During the course of a job hunt, it is common knowledge that candidates would face tough competition from other applicants for a given job position. As the number of resumes pile up, the competition to stand out as a top contender heats up as well.
Cream of the Crop
Way too many job aspirants approach the competition in a way that they end up in the generic candidate trap. What this essentially means is in order to emerge as the cream of the crop, candidates normally approach the competition over-zealously and often in the wrong manner.
Quality Vs Quantity
The generic trap is nothing but a series of actions that the job seekers 
undertake in order to stand out in front of the recruiting managers. It ranges from getting back to the old habits in order to shoot off quick applications, the underlying basis of this approach is that quantity is all the more important than quality in any given job hunt.
Laser Focused Approach
This however is not even slightly true, as the most successful candidates who are able to land a role in an organization of their choosing, the profile they happen to love, these people adopt a laser focused approach for their search. They are very well aware that they can safely sacrifice, the overall jobs in terms of sheer numbers in favor of a select few high value openings.
The Trap
One must take a minute and think it over whether they are approaching the generic candidate trap. Did it ever occur to you that despite having applied to hundreds of job, that too within a short span of time you were dejected because no one responded back.
Never Use a Generic Resume
Your usual practice of starting the cover letter most of the time with a generic “To whom it may concern” rather than with the person’s name itself works big-time against you. Do you use a generic version of your resume without tweaking it according to the the job you are applying, change these habits as early as possible for your own good.
The Devil is in the Details
Are you in the habit of simply glancing at the job description, rather than reading the entire thing in detail, and going for generic documentation. An affirmative answer to more than one of these, signals– there is a good probability that you you have fallen into the trap.
Some More Effort
This causes your applications to suffer as a result and they stack up rather poorly next to the competition, mind you other equally competent and qualified candidates are putting in all the more effort into each and every application.
Depth of Experience
The ones who fall into this trap carry the mistaken notion that they would be judged solely on merit and the depth of their experience, this in reality is a sure shot recipe for making lots of bad hires.
An Intricate Process
Hiring in fact is an intricate process going beyond picking a person with the best skill set. The recruiter looks in for traits like attitude, cultural fit, chemistry, soft skills and in addition to this you must come across as a collaborative and productive team member.
An Expensive Proposition
Hiring is an expensive proposition in terms of time and money cost, any goof up costs the team as well as the hiring manger in terms of productivity, and a host of other things as well.
Research More
As a normal practice do you simply copy and paste your cover letter 
from a stereotype template and just do minor editing with the details, which results in an average time of less than five minutes required by you to apply for jobs. Do you remember the last time you did actually go ahead and checked out the company’s blog pages or scoured their career pages before applying with the company.
Drama
A poor cultural fit may need to be fired relatively early, where as a poor skill fit may require to go for extra training. A typical hire who does not get along with the team would create unnecessary drama and tension in the team and the workplace.
Avoid Cutting Corners
It is quite easy if you pay heed to certain seemingly insignificant things like, refraining from cutting corners, enhance the volume of research as well as paperwork customization that is required for each and every application. You would feel a perceptible difference in the quality and presentation as well, from the very moment you start implementing these.
Job Satisfaction
This would invariably lead to low job satisfaction, leading to monetary shortfall, drive and productivity losses in the long run. Given the gravity of the situation, by now you must be looking for ways to get out of the generic candidate trap.
The Initial Screening
In reality most applicants unsuspectingly fall in the generic candidate trap and this is most evident during the initial screening of hundreds of resumes, when only top ten are retained and the rest discarded. The ones who are scrubbed out are those who did not take out the time to read the job description, were not adequately qualified for the job and did not put in the requisite effort to stand out.
Final Words
When you fall out of the trap you make life easy for the hiring managers, they are able to see you for what you are as individuals. In order to accomplish that you got to position yourself much further ahead of others, so act diligently and move ahead on the path to success and prosperity.
