotivates us when we keep submitting applications and not hearing back us when we keep submitting applications and not hearing back.
Speaker 1:So we want to minimize that as much as possible. If the applications are more intentional and they're better developed, then you get better responses and you're not submitting as many applications and then overall it's just a better, positive experience.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely, you were talking about technologies and Armine. I want to turn it back to you for a second. We talk about platforms and services and tools and resources and all these types of things, but for you, what is like the best job seeker platform that someone can use?
Speaker 1:Oh, I love that. I would definitely say LinkedIn. Yeah, I think LinkedIn overall is a great professional development platform to use. Of course, it has a job board and it is a pretty trusted job board. So I would definitely encourage LinkedIn's job board, but also just the LinkedIn profile itself, to be able to brand yourself, to be able to connect with other people that can lead to opportunities. So anybody who's job searching, I would say LinkedIn is the place to start with your overall portfolio.
Speaker 2:I definitely agree with you. Linkedin is, I think, globally now, the top platform for job seekers. I will say it's an opportunity to do a lot of self-promotion your personal brand, but also be out there in general, but also really make your case for why you're a great worker, employee or consultant or CEO, whatever it is right. Linkedin is huge in the job seeker space and I think that people end up coming to this platform because it's so well-rounded in all of its offerings and services. But why would it be important to a job seeker? What do you think is like one of the things that someone uses the most on LinkedIn?
Speaker 1:Well, it's important because recruiters look at your profile right. Recruiters actually have their own way of utilizing LinkedIn to find potential candidates. So if you have a well-rounded portfolio and you have a well-developed profile, recruiters are likely to see what you have to offer and reach out to you to connect you to positions that you never even knew existed. So that's one of the key reasons why LinkedIn is important, but, of course, beyond that, it's also connecting and networking with people who may be in the industries that you're wanting to go into, and those connections can lead to job opportunities as well.
Speaker 2:Yeah, if you didn't know this, on your LinkedIn profile there is an opportunity or like a little thing where, if you're on your picture, you have the option to have a banner banner to allow it to be on your public profile or only have that turned on to the recruiter side, which I believe is called, like LinkedIn. Recruiter is what the people who are seeking for job searchers I guess, uh, potential employees are using. So you have the option to make it like a public thing or to only have it listed for recruiters who are looking for the next best candidate. So on there on your profile, you can really structure it and create it in a sense where it's you are looking for a job, your current employer doesn't have to know if you don't want them to, or your community or network doesn't have to know either, and that can really get you to the people who are looking for you for their next best opportunity.
Speaker 1:Yeah yeah, linkedin is so cool and it's actually evolved a lot since it first came out Right, and it's something that I think now is kind of becoming second nature, like almost everybody has it, although we do still meet people who don't have LinkedIn or feel hesitant.
Speaker 2:I've met people who like absolutely refuse to have it. I don't know. I mean, I I understand where you're coming from or people who just aren't like of the social media head, but nowadays it's important to have a digital footprint honestly it is, and there's no going back.
Speaker 1:You know, in terms of the technology and the digital footprint, like you were saying, and having these tools, it's only going to advance. There's only going to be new things that come up, more digital things and spaces where we need to be at. So any and everybody already knows like employers will Google you, right, employers and recruiters will Google your name, what, what comes up if nothing comes up. That's also kind of sketchy sketchy. Yeah, so you do want to have a digital front print and in in a place like linkedin, you can control what it is that you're putting out there.
Speaker 1:It's professional, it's meant to be a professional space, so it can only benefit you honestly. And if you are somebody who's not that much into technology or wanting to put your life out there or social media, that's okay. You don't have to post anything personal, especially on LinkedIn. It is where you could have limits and have boundaries and you don't have to feel super exposed because it's a space for your professional skill sets and nothing about your personal life needs to go on there, even though sometimes people do, and I don't think that's the right platform for that. I agree.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I agree, I think you can keep it limited to your professional brand and your career in that sense, while still remaining authentic to who you are. There is something that you mentioned, armanay, and I will say that the community you build on there I think I said earlier today, I think I called it like a career colony, like building, a career colony. I always alliteration, I love call it, love calling it career community, but definitely I think I said like a colony, to expand it a little bit more.
Speaker 2:I love that we're colonizing the job market absolutely in this sense, um, with people who are just like here for you, here to support you, and that's where you build that space and I I constantly share that.
Speaker 2:As a society you know, we've built to see LinkedIn as this thing where it's constant positive self-promotion.
Speaker 2:But it's up to us to choose how we shape that platform. You heard me say that like four times today to like to some of our um, our students, but it really is about who you have around you and how you strategically connect with others in the spaces that you also want to grow or be in one day. Right, even people who are maybe you aren't super excited about, but you still find some benefits, some knowledge to gain from their journey, their insights that they have to share because that adds to your professional development, which, aside from keeping you know, your, your tools in, in check and having being like locked in terms of having your resume and your cover letter and all those apps to go and your LinkedIn profiles staying up to date, those are like really cool technical things that you can do. But the people, skills and staying connected to your career colony, your career community, the people who are there to support you day in and day out right, regardless of what phase of your career development that you're going through. That's extremely important, as you are job seeking.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know, I think what I realized is that people sometimes are hesitant about LinkedIn because it's cringy to like self promote. It is Right, it's not something that comes naturally to most people. And and also, if it's somebody who is like starting off in their career and it feels like maybe I don't really have much to offer, so what am I gonna put on there, right, and then it makes them, I guess, more insecure to have this space, this portfolio. That's not really full, but that's really yeah, and that is understandable. That is what what we work on as career counselors Really a lot of the time is that self-image, self-reflection.
