Thursday, 29 October 2020

↘️️ Stop Falling into Resume Gaps

You can't fill in employment gaps on your resume without lying, so do this instead.

Stop Falling into Resume Gaps
Photo by Pawel Loj

Need a better way to explain what you did between jobs?

Trying to re-enter the job market after a long time?

Here's how to explain your resume gaps.

Note: There is a poll embedded within this post, please visit the site to participate in this post's poll.

(If your work gap(s) is longer than a year, how have you been explaining it until now? Tell us in the comments.)

Free bonus: The One Resume Resource You’ll Ever Need is a handy reference to make your resume get you more job interviews. Download it free now

How I explained my gaping resume gap

starvingphd resume gaps tweet

Not all resume gaps are signs of poor job searching, sometimes there are good reasons for gaps in employment.

During my job search in 2006, the question was often phrased like this:

“I see that you worked at Amazon.com in France until August 2001, but that your next job only began over a year later in October 2002. What happened there?”

I would usually grin out of familiarity with the question and then reply with something like this:

“In August 2001, I resigned from my managerial position at Amazon.com in France because I wanted to move back to Israel.

My plan was to take some time off to get settled in Jerusalem properly, without rushing, and then relax because I was exhausted from working at Amazon.

Once I was feeling energized and ready to go back to work, I began evaluating what my best career options would be locally. Unfortunately, by the time I began looking for work in December 2001, the Dot-com Bust (or ‘Internet Crash', as they said here in Israel) was in full swing, companies were closing, hitech (tech industry) people were being laid off left and right, and almost none of them were going to be replaced.”

Resume gap

(At this point in the story, the Human Resources rep. or hiring manager is usually nodding because they too remember what it was like during that tough time.)

“I spent the next 8 months looking for work like so many other people, receiving only a few offers that I had to refuse because they didn't make sense financially.

One company offered to pay LESS than minimum wage to hire me as a Senior Project Manager (a position that normally earns 8-10 times that amount). I would have had to take a second job to pay all my bills. Good thing I didn't join them, they went bankrupt 3 months later.

In the summer of 2002, one of my former bosses from Amazon said that if I came back to France he would give me a terrific job with his new company. With my savings dwindling and an appealing offer in hand, I couldn't refuse.

However, it still took a few more months before I could start my new job because now I needed to move from Jerusalem back to Paris and get settled in there. In parallel, my new company wasn't even ready for me yet so the timing worked out well for both sides, and I finally began working in October 2002.”

Why this resume gap story works

Let's analyze that answer to the resume gap question:

  • “In August 2001, I resigned from my managerial position at Amazon.com in France because I wanted to move back to Israel.”

I wasn't laid off or fired, I resigned. It was my choice to become unemployed.

  • “My plan was to take some time off to get settled in properly, without rushing, and then relax because I was exhausted from working at Amazon. Once I was feeling energized and ready to go back to work, I began evaluating what my best career options would be locally.”

Needing time after a transcontinental move is very understandable to get settled in, and it takes more than a week.

Saying that “I was exhausted from work” is a mistake unless you can convince the interviewer that it won't happen again at their company. That said, everyone knows that hard work is tiring and this “slip” of truth can actually work in your favor by showing your honesty.

  • “Unfortunately, by the time I began looking for work in December 2001, the Dot-com Bust was in full swing, companies were closing, hitech people were being laid off left and right, and almost none of them were going to be replaced.”

Anyone who's been through the ordeal will remember what it's like to be in industry- or economy-wide recessions, and how difficult the job market is during those moments in time. No one will fault you for getting caught up in such events that were clearly out of your control.

  • “I spent the next 8 months looking for work like so many other people, receiving only a few offers that I had to refuse because they didn't make sense financially. One company offered to pay LESS than minimum wage to hire me as a Senior Project Manager. I would have had to take a second job to pay all my bills. Good thing I didn't join them, they went bankrupt 3 months later.”

(The same goes when explaining resume gaps due to illnesses, and that includes mental illnesses and depression. If it was out of your control, say so and people will usually understand.)

