WATCH: Employment town hall hosted by ABC7's Mark Rivera

CHICAGO (WLS) -- ABC7's Mark Rivera hosted a live town hall Friday with experts on everything from the local job market to making yourself stand out as a candidate.

"To all of those listeners and folks who are suffering through some real economic hardship right now, you did nothing wrong," said Professor Bob Bruno, director of labor education at the University of Illinois. "This isn't anything that you did. This was an imposed economic shutdown to deal with a public health crisis."

"One of the main problems that we see new job candidates running into is they list out all of their skills and the job descriptions of past jobs they've had," said Andy Challenger, senior vice president at Challenger, Gray & Christmas LLC. "And that's not as interesting to future employers as illustrating your successes, what you've done well."

"This concept of professional persistence, so today, you're 100% right, we need to tailor our cover letters, you have to tailor your resume," said Jessica Schaeffer, senior director at LaSalle Network. "But you also have to take it a step further. And take the time to maybe find the hiring manager."

During the hour-long conversation, employment experts and HR professionals provided a lot of tips and resources about how to navigate this unprecedented job market.

You can watch the entire town hall in the video player above.