Last night I’ve gave a presentation at a local church on resume writing. I co-presented with a recruiter who once ran a staffing agency. She told the audience, in this economy, don’t apply for jobs you don’t have any experience with. There is too much competition because there are already people with those skills. Just because you think you can learn the job, isn’t enough to convince her clients. They pay her to find qualified candidates.
That means don’t apply for everything and anything, especially at the same company. Human Resource Recruiters have good memories and they will recognize your name. When a job does open for a position you’re qualified for, there’s a good chance you’ll be overlooked. If you’ve applied for a lot of different jobs with the same company, you could earn a reputation, and they won’t look past your name on the application, even if you’re a perfect match.
Rule of thumb: apply for jobs you are qualified for. You don’t have to match 100%. But have experience, or recent education/training in the field. If you trained a long time ago, but did not use it, that won’t get you noticed. And if that’s the case, see if you can get some volunteer work under your belt in that field so you can have recent and up to date experience to add to your resume.