You’ve tried everything you can to get a job over the past year. Your hopes have been raised, they’ve been dashed, raised again and dashed again. The couple of interviews you’ve scored, they’ve told you you are over-qualified or under-qualified or you’ve failed to connect in some way. Whatever you’ve been told, it hasn’t been what you wanted to hear; those three words—You are hired”.

What you have been doing is not working. If it had worked, you’d be sitting in a new job by now, or at the very least, you would have attended more than a handful of interviews in a year.

Take for example, Eduardo. Eduardo is originally from Venezuela where he was a leading executive for a mining company. He’s led mergers and acquisitions that have reaped millions of dollars, he’s negotiated huge contracts, and he was known as a mover and shaker in the business world. Today, Eduardo is working in Melbourne Australia as a department manager in customer service for a telecommunications carrier.

And he hates it.

It’s dull, he is unappreciated and he’s been stuck there since he arrived in Australia about 15 months ago.

This wasn’t his plan, but he felt that employers would find his outstanding achievements and career background daunting and his opportunities would be limited if he held out for a senior-level role. Eduardo wanted to find work quickly; to settle in and start making a life for himself in Australia. He was prepared to take a giant step backwards if it meant a quicker settling-in period. His resume, a skeleton of what it could and should have been, provided precious little information and certainly none about his substantial business achievements back in Venezuela.

For the past year, he has sent this resume to apply for so many jobs, he’s lost count. Eduardo is despondent. Is this all he can expect? To be a departmental manager in customer service for the rest of his career?

The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over-and-over and expecting a different outcome.

If Eduardo hasn’t made any headway in more than a year, then something needs to change. He simply cannot expect that the resume that hasn’t caught the interest of anyone is going to suddenly become something it isn’t. He can’t expect that a weekly visit to search for advertised jobs on a Saturday is going to do anything but fail, as it has for months on end.

What does he have to lose if he changes his strategy? So far, he’s dumbed down his experience to get a job he hates. His resume fails to inspire anyone, and any attempts to apply for roles for which is is qualified, fail immediately as nothing in his resume shows him as anything other than an overly ambitious and unqualified departmental manager.

What would happen if Eduardo took a new approach?

What if he decided to embrace his experience and lay claim to his achievements as a successful businessman? What if Eduardo stopped trying to sell himself as being something he isn’t, and instead, showed the confident demeanour that allowed people to see his authentic self?

What if… indeed.

Time will tell if taking the risk of revealing his true experience and taking it to the market, will yield good results. The probability that he will do better, is encouraging. Eduardo can talk confidently about what he knows, he won’t be continually altering his interview responses to tone down his experience, or remember what is and is not on his resume. By making a new pitch, by taking ownership of his skills, knowledge and experience, Eduardo will no longer hide behind a pretence easily identified by search consultants. He can claim his true business achievements, he can demonstrate that he is a genuine, credible contender, and with that comes the conviction, poise and courage that he’s been afraid to reveal until now.

Have you been doing the same thing over-and-over and expecting a different outcome? Perhaps you need to consider changing your job search strategy. After all, what do you have to lose?