Retrenchment and the 25% pay increase that I did not ask for

I have finally confirmed that I secured new employment and by a fantastic twist of events, I got into a better situation than before. Thank God for opening doors when one was being closed. In short, I received a tidy sum of severance while my annual package increased by 25% (probably because I'm underpaid at current employment, but I won't complain)

It took me 84 days before I secured the offer that I wanted. In total, I sent out a fair bit of applications to which I landed 4 interviews and had 3 offers. I also met a few very nice potential future employers. One of them even held the position open for me for a while despite me rejecting them because I made a pretty strong impression with the boss.

For tips on interviews/career planning, refer to my previous posts:
Interview process cycle: How to increase your interview rates
Investing in our Career (Taking care of the goose) (Constantly upgrade while making plan Bs)
Why we should keep our Resume updated, always. (And dealing with interview preparation)

84 days Job Hunt Timeline
3rd April  - Announcement of retrenchment of my department (Blogged 9/4/2019)
17th April - Attended 1st interview in 1.5 years and screwed it up so bad they didn't contact me
23rd April - Attended 2nd interview (Part sales/Technical role) Offered but rejected
6th May - Attended 3rd interview (Business Support/Technical role) Eventually accepted
31st May - 4th Interview pre- video interview
7th June - Attended 4th Interview (Lab Exec role with School) Offered but rejected

As can be seen, my interview hit-rate is not very good. It is about 1 interview every 21 days or almost 1 on average per month. According to Jobstreet, my total applications was 39. I went for quality instead of quantity in doing and sending out one or two tailored good resume/cover letter per day. I also applied a few through other platforms but not much. One of the interviews that came was from being contacted by a headhunter from LinkedIn (which would become my eventual job). There were also other recruiters that contacted me but it did not materialise into anything.

Breakdown of numbers:
Assuming 45 applications made,
Returns rate of interviews for applications made = 4 / 45 = 8.9%
Offer rate  = 3/4 x 8.9% = 6.7%

From experience, the success rate based on the number of good applications made is around 5%. Alot of it was down to luck and opportunity to secure a ticket to interview. The main difficulty encountered was that my current company bogged down my job hunt with job responsibilities that I was obligated to complete. There were pros and cons to this (allowed me to look for another job while still getting paid until June 30). I was prepared to continue this numbers game if I had no offer on the table until eventually I exhausted all options. Thankfully it did not come to that.


Interesting Interview Experiences:
My first interview in 1.5 years was a total disaster. On the back drop of being retrenched, desperation, fear and unpreparedness caught me off guard. I was even ridiculed by the interviewer for even "daring to apply for their position". In the end, I said a few wrong things and gave a pretty bad impression. It is actually very normal to screw up your first interview in a while. I was sad and frustrated for a day or two over my performance but quickly moved on from it.

The second interview was a pretty memorable one. I guess I will let a screen shot with the recruiter in charge do the talking.

An offer from a reputable company listed in Singapore

After 2 years of Insurance, 2 years as a Lab analyst and now almost 1.5 years as a Chemist, I have developed quite a keen business sense despite being in the Technical side of things. As a testament and vote of confidence for my interview/rapport skills, the HR at this company also mentioned that :"Past candidates usually only get 15 - 20 minutes but you are the first that managed to chat with the Boss for 1 hour plus." I managed to add this Boss to my connections of friends after this as well.

I do think that getting relaxed and being oneself helps one to outperform during interviews (assuming you crunched the interview questions and internalised them). My third interview and fourth ones went pretty well as I looked to be comfortable and display a positive attitude to learn. In actual fact, I "failed" my third interview for the position I was being interviewed for. However, I made sure I had made a strong impression and they offered me an alternative role which was lower but had the opportunity to learn new things. This became my eventual offer that I took up (I left the headhunter to negotiate my package while giving a lowest amount I was prepared to take. They offered me better and the rest was history)

The fourth one was pretty straightforward. It also matched the offer from the third interview in terms of remuneration but it was likely to be a stagnant job going forward.

------------------------------------------------------------

Final thoughts
Overall, retrenchment could have ended badly. But it didn't, and it doesn't have to. Perhaps I am still young. Perhaps being positive and taking action helped create my own luck. But perhaps there will be a time in future when I get older and retrenchment might be more fatal.

But hey, that's why we are planning early to invest and hopefully be self-sufficient one day. Last but not least, I'M BACK. And I can start looking at investments once again.