Not only was it my choice to become unemployed, it was my choice to stay unemployed. Also, it was worth pointing out that although there weren't many, I was still getting offers during a tough time.

  • “In the summer of 2002, one of my former bosses from Amazon said that if I came back to France he would give me a terrific job with his new company. With my savings dwindling and an appealing offer in hand, I couldn't refuse. However, it still took a few more months before I could start my new job because now I needed to move from Jerusalem back to Paris and get settled in there. In parallel, my new company wasn't even ready for me yet so the timing worked out well for both sides, and I finally began working in October 2002.”

Any HR rep. or recruiter knows that a hiring process can take a few months before the candidate actually becomes an employee.

Finally, it's important to emphasize that when telling this story to recruiters during my 2006 job hunt, I wasn't an expert on job search. My above reply was a result of simply trying to tell the truth in a positive light and seeing how people reacted, including their followup questions or remarks.

7 tips for explaining your own work gaps

erinkennedycprw career gap tweet

 

1) Be honest

Don't try to hide the gap. Many people have prolonged periods between jobs, at least once in their career. Think of how many stay at home moms try to re-enter the job market once their kids get older!

Having a resume gap is not so unusual, so don't make it seem to be unusual.

 

2) Show it off, even

If you took advantage by using the time between jobs to improve your skills or otherwise make yourself into a more valuable candidate.

 

3) Emphasize it was by choice (if true)

Put a positive spin by explaining how you were selective when targeting companies or contemplating job offers.

 

4) Use history

If your resume gap overlaps a period of difficulty in your entire industry or your country's economy, mention it. In 2020, the coronavirus outbreak is disrupting many job searches. Or- perhaps you weren't job searching the whole time but there was a major event in your personal life that required extraordinary attention. ‘Going historical' works especially well if the job interviewer can empathize because they may have experienced the same event.

 

5) Make your resume gap a non-issue

How? By listing directly on your resume what you did during the time between jobs, especially if the time was regularly spent in a framework such as a school or volunteering program.

 

6) De-emphasize resume gaps with a functional resume

Resume gaps stand out in a chronological resume, the classic resume type that details your work history over time and, by literally reading between the lines, your non-work history. Using a functional resume emphasizes your skills and achievements over the aspect of time.

 

7) Just avoid resume gaps outright…

By job searching intelligently so that you don't need to search longer than necessary. Improve your job search skills before you need them, at the very least by following blogs like JobMob even while you're still employed.

youranmoron resume gap tweet

What others are saying

Question of the article

Should resume gaps matter? Aren't your work accomplishments more important than what happened when you were off work? Tell us in the comments.

Bonus: How to explain gaps in your resume (how to explain a career break) | Employment gaps resume examples

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Subscribe to JobMob via email and follow me on Twitter for more useful resume gap insights.

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Thursday, 22 October 2020

👩‍🎓 5 Things Student Job Seekers Need To Know For 2021

Preparing for your first career job search? Here's how to adapt for a recruiting year like none before.

woman in gray dress resting her hands on white table
Photo by sean Kong

This is a guest post by Rob Feinstein.

For college students planning their transition to the full-time working world, 2020 was a year of learning the new rules of the game on the fly.

Looking for work, and life on the job, radically changed in real time. Internships and jobs turned virtual, if they remained at all. Everything related to work – from interviews to the day-to-day life of ‘office’ work – happened remotely.

But for 2021, it will be expected that we’ve all adjusted to a new normal. Student job seekers will need to be experts at the keys to getting a job and thriving in it in a world of remote interviewing and remote work.

Here are the top five things that student job seekers will need to know for 2021.

What college students need to know about job search right now

1) Master the video interview

Your job interview will be on Zoom, or another popular video interview platform, so you need to get comfortable and learn to shine in that medium.

