Friday Wrap Up: Don’t Post and Pray!

So, what’s the takeaway from this week’s focus on our first habit of effective job seekers, “don’t post and pray”? :  

Your job search isn’t complete when you hit the “apply” button! That is only the beginning.  Expand your horizons and chances by practicing one or all of the tips mentioned in the previous article!  It can go a long way to push you further along compared to your competitors within the job search market.

It would truly be ideal to devote a morning applying to jobs and then both get a response and a job by the end of that month.  But in this tough job market, we have to be realistic that relying on getting a job through basic online application submissions (sending the same resume over and over again to multiple positions) is the close equivalent to fishing in a swimming pool.  

An article on BusinessInsider investigated this claim and conducted a survey for their readers.  They asked: How did you get the job you currently have?   The results showed that most people got their jobs through friends and family connections!  Just getting your resume marked as a referral greatly increases your chance to an interview. So after you hit the apply button, it’s important to work on making personal connections that can push that application to the top of the pile. For more on the survey: The Single Most Important Factor in Getting A Job.

Speak to as many people as you can to let them know your situation.  Get your name out there. Use social media to connect if you don’t know anyone at a company. Job search is more an interconnected effort than a single struggle—more than people realize—and by taking down that wall that isolates your job search from other people, you can take down that wall that separates YOU from the JOB.