It is around 10:30 on Saturday morning. The sun is shining and you have your favorite decaf mocha latte in your hand. You sit down, open your screen, and click on to one of the hundreds of job boards and sites that populate the internet. You locate a posting for a position “that was written for you;” in fact, if you didn’t know better, you would think that it IS you. You then spend a considerable amount of time providing all of the requested information, including the “required or don’t submit” salary history and salary requirements (thereby “spilling your beans” to a person you have never met or a server program chock full of algorithms designed to screen out candidates). Nevertheless, you are an optimistic soul. You attach your resume and click “submit.”
You get up, take a break, and see what happens.
Most of the time, nothing happens – not even a reply saying “we received your resume.”
What’s going on?
Hint: Many of the most popular boards and sites contain well over 100 MILLION resumes! That’s 100,000,000 resumes. What do you think are the chances that just one or more of all those resumes has all of your qualifications and experience, PLUS some other attribute or factor that makes that person seem just slightly more attractive to an employer than you? The chances are, of course, overwhelming.
It is not you, it is the enormous magnitude of your competition.
The good news: resumes ARE very useful in networking settings and interviews, once you have gotten in the door. But it’s getting in the door that is the difficult part. You’ll get there — through dedicated and targeted Networking. But probably not through blindly applying to job posts.