Here are the keys:

  • Practice. Give yourself a typical interview prompt like “Tell me about yourself” and record yourself on Zoom to see how you look and sound on video. It’s humbling at first, but you’ll easily see what you need to improve. Record, review, repeat.
  • Know where to look. The age-old advice for interviews used to be ‘give a firm handshake and look them in the eye’. In a video interview, the next best thing is to know where to look to appear to make eye contact. There’s a simple trick for this that I share in my new book titled “Launched – Start your career right after college, even during a pandemic”: look at the green light on your laptop, which is the camera’s eye, and your interviewers will see it as looking straight at them. Otherwise, you’ll look like you’re oddly staring away.
  • Clean up. That’s not just about what you wear, but what’s in the background that the camera shows. Pick a well-lit and well-kept area of your home to create a clean backdrop that won’t distract your interviewer.
  • Sit up straight. You need to sit, but you also need to maintain high energy. Sit at the edge of your seat, and lean in, to appear engaged in the conversation. That’s the remote interview equivalent of a firm handshake.
Note: There is a poll embedded within this post, please visit the site to participate in this post's poll.

2) Build your network

It’s never been more important to nurture your business network as an aid to your job search.

Did you know that the average LinkedIn user has 400 contacts? That means that if you have an average number of LinkedIn contacts, the number of people your contacts know is 160,000 people! That’s 160,000 possibilities that you are one introduction away from a contact at a company where you’d love to work, an industry you want to explore, or someone you can meet for an informational interview (virtually, of course).

Grow your network on LinkedIn, starting today. Send invitations to connect to former colleagues, execs where you’ve worked who you met (even briefly), your friends, and also your friends’ parents who work in fields you’re targeting. Perhaps even make a local networking directory.

Your network is a lifelong asset that you’ll continue to build throughout your career.

3) Multidimensional applying

One of the great values of your professional network is how it can come into play when you’ve applied for a job. You don’t want to just send in your resume and hope for the best. Instead, you want to be proactive and use a tactic I call multidimensional applying. That means that sending in your resume and cover letter is just your opening gambit. What you do next is look to your network to identify who you know, or who your contacts know, who can help you get that job by:

  • Putting in a good word for you with the hiring manager;
  • Providing an insider’s view of the company;
  • And giving you research tidbits to win the interview.

4) Non-standard resume additions

There are two items that you’d never thought should make their way onto your resume, but in 2021 they should.

Who would have thought you should put a job on your resume that you never started?

In the COVID era, it’s actually a good idea for your resume to include experiences you didn’t get to have due to the pandemic. The National Association of Colleges and Employers suggests adding a line like this to your resume: “XYZ Company – Internship offer accepted. Rescinded due to COVID-19 – Summer 2020.” The same is true to a job you started but lost due to the pandemic.

The other items to emphasize on your resume are your proven abilities to master the skills of remote working. I’m talking about things like experience working from home, comfort with remote work tools like video conferencing, and ability to teach yourself new things on your own. Employers now understand that a new set of skills are more critical in an era of remote work, and they’re on the lookout for candidates who have a better-than-average chance to succeed as a new employee starting from home from Day One.

5) Self Improvement

The number-one job interview question of the upcoming recruiting season is easy to predict. It will be: “how did you spend your time during COVID?’. Every answer, whether you were employed or not, should include something about how you improved yourself.

  • What did you read?
  • What volunteer work did you do?
  • What courses did you take?

Basically, it’s this: what did you do to stay productive and be better when the world had turned upside down?

Many great online courses are free on sites like Udemy, and your school may have a deal with a program like LinkedIn Learning that’s normally fee-based.

The coming year of 2021 will be a recruiting year like none we’ve experienced in our lifetimes. We’ll either still be in a pandemic, or pulling out of it. Either way, along with what’s certain to be a time of continued challenges to the economy, students entering the job market will need to be experts in a new set of skills to be among those who rise to the challenge and succeed.

Question of the article

What has a friend done on a recent job search that you never would have thought of? Tell us in the comments.

