Even if you’re not actively looking for a job, you should care what recruiters think about you. Why? Your career path is a winding road, not a straight line, and you need all the positive connections you can get to keep progressing. The problem? Your behavior might not be making a great impression. In fact, it might be scaring off potential employers. That means they won’t be contacting you when a dream job comes up – you’ve already been taken off of their list. Here are five ways you might be scaring a potential employer (and how to fix them).
1. You’re a Ghost.
Okay, so maybe you’re not a spirit out spooking in the night, but if you don’t have a profile photo, you may as well be a ghost as far as recruiters are concerned. We get it (really, we get it!) – you’re security conscious. But unlike LinkedIn where your profile photo may show up in Google images, ClearanceJobs doesn’t share your data with search engines. If that isn’t reassuring enough, then try a picture of your favorite pet or an avatar. Something that reveals a part of you is better than nothing.
2. You’re Invisible.
You may have created a profile on a site like ClearanceJobs, but you never took the time to activate your profile. Or you created it and left it dormant for weeks or months. You may as well be invisible, because recruiters will be very hard-pressed to find you. If you’re actively job searching, it’s absolutely critical you’re refreshing your profile regularly and making sure every field is complete. Even if you’re passively job searching, it’s good to keep your profile up to date by adding new information including status messages, updated clearance information and other details.
3. You’re a clown.
Sure, you take your job seriously. But do you know what one of the big recruiter pet peeves we still hear is? Candidates who have an unprofessional email address. Prettyflyforawhiteguy06@gmail.com seemed like a really good idea in 2004. But you’re a grown-up. It’s time for a grown-up address. The same goes for unprofessional voice mail messages and ring tones. The only thing worse than forgetting to turn your phone off during an interview? When it starts to ring and everyone in the room is suddenly serenaded by Justin Bieber’s ‘Baby, baby, baby, oh baby.’
4. Your grammar’s scary.
We won’t go over the details (we did that in another article this month), but your grammar may be scaring away a lot of potential job offers. When it comes to grammar, more casual communication may enter into your correspondence with recruiters. But when it comes to your resume, you need to hit all the marks, from proper spelling to correctly formed sentences. A recruiter won’t believe you know the technology or skill if you can’t even spell it.
5. You have skeletons in your closet.
You think your security clearance is all the vetting you need? Welcome to the post-Martin era. We have another NSA-leaker and you can bet that the issues you’ve had in the past will become bigger concerns if you need an upgraded clearance or reinvestigation. The issue in a background investigation often isn’t that you have skeletons – it’s trying to hide them. If you have a prior bankruptcy, a history of alcoholism or something else that falls within the adjudicative criteria, make sure you’re up front with that in your SF-86. And self-report changes between your investigations. Continuous monitoring may not be happening across the board, but you can believe it’s coming.