If you are looking for a job, don't give up. It is a numbers game.

Until Next Time,

K.C.

If you like this post, you might like our facebook page as well. I'm also on Investing Note.

Related topics:
1. About K.C. What is my story?
2. My 3Cs to money/investing
3. Why you need to set aside money for savings first
4. Interview process cycle: How to increase your interview rates
5. My 2018 Year end review
6. I'm retrenched: 3 things to think about

Disclaimer: The views expressed, opinion and information in this article are strictly for informational purposes to encourage educational discussions only. It is important to conduct your own analysis before making any investment decisions based on your own personal circumstances. You should take reasonable measures such as seeking independent financial advice from professionals and/or independently research and verify the information that you find on "30 Year Old Investor" before undertaking any important investment decisions. No content on this site constitutes - or should be understood as constituting - a recommendation to enter any securities transactions or to engage in any of the investment strategies presented in our site content. We do not provide personalised recommendations or views as to whether a particular stock or investment approach is suitable to the financial needs of a specific individual. No representation or warranty expressed or implied is made as to, and no reliance shall be placed on, the fairness, accuracy, completeness or correctness of the information or opinions contained on this website. "30 Year Old Investor" shall not be liable whatsoever for loss or damages of any kind arising from the result of any use, reliance or distribution of the articles or its contents from information contained on this website. 

Why we should keep our Resume updated, always.

If you are currently job hunting or even at a stable job, you should think about keeping your Resume/CV ALWAYS updated. This can come in the form of resumes updated on job portals and even our LinkedIn profiles.

tl;dr
1) We are always prepared if things go south. not wait until the end of the road
2) We have a chance to be headhunted, even while we are not actively looking
3) It helps us in our preparations emotionally and also for doing homework preparations for interviews

As with my last post, my situation at being retrenched set off a scenario I never imagined would have happened to me and it got me thinking about how complacent I got to be after working for about 5 years.

As with every difficult situation, sometimes we enter a state of denial first before we come to terms with the reality and really buck up.

I'm quite thankful that in the past month, since I've updated my professional profile and sent out resumes:

• I received 4 interview offers (3 2 actually came from headhunters/recruiters on LinkedIn)
• I have since attended 3 interviews. (I sort of screwed up the first interview since its been a long time since I have last prepared for one)
• The return rate from job portals has been rather poor so far (just 1) compared to 1.5 years ago when I landed my current job. I believe online portals have more applicants so it takes time. I do tailor make my resumes to fit the relevant skills set the employers are looking for.

Through this last month, it also has been a wake-up call to be more vigilant, to be ever ready to "give a defence for yourself". As it turns out there are many aspects to ace-ing an interview. It goes all the way down from emotional preparation to doing your homework on the various questions we might be asked.

The need to constantly update our professional profiles

When the retrenchment hit my department, there was a senior marketing manager who visited us  thereafter (He is in his early 40s) who by his standards is quite a high flyer. He mentioned something that stuck with me: "Oh, I am always ready for an interview. My resume is always updated."

True enough, regularly updating our LinkedIn profiles might not seem like a very important thing. Especially when we already have a stable job.

But, regularly updating of our resumes does 2 things:

• It helps us to crystallise our professional journey and document where we are in our careers and internalise what we have done thus far
• It puts us "out there" in the market to help us "look out" for opportunities

Sometimes, having a good career/job boils down to really luck: Meeting the right people at the right time and at the right place. We never know who would pop by to our profiles to take a look and say to themselves: Hey I think this guy could do a job for me/ is just the person we been looking for.

It also helps us to be prepared for the unforeseen circumstances given the tough job climate these days. Having an "insurance" plan in place surely helps. And if we are new hires/headhunted to a new firm, my guess is that our chances of being made redundant is minimised in a way.

Constantly updating our professional profiles gives us chance and opportunities, even when we are not looking.

The Emotional Side

If we have not attended an interview for a long time, usually our first interview in a while tends to screw up a bit. Why is this?

It turns out that FEAR of the unknown and desperation can cause us to under-perform. People generally fear what they don't know and being thrown into a situation like this is nothing short of traumatic.

The denial phase would set in first and we might be blaming every other thing/person for things not going our way. Nothing just seem to go right at the moment.

However, once we are able to calm down and attend a few more interviews, we become more sure of who we are and takes things better in stride.