READ NEXT: 🎸 Where To Quickly Find Virtual Remote Internships That Rock

Quote about "Launched"

About the Author

rob feinstein avatarRob Feinstein is a pioneer in the online recruiting industry, a longtime software industry executive, an award-winning former journalist and career coach. He is the author of “Launched – Start your career right after college, even during a pandemic”.

Subscribe to JobMob via email and follow me on Twitter for more of the best job search advice students can get for 2021.

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Thursday, 15 October 2020

🚩 One Surprising Reason Recruiters Aren’t Responding To Your Job Applications

Recruiters can only respond to your email if they actually get it.

orange tabby cat on wooden fence
Photo by Chen pin ju

One of the most frustrating things about the job search process is the uncertainty.

What's it going to take to find that next job? How long will it take? And so on.

There's a particular kind of uncertainty that drives job seekers crazy: not getting a response from recruiters.

When I ask my readers what their biggest job search challenge is, this problem comes up again and again-

  • “not hearing back”
  • “I have sent some CVs out but haven't gotten responses.”
  • “The biggest problem I have is getting responses to my job applications.”

I used to get so many complaints about this that I once blogged An Open Letter to the Recruiters of the World From Job Seekers Everywhere, and that was just to get recruiters to auto-respond to job applications.

If you're like most job seekers, you are probably more likely to be bothered about the lack of recruiter response than you are about getting rejected. Crazy but true.

Here's the thing though-

That lack of response is often because of something you did: sending an email job application that was automatically flagged as spam.

lewis c. lin resumes in spam folder tweet

You get aggravated by not hearing back, but the recruiter never even saw your email, and good luck getting them to check their spam folder when you have no better way of contacting them directly.

Stop shooting yourself in the foot.

Here's what you can to do to increase your chances of getting to recruiter inboxes. And you'll see how I also have to do better.

 

Note: There is a poll embedded within this post, please visit the site to participate in this post's poll.

4 ways to avoid recruiter email spam filters

 

A) Don't apply via email in the first place

However, it is true that many companies require resumes to be submitted by email.

In that case…

 

B) Blacklist check

If your job search email address is from Gmail, Yahoo or Outlook, you can skip this tip and go on to the next one, but pay attention if your email address is from your own personal website or any kind of organization (your current employer?) that regularly sends marketing emails such as client newsletters.

Email spam being the massive problem that it is, companies and others have compiled blacklists of mail servers that are being used for spamming. Spam filters then check incoming email against those blacklists.

If you're sending email from a blacklisted server, your email will be flagged as spam and the recruiter will never see it.

Use a free tool such as MX Toolbox's Email Blacklist Check to quickly check over 100 different blacklists for the mail server used to send your email:

mxtoolbox email blacklist check

Running the check will generate a list of results. If all goes well, you should a lot of green OKs like this:

mxtoolbox-ok-results

However, if you see any red LISTED results, consider getting a different job search email address before applying for any more jobs over email.

You can also compare your results with another tool such as IsnotSPAM.

 

C) Score how spammy your job application emails are

A email blacklist check is just one kind of anti-spam tool you can use. Another kind will take your email and score it according to how likely it is to be considered spammy by spam filters, such as Mail-tester.com.

Before emailing a recruiter, send your job application email – the actual email you were planning to send – to a unique mail-tester.com email address shown on their homepage:

mail-tester homepage

Next, click “Then Check Your Score” and Mail-tester gets to work scoring your email:

mail-tester-tool-checking

When it's done, your final results will show where your score lost points:

mail-tester-tool-results

Clicking any line in the report will provide details. You can actually see my results here.

For this test, I simply forwarded a recent newsletter I'm subscribed to, which means that their message “contains errors”.

More importantly:

Argh! My email server is on 3 blacklists!

It's only 3 lists out of 21 checked, so I should be ok, but it's still worth trying to do better. I want to be sure my email will always get to where I want it to.

 

D) Avoid doing things like a spammer

Spam filters use many rules to score your email in deciding if it's spam or not, just like Mail-tester above.

SpamAssassin, one of the most popular spam filtering programs out there, provides tips on their official website on how legitimate email senders like you can get your non-spam email past their filters.

