Get The Job You Want, Even When No One's Hiring: Take Charge of Your Career, Find a Job You Love, and Earn What You Deserve

Chapter 54. The Most Obvious Ways to Find a Job Are Usually the Biggest Wastes of Time

You've just spent a lot of time preparing, strategizing, and developing tools. Now, you're finally ready to get into action. What's the first thing you're likely to do? Go online (or open a newspaper or trade publication)to start scanning the job postings and help-wanted ads. You need to send out as many resumes as you can, as quickly as possible, right? Wrong!

Note

Most job seekers focus far too much time and energy on Internet job postings and help-wanted ads.

Most job seekers focus far too much time and energy on Internet job postings and help-wanted ads. When the job market is tight and no one's hiring, these are the worst places to lookfor a job; your probability of success is close to zero. The sad fact is that only one job in ten is ever advertised, and only one in ten of those is any good! That leaves about 1 percent of help-wanted ads and job postings that are worthwhile. Newspaper ads represent the bottom of the job-seeking barrel: entry-level opportunities, high-turnover jobs, and straight-commission sales positions. This means that only 1 percent of good jobs are ever advertised — jobs for which 100 percent of your competition is also applying.

The Most Obvious Ways to Find a Job Are Usually the Biggest Wastes of Time

With the advent of the Internet, the whole help-wanted world changed forever. ...