Isn’t Job Search a Serious Business?
Yes indeed; searching a job is a serious business and to go about it without honing your skills is like driving a vehicle without having learnt to drive. You may never reach your destination and worse, you may get hurt.
Everyone talks about the increasing competitions in all walks of life. There is no field more competitive in the entire human operations than the job-field where you seek to be selected for a job of your choice, from among many qualified and experienced persons. Also in any other race you first get a chance to perform and only then you are evaluated based on your performance. Whether it is a 100 meters race by athletes or a race for the market share by the goods and services produced by a company, the chance to perform is given first, and the performance itself brings the rewards. Unfortunately in job selection you will be evaluated without first being given a chance to perform. The evaluation is based on the impression someone gets as to how you will probably perform. Therefore in this field, impressing that you can creditably perform is the principal race. This is the reason why the job seeker has to perfect the skills of presentation and communication.
It is like confronting and telling the athlete that he will get the gold medal if he can prove that he can run! The evaluator in job selection evaluates a promise or the record of a previous performance and not the performance itself. This is why the past performance and achievements get the attention in an interview and even here the presentation of the performance is involved and not the actual performance. It is the skill of presenting that comes into play. You might have education, experience and skills in your specialty but the evaluator sees these only as good as you can project in your networking, resume or interview.