Speaker 1:Actually, you do have a lot of things to offer. Let's talk about some of your past experiences and let's reframe some of those experiences for you to see what it is that you, what skills you do have, and then we talk about how we can build our portfolio over time. But you've got to start somewhere and because LinkedIn is the space where you can connect with other people, you can build that brand. Even in the way that you comment on people's posts or send messages to people, those are part of your brand. It's not just the skills and the experiences you have listed, but it's your interaction with other people that's part of your brand, right? So it doesn't have to be this fake self-promotion thing that feels cringy. It's just that authentic, like connecting with people, uh, writing genuine comments, sharing what you learn. You can even share the things that you're insecure about through those comments. There's a lot of great conversations that happen in the comment section, right, and so it's a really great space to connect, be authentic and build those relationships also build your brand.
Speaker 2:Absolutely yeah, and through that you really do the networking pieces right.
Speaker 2:If you are in the comments, if you are liking people's things, if you are growing that space, you are going to naturally create that community right around those individuals and I think that, aside from it being a self-promotion, it's also a space to like keep those people all in one place, right.
Speaker 2:You're going to meet different connections, different. You're going to build different relationships in different spaces and, aside from having them in your contacts, you know app on your phone, you can have them all on one, I guess, another application, I guess, or website, but they're all there for, like, the same reason right To connect with you, to help you, to support you, or for you to help them to connect with them, to support them in that space. It's a give and take or back and forth, I guess, type of relationship to and this is really important when you're job seeking, because you have to know individuals and how to communicate and connect with them, to also understand what you're walking into, or to better understand the industry or the job market or what's available at that time in that sense, but also have people talk about your skill sets, what you have to bring, how you are an asset to a team or how you bring so much value to the next organization or fresh ideas. So these are huge, important pieces that are so critical to our job searcher right now.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, and I think a lot of what we talked about today, mj, are practical tips, right, like use that ai to help, uh, make your process a little bit more efficient, use linkedin to build your brand, to network.
Speaker 1:And we're talking about these practical tips. But I think, ultimately, it's a mindset shift when you, when, when we feel insecure about the job search process, we're less likely to even want to spend time on our resume and cover letter because we're we're, we don't want to see those skill gaps, right, we don't want to see like, okay, maybe I'm not really qualified for this position and you don't want to be that intentional about it, and it's just like this job, I need a job right now. Let me just do this easy apply feature. I feel like that's kind of masking, like really reflecting on okay, what is it that I want to do, what am I qualified for, what skills do I still need to develop? How do I like position myself appropriately for these positions? So that's a lot of intentionality. And I think when there's insecurity around that, it's easy to mask that with like easy apply features. And the same goes for LinkedIn. When there's insecurity around what we have to offer, we don't want to be in a digital space that can maybe expose our gaps right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I love what you're sharing because it's making me literally think about, like, how we can do all these technical things and we can submit the job applications, we can look at the skills. We cannot do all this stuff. But until you start and really look in the mirror and face, you know that true sense of self and where it is that, like you're saying, those gaps? Right, what am I missing? What am I um, what am I reaching towards? How do I bridge this gap between this opportunity and that experience, or make myself more relevant or gain that skill? You won't really move forward.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. So look in the mirror, ask yourself these hard questions what do I want to do? Why am I applying to this job? What skills do I still need to develop?
Speaker 1:We're always growing. Nobody expects you to be perfect and have everything all figured out, but you do have to be intentional. We're always growing. Nobody expects you to be perfect and have everything all figured out, but you do have to be intentional and authentic with yourself and in the job search process, and that's going to then seep into having better applications, more quality applications and applying to positions that are more aligned with you, which then in the interviews you're going to be a lot better because you're aligned with these positions. You're going to be excited about how you talk about the job and what you have to offer, and then it yields better results and then your mindset really impacts the way that you perform in the entire job search process. Thank you so much for listening. If you enjoy our show, we ask that you write a review on Apple Podcasts to help us reach more people looking to level up their career.
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Speaker 1:Follow Career Rise on Instagram for career advice and motivation to help you stay up to date on all things career. Be sure to also visit my website, careerriseorg, to book a career counseling package and access free career resources. My goal is to help you clarify your goals, make a plan and feel confident in your career journey.
Speaker 2:You can follow me on Instagram at careerconfidentlatina for your daily dose of career advice and my journey as a first-generation Latina counselor. Career advice and my journey as a first-generation Latina counselor. You can access free resources or even work with me by visiting my website, careerconfidenceonline. I want to help you grow your confidence and help you reach your career dreams. Adios.