Roy Keane tells an interesting story in his recently-published biography.
He was thinking about signing Robbie Savage for Sunderland, so he gave him a call.
Robbie's phone went straight to voicemail. His voicemail message was "Hi it's Robbie. Whazzzzzuuuup?!" like the Budweiser ad.
Roy Keane, in his own words, thought to himself "I can't be ****ing signing that" and never called him back.
Robbie Savage never knew that his stupid voicemail message actually cost him a job (until Keane's autobiography came out of course).
Now, playing for Sunderland isn't obviously the dream job for everyone, but it's an opportunity not to be sniffed at. How many of us are unknowingly sabotaging our own job prospects?
When you send a crap CV, fail to make your Facebook pictures private or don't fill in a job application properly, the employer is not going to hire you.
And, most importantly, they will never tell you why. Like Robbie Savage, you'll carry on doing stupid stuff without realising that it's costing you golden opportunities left, right and centre.
So what can you do about it?
Well, one thing you can't do is expect an HR person to tell you. Frankly, you've already shown that you're not worth bothering with.
What you can do, is not act like an idiot. Make sure the following things look and sound professional - or at least not stupid:
- Your voicemail
- Your social media profiles - especially important if you've got an unusual name
- Your email address (you can even set one up especially for job-hunting)
Then get some help with:
- Your CV (there's help here, here and here)
- Filling in a job application form (this might help)
- Job interview skills (there's help on our blog here, here, here, here, here, and here)
Negative feedback is hard to come by. The best thing you can do is make sure you don't attract any in the first place!