Last week Angela and I were talking about our upcoming seminar and how to get the word out about the webinar version of The Job Search Boot Camp, and the tele-seminar/tele-coaching event Find A Career You Love that we are doing in February. We both noticed that the original contact we have with most clients is through their resume. We are happy to help people streamline their resume. But, most job seekers think the resume is the magic bullet, and will get them hired.
A good resume won’t get you hired. A resume has one purpose – to get you the interview.
Dick Bolles in What Color Is Your Parachute 2010 says that “Resumes make you feel like they are out there, working for you. They make you feel as though you are really doing something about your job-hunt. But in fact they may be moribund or comatose.”
What Bolles is confirming is that you have to have a good job search strategy to compliment your good resume. A good job search strategy is not submitting your resume to Monster.com, CareerBuilder.com, or HotJobs.com. These mega-job boards have thousands of applicants for every job posting. Neither is replying to job ads a good search strategy. The resumes are already piling up when you reply to a job posting on the company’s web site, a newspaper posting, or Craigslist. Answering ads is called a Reactive Job Search. You are literally reacting to a posted position. There is literally too much compeitition once the ad is posted. I’m a competitive person, but compeitition isn’t good in a job search when you are relying on income to pay your mortgage, fill the gas tank, and feed the kids.
A good job search strategy is getting your resume in the hands of the person who has the power to hire you.
Angela and I will be speaking at the upcoming CareerConnects Event on Friday, January 29th at St. Edwards University – North Austin Campus. Our topic will be “Out of Your Comfort Zone”. We will talk about the Targeted Job Search – which is a Proactive Job Search. This method is 86% effective! I like those odds.
Proactive + Reactive = Results
You don’t need to abandon answering ads. Just include the Proactive/Targeted Job Search to your strategy, and shift your effort. Spend your time looking at mega job boards and aggregate job boards (like Indeed.com), but make it less than 50% of your time. Spend the bulk of your time creating and organizing a Targeted Job Search and watch your results skyrocket!
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Jay Markunas is a Career Coach and Fortune 500 HR professional. Along with his partner, Angela Loëb, will be hosting the session “Out of Your Comfort Zone” at the upcoming Career Connects Event on January 29th.
Through his company, Great Occupations, Jay helps job seekers and career shifters by offering The Job Search Boot Camp webinar, Find a Career You Love tele-coaching event, career & job coaching services, and career-related products. Each 1st & 3rd Saturday, he & Angela host The Job Search Boot Camp Show – which also available on iTunes.
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