Are You Prepared?

Employers don't think you are ready for a job. Their job. You personally? Well--no. But you in general--the job-seeking public.

You don't know what skills and experience they want. You don't know how to network. You don't have a mentor. Here's a link to an interesting article, a recent blog entry on a "helping you find a job" blog, about exactly what candidates for jobs seem to be lacking: http://thevoiceofjobseekers.com/the-job-preparedness-indicator-2013/

What was most interesting to me: the complaints seemed to be less about what qualifications you actually have, and more about the skills, abilities and strengths you say you have.

If you want more information about how to fix your perceived deficiencies, you can read the original materials at the Career Advisory Board.

• Here's their executive summary, a 6-page pdf: http://careeradvisoryboard.org/public/uploads/2013/11/cab-2013-jpi-es.pdf
• And here's their 100-page pdf full report: http://careeradvisoryboard.org/public/uploads/2013/11/cab-2013-jpi-es.pdf

This stuff is pretty dense. I'm not claiming that it's scintillating reading matter. But it's presented with lots of colorful graphs and layout--which suggests somebody thought it was worth putting that much time and energy into. And if you read it closely, you just might get a sense of how to tweak your self-presentation to give you an edge over the masses of other people looking for the same job you want.