Mindy Thomas

“The Second You Give Up is the Moment You Need to Keep Trying.”

For six long years, my client struggled with landing an entry-level writing job. She figured her resume was good enough and, after all, she was a trained writer who was published and won many awards for her stellar writing. As unbelievable as it may sound, my client actually received only one response to hundreds of applications over these last six years since she graduated from college in 2007.

When I got the call from her today that she received a job offer as an editor for a leading trade magazine in Philadelphia, I was overcome with joy. I’m talking about getting those goosebumps in a nano second while doing that happy dance admist trying to capture the details of the offer with her on the phone.

Frankly, for me . . . well, there is nothing that feeds my spirit more that to celebrate someone landing their dream job in THIS job market. Having met this client on a face-to-face interview in my office in suburban Philadelphia, I knew how painful it was for her. She was blessed with this God-given talent that laid dormant for literally YEARS due to this challenging job market.

So, after talking about the wonderful salary and benefits package she was offered this morning, I asked her what she had learned the most, after these painful years of struggling to land a job armed with both a bachelor’s and masters degree.

“The second you give up is the moment you need to keep trying.”

That’s precisely what she said. As she remembers, there were many times she had just given up. Every couple of months, she would throw her resume up for another position. Year after year she wondered why she would only receive one call back after posting to hundreds of jobs. Her frustration grew deeper and deeper until one day I got her call on a Saturday about the hundreds of rejections she had received.

The reality is that resume writing is very, very tricky. Further, it’s not just about having a well-designed and compelling resume in this market today. As you know, job hunters need to know what to do with it. In fact, there are many people who actually get to the interview table, but completely fail to close on the interview process. In this case, my client had the whole “package” and within one hour of posting for two editor positions, she was contacted by one firm to interview for her dream job. She nailed the phone screen and two subsequent face-to-face interviews.

As we know, the resume has to do the heavy lifting of getting a job hunter to the interview table. So, if you think that 572 words on one page doesn’t make a difference, I would like to suggest that it just might. One thing is for sure, there’s one young lady out there who thinks it did. If you have turned your life around with taking an alternative approach to job hunting or resume writing, I would love for you to share your warrior story.