Need a job? Then stop applying!

You may ask “With the high demand for people and automation these days, how does one get hired?”

On the front-line, we see trends change weekly. If you are new to the job market and it’s been over a week since your last job search, this blog is for you.

Applying to a ton of jobs online and not getting any calls? If applying to jobs is your go to, consider adding another pillar to your job searchstrategy. The easier it is to apply through a system, the less likely your resume will get flagged. Instead, accelerate your results starting with your network. Here’s how:

1. Think about this; corporate Recruiters own their jobs (“reqs”) and typically have additional project type responsibilities on top of filling reqs for 25-30+ openings. With over 1000 applicants per position, assuming an average time to fill of 120 days, 1 recruiter is responsible for reviewing 30,000 resumes in 4-month period, not including attrition of new openings replacing filled one. That’s 375 resumes per day. One position is filled, another is opened. Even with combined automation and a trained eye, the likelihood of a 4-5% error rate still exists, and the effort to be better than 90% accurate on 30,000 resumes. Does that make your eyes cross? No wonder you can’t break through.
2. This is  a candidate driven market, where there are more jobs to fill, and fewer candidates to choose from. I just had lunch with someone who said a friend of his, a new hire at an organization, was hired for a middle management role but was introduced to the public as a new executive with  more of the size, scope, and responsibility he really wanted. Stories like this drive people to take chances on applying for new jobs that are outside of their reach, which I recommend to an extent. If you think about it, it’s not so risky. Happy or not, I suggest putting consistent time aside to grow your network.
3. From a professional growth standpoint, stronger professional networks accelerate career achievement. I have worked with candidates in my network who have not searched for a job or interviewed in years. We recently introduced a professional developer to our client, technical phone interview, 1 in person interview, and 2 weeks later the job is his. First job search in 20 years. Not to mention he is a new grandfather. Although it’s nice to say “I applied on my own and got the job”, if you like the odds (1 in 1000). Let’s hope there are 2 openings to make it 1 in 500!

Networking 101:

Step 1: If you are not already connected (FaceBook, LinkedIn, etc.) with someone at your targeted company, find and connect with that person. Send a personal connection, such as “Karl, you and I worked together at ABC and I thought it made sense for us to be connected.”

Step 2: When Karl connects: “Karl, thank you for connecting, please let me know if you ever <insert your style here:> need anything from me / I can help you out / etc”

Typically somewhere around or after step 1 or 2, the other person will comment. If not…

Step 3: Karl, thanks again for connecting last week. There’s a position at (their current company) that aligns with my background and interests. Would you be willing to share any insight?

Do “step 1” 10 times per day which will statistically start a dialogue with 2-3+ people per day, that’s 10-15 dialogues per week which will climb from there. Even if your stats are 1 in 10, that’s 5 dialogues per week working toward your next dream job. You will experience cool things.

From my corporate experience, the process above accomplishes many things. It empowers an employee of a company that you are interested in to help people they know or have worked with in the past. Employers of choice, especially in a candidate driven market, encourage their current employees to refer future employees, or grow the company with “similar people” to their organization (there is a bit of retention science to this somewhere on the web). Companies stand behind this by offering referral bonuses, having referral competitions, and even make growth a part of company performance reviews.

Bottom line: connect with former colleagues who are now employees of companies you are interested in. They like helping people out, could even improve their performance to do so, and they might even have a renewed sense of where they work.

There really is nothing to lose. It’s not so easy to be 1 of 1000 but your network will make it a lot easier for you to be #1.

What do you think?