Based on those tips, here are some of the most common things you should avoid in your emails to potential employers:

1) Email priority

If you're using Outlook or another email program that lets you set priorities, don't set your message to high priority/importance. Classic spammer tactic to make their junk stand out in an inbox.

2) BCC

Don't send your job application to multiple employers by using the BCC (blind carbon copy) option.

If blindly emailing different people the same generic message isn't spam, what is?

3) Subject lines

alisha blake nudes resume email subject tweet

Don't leave your email subject lines blank. That screams ‘spam!'

A subject with an exclamation point can also look spammy, especially when together with a question mark.

If you need ideas for your great subject lines, there are so many good ways to fill them.

4) Email content

Don't address the recipient with a “Dear Madam,” “Hi friend,” “Hey girl,” or anything remotely generic. Where job seekers are more likely to trip up is with a “To whom it may concern” or similar, which is just as bad. Do your company research to get a contact name.

Your conversations with recruiters often start with an email cover letter, and that shouldn't include any special formatting or attention-getting design using colors and images.

You definitely don't want to use any spammy language such as “urgent reply needed”, even if you clearly do want a response asap. Even mentioning sums of money, such as how much you earned for a past boss, can look spammy.

5) Attachments

Some experts recommend not attaching your resume but it really is common practice. However, stick to safe file formats such as PDF, RTF or DOCX as opposed to any kind of compressed file (ZIP, TAR, RAR).

There's no reason your resume should be larger than 1 MB (and even that's quite large for a 1-2 page document) and large attachments will look suspicious.

6) Marketing email tools

In How These Smart Job Seekers Used Blogging To Find Jobs, I compiled case studies of job seekers who used a blog to find a job.

Many of them were in the marketing industry and mentioned how they used professional marketing tools as part of their “job search campaigns”.

If you're also thinking of being creative and e.g. using marketing email tools to spam mass email recruiters, your emails will have a much higher chance of being flagged as spam unless you know what you're doing. Be careful.

7) Self-check

Finally, you can test all these tips but by checking what's in your own spam folder.

 

What other experts are saying

 

Question of the article

Has a recruiter ever told you that your resume was caught in their spam folder? Have any other spam story? Tell us in the comments.

Subscribe to JobMob via email and follow me on Twitter for more ways to get your resume in recruiters' hands.

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Thursday, 1 October 2020

🧮 5 Types of Aptitude Tests Job Seekers Are Most Likely To Take

For many employers, aptitude tests have meaning beyond the scores. Here's what you need to know.

woman sitting on bed with flying books
Photo by Lacie Slezak

This is a guest post by Shlomik Silbiger and Gal Jacobi of JobTestPrep.

Dictionary.com has the aptitude test definition as “any of various tests given to measure abilities, as manual dexterity, visual acuity, reasoning, or verbal comprehension, and used to assist in the selection of a career.”

For many jobs, aptitude tests are the first stage you will go through when applying (after submitting your resume). In the following article, we will shed some light on what they are, the most common types of aptitude test, and how to best prepare.

The 5 Most Common Types of Aptitude Tests

Depending on your industry and role, you may have to take one or more of the following kinds of test, each focused on specific skills:

  • Cognitive Ability
  • Reasoning Tests
  • Critical Thinking
  • Professional Tests
  • Gamified Tests

Let’s go over each of these five types:

Cognitive Ability

When the term “cognitive ability test” is used in the context of a psychometric assessment, it usually refers to a collection of 20-50 questions that demand very short response times. The questions encompass a wide array of questions in four main topics (numerical, verbal, deductive, and logical).

A very popular cognitive ability test is the Criteria Cognitive Aptitude Test (CCAT), a general pre-employment aptitude test that measures problem-solving abilities, learning skills, and critical thinking. The CCAT contains 50 questions to be answered in 15 minutes. The test covers three main subjects: Verbal, Math and Logic, And Spatial Reasoning.