I myself screwed up my first interview because I gave myself too much stress thinking that I had to land that job or I would be in trouble. Needless to say, things didn't go well because we appear a little too desperate and it was inevitable that I said the wrong things.

When we feel unprepared as well, we tend to appear less confident as well. Partially why constantly updating our profiles on a regular basis helps is because it helps us to crystallise and internalise what we have learnt on our current roles, instead of the last minute cramping and memorisations of scripts. This would not be natural.

If you have a faith/belief in a religion, meditation or studying wise wisdom from sages or faith giants might help us in our journies of self-discovery and give us some inspiration too.

Ultimately, master the mind or it will master us.

The Preparations (homework) Side

I start to find that once we internalise the knowledge about what we do at our current work, it would be easy to describe what we do.

The main bulk of interviews challenges therefore comes down to researching about the company (to show we are interested and make an effort to find out about them) and also Situational/ Scenario based questions.

I find that the advice from this website was very helpful indeed.
https://zety.com/blog/job-interview-questions-and-answers
https://zety.com/blog/situational-interview-questions

Q: Tell me about yourself.

Q: Why are you applying for this position?
Q: What motivates you?
Q: Why are you the best person for this job?
Q: What are your strengths (and greatest weaknesses)?
Q: Why did you leave your last job?

Q: Tell me about a mistake you made
Q: Tell me about a time you went above and beyond for work.
Q: Describe a situation where you weren’t satisfied with your job. What could have made it better?
Q: Tell me about a time you reached a big goal at work. How did you reach it?
Q: Describe a situation where you saw a problem and took steps to fix it.
Q: Tell me about a time you had to collaborate with a coworker who was tough to please.
Q: Tell me about a long-running project you handled. How did you manage your time to meet your deadlines?

When we are asked questions such as these, how do we answer? What is the context we should be framing our answers so that we do not go out of the context of what they want to know? We need to flip that table around and imagine we are the interviewers. What do they want to hear? What are the telltale signs in their job descriptions? It also takes effort to try to LinkedIn search who your potential interviewers might be. Who are they and what roles do they play? Do remember their names by hard.

My take is that mostly we have the answers to these questions, but if we do not take time to consider how we are going to answer them, it will show as a lack of confidence, lack of thoughtfulness in answers, or our stories may lack coherence and detail.

There are two chinese sayings which I like to fall back on:

1) 养兵千日，用兵一时: Feed a thousand soldiers, all for one fight. (Describes how storing/accumulating resources to fight a war in normal times is crucial for a war)

2）台上一分钟，台下十年功: A performer performs a minute on the stage, but it took him 10 years of practice. (Describes the crucial preparation and hardwork behind the success of a single performance.)

-------------------------------------------------

If you are in the middle of a job search, all the best. And also, if you are not looking out for anything, now is probably a good time to start.

Update 6th May 8pm: Just received a call from my Headhunter saying I did well for the interview. They are considering me for an alternative position even though I'm a bit lacking in the position I applied for. If it is an upgrade in terms of pay and career progression/security, I will take it up.

Until Next Time, 

K.C.

If you like this post, you might like our facebook page as well. I'm also on Investing Note.

Related topics:
1. About K.C. What is my story?
2. My 3Cs to money/investing
3. Why you need to set aside money for savings first
4. Interview process cycle: How to increase your interview rates
5. My 2018 Year end review
6. I'm retrenched: 3 things to think about

Disclaimer: The views expressed, opinion and information in this article are strictly for informational purposes to encourage educational discussions only. It is important to conduct your own analysis before making any investment decisions based on your own personal circumstances. You should take reasonable measures such as seeking independent financial advice from professionals and/or independently research and verify the information that you find on "30 Year Old Investor" before undertaking any important investment decisions. No content on this site constitutes - or should be understood as constituting - a recommendation to enter any securities transactions or to engage in any of the investment strategies presented in our site content. We do not provide personalised recommendations or views as to whether a particular stock or investment approach is suitable to the financial needs of a specific individual. No representation or warranty expressed or implied is made as to, and no reliance shall be placed on, the fairness, accuracy, completeness or correctness of the information or opinions contained on this website. "30 Year Old Investor" shall not be liable whatsoever for loss or damages of any kind arising from the result of any use, reliance or distribution of the articles or its contents from information contained on this website. 

I'm retrenched: 3 things to think about

When it rains, it pours. In life, we always have to be prepared for the unexpected. I was just posting about how one should have a Plan A and a Plan B for his/her career on 31st March and here I am one week later, retrenched at age 31! It took me a while to process this piece of news and let it sink in. (Note: This is not a post to garner sympathy. Don't.)

