Career and Jobs Tips

When the economic tsunami swept through the economy in 2009, and by logical extension, through the job market, the “rules” of the “hiring game” changed, arguably for the foreseeable future. One of these NEW rules is this: relying exclusively, or even nearly exclusively, upon the Internet job boards to find your next job is a bad bet! Out of 100 résumés sent to a job posted on the Internet today, only one to two percent of them receive any kind of response, good, bad or indifferent!

So, spending hour after hour in front of one’s computer sending “generic” resume after “generic” resume to Internet postings is, in every sense, quite literally a waste of valuable time and effort that could be better, and far more productively, spent doing those things that can actually get one a job!

Add to this dismal fact that only about one-half of ALL available jobs are even advertised on the Internet. And, statistics show that only ten to twelve percent of all jobs advertised are filled with applicants from the job boards. When all jobs (advertised and unadvertised) are considered, the percentage of Internet applicants filling open positions is reduced to only five to six percent.

Vegas offers better odds of “winning” than this!

IMPORTANT TO CONSIDER HOW JOBS ARE REALLY CREATED

Following is the typical “cycle” for how companies create job openings:

Hiring managers have meetings. They think through upcoming possible employment needs. Or, they may be watching the lack of performance regarding certain employees. They begin to keep their eyes open. They talk to colleagues. They make a few phone calls to people they know and trust and ask the question, “Who do you know?”

The fact of the matter is, 26.7%, or nearly three out of ten jobs are filled from internal referrals, i.e., people from within the company recommend someone for hire. Many more positions are filled as the result of external referrals, and then, of course, there are the positions that are filled by recruiters.

Here is another disconcerting fact: One-half (or more) of a company’s openings are filled before they ever get posted! So, what you see on the job boards are merely “the leftovers.”

FATE OF THE TYPICAL INTERNET APPLICATION

My recruiting firm recently posted an ad for an opening in Charlotte, NC. We received 570 resumes in just three weeks! Let me tell you what these 570 applicants can realistically expect to receive for their efforts.

Typically, hiring managers want recruiters to present only three to five candidates for any given position they are trying to fill. So, let’s assume we present the maximum number of candidates, five. Your odds of being presented are 0.9% (5/570 = 0.00877 or, rounded up, 0.9%). Since only one person will be hired, your probability of being hired is now down to 0.18%.

Here is another example.

A potential client company recently received federal stimulus money which created 20 positions. They posted the positions and received over 14,000 resumes. i.e., 700 per opening. This gives you a 0.7% chance of being presented and a 0.14% chance of being hired!!

SIX ‘CHANNELS TO MARKET’ IN JOB SEARCH

Essentially, there are SIX major “Channels to Market” job seekers use to get their information in front of a hiring manager:

• Job Boards
• Job/Career Fairs
• Recruiters
• Networking
• Direct Mail
• Telephone Prospecting

While all six approaches have their place in a job-search, far and away the MOST effective approaches to use in today’s job market are these:

• Networking
• Direct Mail
• Telephone Prospecting

Job seekers who spend an inordinate amount of time and energy on the first “channel” cited above–Job Boards–are wasting a LOT of valuable time and energy and can expect to get back little, if anything, from their efforts in today’s job market. Yes, yes, I know… it USED to work, but I am here to tell you that it no longer does!

To be successful in today’s tremendously challenging job market, which is destined to only get MORE challenging, you must learn how to properly do networking. You must learn how to properly craft direct mail (letters and email). You must learn how to properly conduct telephone prospecting. Otherwise, you are destined to continue to do a whole lot of “wheel-spinning.” You are destined to face disappointment after disappointment, frustration after frustration. Wish I could tell you differently, but that, unfortunately, is the plain, simple truth!

SKIP FREEMAN is a veteran “headhunter” with offices in the Atlanta, GA, Metro Area. His professional recruiting firm, Hire to Win, is affiliated with the Management Recruiters International network. Skip’s recruiting firm is consistently among the Top 200 offices in the MRI network.