Reasoning Tests

Reasoning tests are a common type of aptitude test used in job recruitment, mainly in finance and management. They are mainly used to measure your numerical, verbal, or logical thinking skills. This kind of test assesses your ability to understand, analyze, and interpret information quickly and accurately.

Compared with cognitive ability tests, reasoning tests are more complex, yet allow for more testing time.

The most widely used reasoning tests are provided with SHL, and include three main types of tests:

  1. Logical/Abstract tests, also known as inductive and deductive reasoning. These tests measure your ability to quickly identify patterns, logical rules, and data trends.
  2. Numerical tests include graphs and tables which challenge you to analyze and understand the data presented.
  3. Verbal tests are full of long reading passages, followed by questions that challenge your ability to examine the information and draw conclusions from it.

Critical Thinking

The critical thinking assessments usually aim at high-profile jobs such as legal professionals and managerial roles.

One of the trickiest and most challenging tests in this realm (and in the market in general) is the Watson Glaser Critical Thinking Appraisal (WGCTA). The test is especially challenging due to its unique and counter-intuitive set of rules and its focus on critical thinking.

The Watson Glaser is usually timed and will allow you up to 30 minutes to complete all 40 questions.

Professional Tests

Professional tests are position-oriented and measure proficiency in general job readiness skills. They are designed to determine whether you have the requisite level of skill required to effectively perform at a given job.

For example, the TSA (Transportation Security Administration) Screener Test will measure your skills in common object recognition, screening awareness, and customer service. The tests contain the famous Screener Object Recognition Test (or X-ray test), which asks test-takers to locate specific items in luggage, such as guns, bottles, drugs, shoes, or electronics.

Other examples of professional tests include accounting tests, maintenance knowledge tests, coding tasks, and more.

Gamified tests

An exciting new way of measuring candidates’ capabilities integrates game design with reliable and informative psychometric principles. Assessment games offer an engaging experience while assessing your skillset and cognitive abilities.

A great example is the Procter & Gamble Interactive Assessment, also known as “Smart Predict.” This gamified assessment is broken into three parts: switch Challenge, grid Challenge, and digit Challenge. The 3 challenges measure abstract-logical reasoning, short-term memory, spatial orientation skills, and calculation ability.

The Biggest Aptitude Test Providers

95% of the time, your test will not be administered by your future employer but by a “test provider” – an external company conducting the assessment for the employer.

Here is a partial list of the most common test providers on the market today:

  • Criteria (known for their CCAT test)
  • Wonderlic
  • IBM Kenexa
  • SHL
  • Pearson
  • Virtual Job Tryout
  • Korn Ferry
  • AON G.A.T.E
  • EEI

What Score Do You Need on Your Aptitude Test?

Answering that question greatly depends on the specific test you take and the position you applied for. That is because your score is compared to those of all other candidates for the same position.

For instance, the CCAT test requires a minimal score of 29/50 for a lawyer position, but only 20/50 to be considered for an administrative assistant position.

As a general rule, a score at the top 80% of candidates is usually the lowest threshold to move on in the hiring process.

Can You Actually Improve Your Score on an Aptitude Test?

YES!

Contrary to common misconception, you CAN improve your score on aptitude tests. However, there are several guidelines to consider to make this happen.

#1 Accurate Practice

Research has shown that improvement in cognitive ability tests is only possible if you perform tasks that are as close as possible to the ones you will be tested on.

Therefore, your practice should resemble the actual test in terms of question types as a bare minimum, and if the formatting and time constraints are also similar, that is also a major advantage.

#2 Focused Practice

Most employers do not allow candidates a whole lot of time to prepare for their aptitude test. Roughly 40% of candidates get less than three days of practice before their exam.

That is why it is absolutely crucial you must understand your weakest points, and the areas which require most practice before you start.

#3 Constant Practice

If you want to improve your score, you will need to practice A LOT. Combine two various practice methods to achieve the maximum effect:

  • “Horizontal” practice – solving many questions of the same topic consecutively. This method will get you familiar with the standard techniques to solve test questions.
  • “Vertical” practice – solving questions of various topics mixed together. This method is especially important in cognitive ability tests and will adapt you to the flexibility and mental agility required to meet the test’s rigorous time constraints.

