Have you ever asked yourself if, what you are doing to get hired is working a little, a lot, or not at all? How do you measure your job search accomplishments and failures? How does a hiring manager make a decision to hire you and what does he or she think of your job interview and who you are as a job candidate? If you are getting hired, you are making all the right moves; you are doing great at getting the job. If you are not asked to join a company, then your way of applying for employment isn’t working for you. Just because you are not getting directions to the human resource office to take your work ID doesn’t mean you are not a great job candidate. It means you have not mastered job interviewing and probably have not devised the best career search plan.

When a job seeker is not hired, he has no way of knowing what advantage the hired job seeker has over the other job applicants. The only way to measure your job search is by making sure all the elements of a successful job hunt have action applied to it. The hiring managers begin their selection with process of elimination and it starts with resumes and phone interviews and any other tools that cross their paths, before calling you in for an interview. So physical, appearance is not the presiding factor although it can be a final and determining factor.

However, it is the first set of personal branding tools that you submit that flags a hiring manager not to toss your documents to the curb or in the garbage during the recruiting and selection process. The decision maker believes he is hiring the job candidate who is great at doing all the right things to get noticed. If you stick to the normal or even the old steps at getting hired, you have already sacrificed the opportunity to get your feet in the door.

At this point, you have either gotten it or you haven’t. It doesn’t mean you’re a bad person, there are just ways of doing things requiring you to step outside the box and for the new job hunting scene you must.

Here are some ideas listed below to get you to reflect upon what you could be doing wrong at getting hired.

1. Review your resume and other job search marketing tools; look for errors and presentation.

2. Create a career search plan that includes all job search marketing tools.

3. Apply action to your job search plan.

4. Know who you are and what the company is looking for-Do not submit to a company and you are not a match or a fit. Don’t waste your time or the company’s time applying for a position you are not qualified to perform.

5. Follow-up with the submission of your resume and interviewing process.

6. Document your search, submission dates, times, and results. Pay attention to time- frames and track where and what can go wrong. Correct mistakes.

7. Keep trying and don’t give up! Hiring managers do not have any idea who you are until they look at your resume in the six seconds they take to review it.

Hearing this phrase over and over again often is ignored but it is a true measurement of eliminating the resumes and job candidates the hiring manager is uninterested in moving forward with contacting. My message to job seekers is, take the time to present YOU the right way, and to learn the criteria for job searching and what the hiring manager is looking for in the six seconds of elimination.

Not only should you make a new resolution to your New Year, make a change to a new kind of job hunt.