I have called a "Safety Time Out" on buying counters as my immediate priorities have been changed, albeit unwillingly. I too, once thought it won't happen to me. At least not so early in my working career but here I am. Unfortunately, due to company restructuring, they have decided to close my whole department and shift operations elsewhere.

Immediate objectives:

• To secure a new employment (there is a bit of buffer time to do so)
• To minimise spending and stay afloat on my current emergency funds.
• To halt further purchase of stocks/Reits until I am employed again.
  (Those already bought will remain for now in portfolio)

Following my own set of advice I wrote on 31st March, my immediate thoughts are:

For circumstances like retrenchment, one can practically:

- Cut down on unnecessary expenses. e.g subscriptions

My subscription plans are already at their minimum after a review 2 years ago. The only thing I can cut further would be my mobile plan expiring late this year or early next year. I would likely switch to data only plan which are in the $20-30 range and not purchase new phone + combo plan. 

- Start thinking of Plan A: Building a career advancement (so you are not easily replaceable)

Tell tale signs were already there and the danger of my industry is that it is quite niche, meaning it is hard to find similar jobs if things go south. I needed to think of a Plan B that would allow me to be more employable.

- Start thinking of a Plan B: In case you are retrenched.

The plan was to start on getting certification in Safety. This will take me a year. I forsaw that there would be changes in my company, and those were communicated to take place in 2020. Unfortunately, it came prematurely.

- Downgrade lifestyle if possible (but not burning another side of candle)
I am currently good on this. Food wise, I won't be saving much except choosing cheaper options.

- Keep an emergency fund of at least 6-9 months of living expenses in the bank

I am good to go for this. Have ample to stay afloat for now. I will still have some income coming in.

As some readers would know, K.C. is in the oil and gas sector. This is a sector that has been ravaged badly from the oil crisis in recent years and certain areas have not recovered. There are also intense competition for business.

A globalised workforce:
In a 2016 article by CNA, they interviewed a few people who lost their jobs and were under 30. My opinion is that depending on the sector you are in, the Singapore market has already been like this for some time and a globalised workforce means that the rice bowl that you and I have now are ever so easily replaceable. Your job could be here, but gone tomorrow.

Bank executive James Ng* was retrenched this May when his job at an American bank got offshored to a cheaper country. The 26-year-old had been processing credit card applications at the bank for three years when he was laid off.
“I wasn’t too surprised (by the retrenchment) because my job scope was being reduced as the workload increased for the team in the offshored country,” he said, adding that his last duties at the bank consisted of training colleagues in the Philippines to do his job.

“The younger ones got retrenched first, in my case. This is because the seniors are the ones who contribute to revenue,” said Desmond Kok*, 28, who was retrenched by National Oilwell Varco in May.
At the time, the mechanical engineering graduate from National University of Singapore (NUS) was less than halfway into his four-year trainee programme with the US oil and gas firm.

Anyone can take our place anytime if our employers decide to shift operations elsewhere. Companies may also regularly use "restructuring" to get rid of redundancy. Many MNCs may also shift operations elsewhere.

At the end of the day, the job market isn't as safe as we think it is and we would be well right not to take things for granted or be complacent with what we have.

1. It is not your fault (but don't play the victim)
Sure, it feels sucks to be retrenched. But as we can see from the above scenarios, usually it is not our fault that we have been retrenched. Many of us might suddenly feel a sense of loss of direction because we have pinned all our hopes and life around our work.

Our work defines us. When people ask us who we are, we often start by introducing what we do (in our line of work). This sense of identity is now lost.

Take a day or two to process what has just happened but please, do not take your emotions out on yourself or the loved ones around you. We might feel bad about our situation but don't go into self-pity mode or go into a victimised mode. This phase won't last (because eventually we would wake up to our senses and then find a job again). However, if you had acted out badly in the fit of the moment, it might have done some irreparable damage to you and those around you.

We are always finding something to blame and account for why this happened. We could blame others or even ourselves. But, it being a business decision, it is neither discriminate or indiscriminate. Once you have recovered from the shock, just got to move on and look ahead.

Keep your emotions in check. But go easy on yourself and others. 😇 Be more positive.

For me, I'm pretty chill about my situation. However, I would be lying if I said it didn't affect me. To be honest, there are many implications: such as affecting my saving/investing goals or plans to getting married. 

