The worst mistake that most professionals make that you should never, ever do. (Or, why online job postings are like potato chips!)
Instant gratification, incredibly delicious, and slightly addictive. I don’t know about you, but for many people, this would describe potato chips. Besides the obvious reasons (fat content, cholesterol, etc.) there’s a huge reason why potato chips are bad for you. These salty little delights of empty calories contain zero nutrients. They are incredibly ineffective at helping your body stay healthy and disease-free. But that doesn’t make you want them any less, does it?
When it comes to searching for a job, public job boards and online job postings are potato chips. Before I continue, I want to make sure you take me seriously on this. So let me back up a bit.
Unless you’re in the recruitment and job acquisition world, you’ve likely never heard of me before. So I wanted to give you a very brief bullet point list of who I am and why I have the authority to compare the Public Job Market with a salty, scrumptious treat.
In the last 20 years, I have:
- Held every position in the job market, from hiring manager to being a jobseeker.
- Founded my own successful recruitment firm
- Helped thousands of professionals—from recent grads to CFOs, get sought-after positions with companies all over the world.
Question: in all that time, what do you think is the most common mistake I see professionals making?
Answer: Applying to online job postings A.K.A – the Public Job Market.
Even after I tell them not to.
The Public Job Market is this wide universe of online job postings. You get them in your inbox. You get them in an app. You go search for them yourself on Linkedin.com or Indeed.com. They are always there, tempting you with their job title descriptions and location details.
They wait until you’re most vulnerable, and even though a part you knows it’s probably a useless effort, you suck it up and apply to them. (By the way, if you weren’t aware that this is a useless effort, please go here for a second).
Maybe you spend an hour tweaking your cover letter and resume, or maybe you’ve got it more automated. Maybe you’re an over-analyzer, and take three hours to apply to one job. Regardless, you do it.
It looks like this:
Yum. Delicious. Let’s do it some more. Maybe you apply to 2,3,5 a day. Every time you do, you get that instant gratification. Maybe you even pat yourself on the back, thinking:
“I’m awesome. Look at me, taking my career into my own hands. I can’t wait for everyone to see how amazing my resume is. Again, I am awesome. Profound, even”
Except that they won’t! Ugh, they won’t. And that is why you should never, ever do this. If you wouldn’t eat only potato chips for sustenance, then please for the love of all that is savory and crunchy, don’t apply to online job postings. Your career is going to flounder if you do this. This is what it’s going to look like:
See that guy? He’s about to pass out from a caffeine overload, because he’s applied to so. many. jobs. And nobody will get back to him.
Because NOBODY is seeing his resume. Maybe a few algorithms. Maybe an intern. But decision makers do NOT see this gentleman’s resume. Because they don’t have the time, or the energy, or the willpower to read every resume that comes in from the job they posted on Indeed.com.
So what does he do? He keeps applying, feverishly. And every time he does, he feels good. His mood goes up, like a bright balloon in a gust of wind, only to come crashing down when nobody gets back to him. And on and on it goes. He’s stuck in a vicious job search cycle.
I know. It’s harsh. Every “career coach” or mentor or parent that has told you that you “just need to be applying to more jobs” is wrong. Dead wrong. Like, as dead as you would be if you only ate potato chips for the entirety of next year.
Here’s what gets you a job. Using online job postings as a research tool, to see what’s out there, and to see how much the market rate is for job titles. That is all they are — a tool.
Using online job postings as a tool is the first step in what I like to call “the cycle of success.” It goes a little like this:
- Use job postings as a tool to see the jobs that are out there
- Find people (we call them “company insiders” in the Smart Job Search System) who are connected to the company where the job is posted.
- Have a conversation with the company insider (this usually leads to an interview).
Please, don’t be stubborn and think that the old school way is going to cut it anymore—it’s not. It’s time for a smarter, saner, effective way to find a job, and I’m here to teach it to you! Click here to enroll in the Smart Job Search System.
