3 Reasons Why You're Still Unemployed

In these tough times it's easy to start blaming the economy for our troubles. But contrary to the media hype the economy is not the reasonwhy you're still unemployed. The media's job isn't to inform us, its to entertain us. The more doom and gloom they report about the job market, the more viewers they get. The more viewers they get the more money they make off of them.

So don't let media hype prevent you from taking the necessary steps to getting back to work and making money for yourself. You have to take an honest assessment of yourself before blaming the big bad economy for your woes. Here are three things to consider to improve your job hunt's chances of success.

Your Location

In our modern economy some jobs like manufacturing are disappearing. You should be especially cautious if you live in an area supported primarily by one major employer or industry (anyone here from Detroit?). If that employer or industry is in a tail spin then your job prospects may remain bleek for a while.

To improve your odds research what jobs or industries are growing or at least steady in your area. This will give you some idea about what jobs you should be focusing on. If you truly are in an area without any promising job prospects you might want to consider relocating. Since relocating isn't really feasible to most unemployed people let's focus our efforts on the next two sections.

Your Skill Set

There's a difference between ten years of experience and doing something the same way for ten years. The next ruler of the world will look more like Bill Gates than Genghis Khan. The reason is that technology is changing how every job is performed. The movies and supermarkets have more self service automated lanes than they have cashiers because its cheaper and more efficient. Digital cameras have single handedly wiped out the once thriving photo film industry.

I personally haven't been inside a bank in years due to online banking and ATMs. By the way, when was the last you time you actually hand wrote and mailed a letter? No wonder the US Postal Service keeps raising the price of stamps and is now considering canceling Saturday mail delivery. Anyone who hasn't kept their skills current runs the risk of going the way of the cassette tape.

Your Job Search Is Broken

Your resume is the engine that drives your whole job search. The quality of your resume determines the quality level of the job you will eventually receive. I really can't stress this enough. You must have a well written highly targeted resume to stand out from the crowd of bland, generic, one size fits all resumes on a recruiter's desk.

Yes, it takes more time and energy. But that's what its going to take for a successful job search in this market. The resume you post on job sites should be tailored for the specific job industry you are targeting. If your resume lacks focus then it likely isn't making the cut to the hiring managers desk. Don't try to include everything you have ever done if it doesn't match with your target job.

Job search engines such as Monster allow you to post multiple resumes that you can submit to employers. This allows you to submit different versions of your resume highlighting different aspects of your work experience targeting different jobs. So don't make your resume one big grab bag of jobs and skills.The better your resume fits the job the better your chances of landing it. With a professionally written resume you'll get more job interviews. You have to control the parts of your job search that you can and let the rest work itself out.