Even though challenging and dreadful for most candidates, focused, accurate and constant practice can and WILL improve your score.

Here are over 20 free aptitude tests you can practice with.

Question of the article

Have you had to take a pre-employment aptitude test recently? Which type and how did it go? Tell us in the comments.

Bonus: Tips for Passing a Pre-Employment Test

READ NEXT: Everything You Need to Know About Pre-Employment Personality Tests

Subscribe to JobMob via email and follow me on Twitter for more hard-hitting advice career and pre-employment aptitude tests.

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Thursday, 24 September 2020

🤣 15 Hilariously Bad Video Conference Fails

Video conference gone wrong? Zoom meeting fails? You're not alone. Not in the least!

tv color bars at an angle
Photo by Tim Mossholder

Near the beginning of COVID-19, I began co-hosting a group video call series with other job search experts for job seekers to get quick answers to their burning questions.

I call these ‘JOSH chats', short for ‘JobMob job search online hangouts', and you can find them in the JobMob Job Search Events Calendar.

Some of these group video calls have been over Zoom but I've also begun streaming directly to YouTube Live, where the recording is immediately available for you after the chat is over.

The calls had all gone well until yesterday, when this happened:

It gives me a headache just to watch it.

Looks like I have an old 56K internet connection from the '90s! Maybe if you like Impressionism, but even then it's pretty bad.

Still, it could have been worse.

As so many people have flocked to video chats due to the pandemic, so many have had Zoom meetings gone wrong.

Here are some of the funniest and cringiest video conference fails I could find.

Enjoy, and be warned. It could happen to you too!

Join us for the next JOSH video chat with job search experts

Title: 2 Weeks, 7 Interviews, 3 Job Offers: Ben O'Hanlon, Expert Community Builder [JOSH #10]

Time: Tuesday, September 29th, at 8:00 PM Israel Standard Time (click here to check your local time)

Full event details in the JobMob Job Search Calendar

Video conference and Zoom call fails that will make you cringe

1) Distraction fail

It wasn’t really embarrassing (for me at least) , but just before COVID hit I had a job interview via Zoom. We have a small house, only one room that would qualify as being an office, which my lady was using to study at the time, so I placed my laptop in our games room in the basement, with our extensive board game collection (300+ titles) in the background. I didn’t even think about it. The interviewer was also a gamer (the job was not games industry related) and spent the first 45 minutes of our planned hour quizzing me on what my favourite games were, and how you can use game mechanics in a management role to keep people in line, and in task. I had to keep steering the conversation back to the job, performance expectations, and things that were relevant to, the job. After 90 minutes of nonsense I asked him to not follow up with me, as I can’t stand working for someone that can’t stay on task.

2) Pet fail

How am I supposed to work with this distraction?! )She just chimed in on my conference call.)

3) Frozen screen fail

My screen froze in a video conference yesterday and it made me look like I fell asleep during an editorial meeting. Which is funny I suppose.

4) Mute fail

Funny how a bunch of 8-year-olds having a video conference have the same issue with people talking without unmuting themselves as adults do.

Sometimes the opposite is the problem…

5) Mic fail

video conference meetings are always funny bc someone always forgets they have their mic on

6) Bystander fail

So I'm outside and Garrett decided it'd be funny to hurl pine cones in my direction while i'm in a video conference call and it scared me, I almost fell out of my chair lookin like a spazz.. my VP stops and said Adrienne are you ok...

7) Texting fail

My friend keeps sending me funny texts while we're both in the same video conference. and this is us trying not to laugh

Parody: A Conference Call in Real Life

8) Beer fail

Funny we just had a video conference and everyone had a Corona

9) Pyjama fail

Just got off video conference with my team. Almost everyone in my team are working from home too. It's simultaneously cool and funny to see everyone in their pajamas and having that I-just-woke-up look HAHAHAHAHA

10) Funny mom fail

Some people, working from home, are interrupted by their kids, their pets, and I have my mom. My mom walking in, in her pj's, during my video conference call, taking pics of me working from home, and showing me funny memes. My mom. I love her!

