Countersignature Modern Employment Application Made Easy

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welcome again to Jeff the career coach in this video we're going to teach you how to avoid the three deadly traps on a job application so here's a standard job application form and before we get to the three traps and how to avoid them let me first say you want to be honest on this form if you lie anywhere on this application it is cause for termination and I've heard unfortunately countless horror stories of people that fit on this application and they did it in a way they didn't even matter to them getting the job and they ended up getting terminated down the road so absolutely make sure you're honest on this form now let's talk about the three traps and how to avoid them the first one is to see here for every piece of work experience there's this box called reason for leaving now a lot of people are tempted to right off the bat say something negative about their previous work experience as to why they left maybe they didn't like their boss or they didn't like their company or they didn't like the shift or they didn't like the content of the work and all of those things might be 100% true however when you say negative things about a previous company it starts to raise red flags to the employer and you want to avoid that so as a general you want to never say anything negative you want to focus on the positive reason why you went to the next company that you did and I want you to remember this this is the easiest answer that causes the least amount of concern and that is better opportunity it's generic it's positive it doesn't raise any flags and it's a legitimate reason why you go to a new company so in absence of everything else that's it should be your go-to move on why you left there was a better opportunity now there's a couple instances when you can't do this right one might be you are laid off right and if you're laid off which I want you to do in that situation is be honest and then the reason for leaving sale and off now what you need to remember though is you need to be prepared when you get to the interview process to explain this and by the way you know in our interview prep video we go into great detail of all these kind of issues you might come up in the interview and how to handle them but just be prepared that when you put laid off that's going to come up in the interview process you're going to need to tackle that another one might be well hey maybe maybe you were pregnant and you left because you had a child or you know there's a personal reason like that that's perfectly legitimate maybe you exit the workforce because you had a child you took some time or there might be some personal reasons those are perfectly fine and make sure you put those in there the last one that's really tricky and that is if you got fired or terminated from your previous position there's really not a good answer here right and you're gonna have to be prepared to explain it but instead of just saying I was fired or us terminated I the best way the best terms I would use for this box is to say personal reasons reason for leaving personal reasons and again be prepared to be honest the interview process and talk about it but you need to have a good story to explain if you were terminated or fired and again we handle all this in the interview prep video so make sure you check that out the second big trap on an application form as you see here we're asked may we contact your previous supervisor for a reference so there's a couple questions you want to ask when before answering this question first does my previous supervisor know I'm looking for a job because they're gonna find out if you select let yes second let's say that they know or you don't care if they find out the second question is will they give me a good reference now I will tell you that you want to do everything you can to check the yes box here because if you check the no box this is going to raise red flags to your future employer they're going to be like well why is this person why can't I contact the previous supervisor where are they hiding where they have bad employee and again we handle how to handle this in the interview prep video but ideally you want to get to yes the one exception here is you never really should have to check the BS box on your current work experience everybody understands that if you're out there looking for a job that your current employer doesn't know and probably shouldn't know and so you can get away with checking knowing your current work experience box but when you have previous employers you want to do everything you can to get the yes to check the yes box but if you had a situation where your boss wasn't going to give you a good reference then you have to select no but again you want to be prepared when you get to the interview process to handle that and again we'll handle that in the interview prep video now the final trap and this is the biggest one on every application form and I get lots of questions about this and that is the question when it says desired salary this is the biggest trap on this form you know you know very little about the job or the salary range you haven't even interviewed yet and there asking you for what your number should be and you know this is going to greatly impact how your salary negotiations go at the end of the process so if your number is too high they're not even going to give you an interview but if your number is too low then you're going to be leaving money on the table and we don't want to do that either right so here's my trick this is a great trick in the desired salary section I want you to write the word either the word open or negotiable we don't want to put a number here and very once in a while an HR person will pin you down this and make you put a number down and again if you do that in our interview prep video we go through how to handle that to kind of give yourself some wiggle room but typically you get away with this right and so I want you to write in desired salary open or negotiable with these job application tips you'll be able to avoid the traps that can hurt your chances to get the job or even worse cost you thousands of dollars at the offer stage make sure you check out the rest of our career advice content including videos on resume writing finding job opportunities interview prep guides and offer negotiations advice at Jephthah career coach com you