2. Where are you now and where headed from here?
In Sun Tzu, The Art of War, Sun Tzu said: “Victorious warriors win first and then go to war, while defeated warriors go to war first and then seek to win”. He also says “If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.”

Only fight a battle you know you will win (where you have the right tools, right resources). We can only do that by knowing where we are and where we are going from here. The immediate goal is to secure employment. The main enemy is not knowing our own value, and what is available in the job market out there. Discuss with your family/ spouse on possible methods to cope. Chances are if you had done planning beforehand and also included this possibility you would now be sitting on some emergency funds. It is not time to hit the panic button, yet.

I wrote an old piece on getting more interview hit rates and it has got to do with understanding what the employers want and giving them what they want (provided we have the relevant skills and not cheating):
https://30yearoldinvestor.blogspot.com/2018/11/interview-process-cycle-how-to-increase.html

I am well aware of my capabilities at the moment and aware of the market. The idea is not to start making excuses for yourself but after the dust has settled, quickly access where we are in our careers. Know what options are available to take and if need be we need to tailor or resumes/cover letters to "win the war". 

We should also narrow down certain goals:
- is it just to secure a position? (can we stomach a pay cut?)
- could it be a chance to upsell instead with relevant experience?
- what industries and jobs are we building into? Are we also changing industry altogether?

3. Take action! Set daily achievable goals.
Break it down into small little daily targets so it is not overwhelming. The task of securing a job immediately puts a lot of stress on ourselves but we can break that down into smaller, easier actionable steps that would lead us to it.

To secure a Job we need to go for interviews.
To land interviews, we need to send out resumes and CVs.
To send out resumes and CVs we need to be smart about it and edit/ tailor it to suit the job descriptions.

Working backwards,

To secure 1 job offer, it may take 10 to secure 1 (10% success rate)
To get a job out of 10 interviews (10% success rate), 20 interviews (5% success rate)
To secure 1 interview might take alot of CVs sent. Every 5 CV sent (20% success rate),
10 CV (10% success rate)

Idea is this: If we do not send out enough CVs, there won't be interviews. If we don't go to enough interviews, we can't possibly hope to land a job.

I think by now, it is clear that sending a few well-tailored quality CV or resume is better than mass spamming a generic one. Assuming we do 1-2 quality one per day for a month, we would have sent out at least 30 applications. Some industry might be smaller and have lesser openings, that is fine.  

I will keep to one quality CV per day. Until I exhaust the possible openings I can apply to. Its a numbers game.

-------------------------------------------------

If you are retrenched and happen to read this, know that you are not alone. This is only a passing phase of life. It won't be fatal, unless we let it fester and rot. 

Edit (30/6/2019): I have since secured employment. Find out how I did it at https://30yearoldinvestor.blogspot.com/2019/06/retrenchment-and-25-pay-increase-that-i.html

Until Next Time, 

K.C.

If you like this post, you might like our facebook page as well. I'm also on Investing Note.

Related topics:
1. About K.C. What is my story?
2. My 3Cs to money/investing
3. Why you need to set aside money for savings first
4. Interview process cycle: How to increase your interview rates
5. My 2018 Year end review

Disclaimer: The views expressed, opinion and information in this article are strictly for informational purposes to encourage educational discussions only. It is important to conduct your own analysis before making any investment decisions based on your own personal circumstances. You should take reasonable measures such as seeking independent financial advice from professionals and/or independently research and verify the information that you find on "30 Year Old Investor" before undertaking any important investment decisions. No content on this site constitutes - or should be understood as constituting - a recommendation to enter any securities transactions or to engage in any of the investment strategies presented in our site content. We do not provide personalised recommendations or views as to whether a particular stock or investment approach is suitable to the financial needs of a specific individual. No representation or warranty expressed or implied is made as to, and no reliance shall be placed on, the fairness, accuracy, completeness or correctness of the information or opinions contained on this website. "30 Year Old Investor" shall not be liable whatsoever for loss or damages of any kind arising from the result of any use, reliance or distribution of the articles or its contents from information contained on this website. 

Interview process cycle: How to increase your interview rates

Job Hunting.

You are not alone if you have been searching for a job without much results to show for and you feel more depressed by each passing day. Repeat after me: This is just a passing phase in life, it will not last.

This is just a passing phase in life, it will not last.