11) Yogurt fail

heard a funny story a guy working at home for the first time in his life having yogurt flung at him during a video conference with a client

12) Cereal fail

My 10 year old brother is having a video conference call for school while eating his cereal lmao. This is too funny to watch!

13) Kid fail

When dad has a #business video conference call but you missed him and need some snuggles and want to watch your funny faces in the monitor... that's what you do!

14) Hair fail

day 5 of self isolation: started calls at 9am this morning with wet hair. Five hours later, forgot my hair had dried in the same state. Wondered why I got funny looks on video conference. Just realised why!

15) Bathroom fail

“Woman's video chat blunder while working from home goes viral (Funny) #zoomvideo epicfail”

Thankfully, things sometimes turn out for the best:

Just had a video conference and boi is i nice to just be able to leave a meeting when it's done and not have to awkwardly stand while someone is trying to be funny after the meeting lmao

Question of the article

What's the funniest thing you've done by accident in a Zoom call or video conference? Tell us in the comments.

What others are saying

Bonus: MORE ZOOM VIDEO CALLS GONE WRONG! (Hilarious Zoom Fails)

READ NEXT: How To Ace Video Job Interviews

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Friday, 18 September 2020

🏆 Comment Contest: Win 1 of 5 Copies of Forever Employable

Are you in the middle of your career and worried about your next job search?

Forever Employable book cover

If you're wondering how much better your career can get, this book is for you.

How to Enter

  • Simple – at the bottom of this article, leave a comment about being Forever Employable.

Some suggestions of what to comment on are:

  • What does it mean to you to be Forever Employable? Is it different now in 2020?
  • Who's the first person that pops into your head who is Forever Employable?
  • Why do you deserve most to win a copy of the book?
  • If you could give this book to anyone, who would it be and why? (you don't need to mention their name)
  • All of the above

Don't be shy…

Comment now

About the book

🏆 Comment Contest: Win 1 of 5 Copies of Forever Employable

Using the timeline from his own career and anecdotes, stories and case studies from other successful recognized experts, Jeff Gothelf provides a step-by-step guide to building a foundation based on your current expertise ensuring that no matter what happens in your industry you'll remain Forever Employable.

This handy guide to your career and professional development shows you how to create your own content, use it to build your expertise and credentials and then scale it to build a continuous stream of income, interaction and community.

Forever Employable shows you how so that you're always ready for the next step in your career. Reduce your stress, build your community, monetize your platform — that's being Forever Employable.

Comment now

🏆 Comment Contest: Win 1 of 5 Copies of Forever Employable

Prizes

5 physical copies of the new Forever Employable: How to Stop Looking for Work and Let Your Next Job Find You are available to be won, wherever you are in the world.

How to Win

Simple – Leave impressive comments. This is how to do just that.

The more impressive your comments are, the more chances you have to win. Plus, there are no limits on how many copies you can win, so if you want more than one copy, comment multiple times.

As usual, you or anyone you know can try to influence the choice of winners by leaving more comments in support.

Rules

  • Must be 18 or older.
  • Be sure to use a real email address when you comment so that I can contact you if you win.

Contest Deadline

To be considered as entries in the contest, all comments must be submitted by this Monday, September 21st 2020, 1pm Eastern/10am Pacific, which is 8pm Israel time (check your local time here).

Comment now

Good luck!

Join us for the next JOSH video chat with job search experts

Title: 2 Weeks, 7 Interviews, 3 Job Offers: Ben O'Hanlon, Expert Community Builder [JOSH #9]

Time: Wednesday, September 23rd, at 9:00 PM Israel Standard Time (click here to check your local time)

Full event details in the JobMob Job Search Calendar

Bonus

Forever Employable Stories: Stephen Shedletzky, Head of Brand Experience and Igniter at Simon Sinek

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