You might have sent out a ton of resume applications but none come back to you except those pesky sales firms. It doesn't feel good, it makes one feel unwanted. As the days go by without a single reply, you start to wonder:

"Am I that lousy?"

"Nobody actually wants to hire me?"

"I can't even get any interviews, much less jobs! Even those I think I am over-qualified for!"

From there, your self-esteem and self-confidence goes through the floor and you find yourself unmotivated to move each day you wake up. What do you do? By actually understanding how the whole interviewing process works you will get a better chance at it.

Where does your resume go after you click "APPLY"?

The main issue here is that most resumes won't even get past stage 2. Why is that? Through my own experience and a few other friends' experience, we were able to increase our chances of securing an interview. In fact, in the year before I landed my current job, I secured a 5 interviews within half a year which translates to 71% success rate based on 7 resumes sent. How was this done?

Increase your chances of scoring an interview by doing this:

Stage 1, 2: The Application & Gatekeeper stage
Common mistakes:

• We often put what we want to say about ourselves rather than ask the question:
  "If I were an employer, what would I want to see in a candidate?"
• We fail to recognise that modern applications are screened by softwares that are created to pick out keywords from our resume (We still go by what we want to say about ourselves)
• We fail to see what are listed in the job description and did not create a "Match" with the software that screens our resume

In the previous job that I was hired, I found out from my hiring boss that the numbers for my interview process were as follow:

• 400+ Applicants (I believe it was 425 at least)
• There were 20 applicants shortlisted for 2 separate rounds (40 candidates) ~ 10% rate!
• Finally, 2 candidates hired in the end. - < 0.5% rate!

As you can see, the chances of becoming the candidate hired was merely < 0.5%. However, by breaking the process down, we can see that it is much more easier to increase your chances of scoring an interview (thereby increasing your chances of getting hired). How do you become that 10%?

Do this to get past Stage 2:

HR personnel usually don't have the time to screen through so many resumes for a single job offering. The "person" who does this is actually a software/machine that filters out the 10%. So how do you do this? 

You create a MATCH. What do I mean? First of all take a look at an example Job description for an assistant chemist posted on JobStreet (K.C. likes to use JobStreet):

See this job description? Those highlighted in Red are what they are looking for. Instead of just coming up with a generic resume that tells other what you do, it would be better instead to tailor your resume such that it re-phrases those requirements into the resume you have. This is best done by putting them under your past experiences section such as your FYP, internships and previous jobs.

The thing to note is that you do not have to necessarily hit all of the points. Assuming if I am a candidate with a chemistry background, most of these descriptions listed are already relevant skill sets that I have. However, presentation of our resumes are important such that we need to demonstrate explicitly in KEYWORDS that we have what they are looking for which the screening software filters out.

By rephrasing the requirements into your resume as capabilities you score a much better chance with the software gatekeepers.

Chances are if you can get past even stage 2, the HR personnel who reads your resume would also find that you have a good fit of capabilities because you have essentially answered the question of why they should interview/hire you by "demonstrating" that you have a good fit.

Point to note is however, do not abuse this method to over state/lie about what you know because you will be found out at the interview.

Pro-tip:
- To get more job listings, play around with search words related to the field you are in. (e.g. Chemistry, lab, lab work, chemicals, -insert whatever relevant words you can think of-)

- Tailor your resume to reflect the key job requirements others are looking for, not what you want to say about yourself.

- Keep in mind that the screening software screens for Keywords from job descriptions which you want to incoporate into your resume.


-------------------------------------
We will take a look at how to score well in an interview in a future post.

Meanwhile, keep sending out your tailored resumes. If you find it difficult due to your emotions or you are feeling depressed, remember that on average one has a 10% chance of scoring an interview.

Therefore, by working backwards, to secure 1 interview, you should send out at least 10 tailored resumes with relevant job descriptions. Then, break that down to sending 2 quality resumes a day which is more manageable. By one week, if you send out 2  daily from Monday to Friday, you will have achieved this objective. Then, it will just be a matter of time.

Ending this post with a story of 2 farmers:

Once, there was a devastating drought in the land. There were two farmers who prayed for rain but only one continued to work the land and sow the seeds. When the rain came, which farmer benefited?

Keep sending, it is only a numbers game.

Until Next Time,
K.C.

If you like this post, you might like our facebook page as well.

Related topics:
1. About K.C. What is my story?
2. My 3Cs to money/investing
3. Why you need to set aside money for savings first