Why do job seekers waste their time?

Wednesday, July 14th, 2010 - Job Search, Job Search UK, Job Seeker, Job Serach Strategy, Time Management

Why job seekers waste their time?

As a recruiter, the way I make my money is by finding employers who want people (in skills short sectors), and then finding great employees to fulfil those positions. I make money consistently by using a process, and fulfilling more positions. But as someone who writes Professional CV’s and advises job seekers on how to get employed in the jobs they want, I am according to some of my clients a Luddite with a clear strategy.

Job application process

You see, the problem with almost all job application and recruitment processes is that they are built and constructed to reject people. Note that I didn’t say exclude, as that could be illegal. A recruitment process which excludes people because of their age, ability, race or gender would be, rightly, illegal. But when the average employers Human Resources team is faced with 100 job applicants for the typical job advert at present, and only needing to place between three and six in front of the hiring manager, they design their processes around rejection.

Successful job seeker

When I first stepped back into recruitment four years ago, this rejection was one of the things that struck me. Recruitment at its core is a people based process, but this was cold and process based rejection. My question therefore was:

Is there a better way to apply for a job to improve your chances of getting employed?

By studying what the successful job seekers did, the answer was YES! The most successful job seekers did a number of simple things:

• They knew who they were
• They knew what they offered the market, and could communicate it
• They knew that the market wanted those skills, at a remuneration rate above that on which they could live
• They had more than one method of finding jobs, being both: networking, active and reactive
• They had a career plan, and resultantly had a list of ideal next jobs/employers

But most of all, I found that the most successful job seekers accepted the odds of different methods of finding and applying for jobs, and used those to both guide their success and improve their odds of a job interview.

Job seeker time management

In a recent survey by Execunet, Executive recruiters were asked what their main method is for sourcing candidates:

• Networking – 56%
• Firm’s own database – 16%
• Online Research (ie: boolean search on Social Networking sites like LinkedIn)  – 11%
• Online Job Advert posting via Jobs Boards – 10%
• Data mining sector companies (mainly telephone sourcing) – 4%
• Newspaper advertising – 3%

If you look and analyse at how the most successful job seekers get employed, then their time management mirrors this chart. Where as the average job seeker will spend 40% of their time on jobs boards, a method which only fulfils 12% of global vacancies (slightly more in technology related industries, can be as low as half of that in other industries).

This is reason why job searching takes so long:

1. If you apply your effort in the wrong areas, then you won’t find the vacancies
2. If you just use just one job search method – searching jobs boards – then you miss out on the wider market and have to wholly accept the odds of getting employed via that method
3. If you don’t change the job application process in your favour, then you have to accept a large amount of rejection

Job seeker success

The result for the average job seeker? They spend 4.5months presently on a job search, applying for over 50 jobs, to get 8 telephone interviews, 3 physical job interviews and 1 resultant job offer. The best job seekers applied for less than 10 jobs, got at least 5 jobs interviews, and 3 job offers; they only spent 4 weeks job searching, and got paid on average 15% more.

The key to a successful job search is applying the right effort at the right time in the right method. The problem is that to learn where to apply your effort, you have to accept applying for ideal jobs that you will get rejected from, resulting in a longer job search that costs more and results in less pay.

This is why I created the Professional CV Writing Service. If successful job application was just about having a great CV, then everyone would be employed as quickly as the best job seekers. Truth is, they won’t be and will have to learn through rejection. That’s why it includes the tools and techniques for a successful job search, and a guarantee of a job interview within 30days.

Am I a Luddite? No, I just teach to those who want to be most successful quickly in their job search, the most effective and professional techniques for getting a job interview with the target employers they seek.

If you would like to see how we work, then simply submit your CV for a Free CV Review. If you like what we say, then we would be happy to help you become a successful job seeker.

Good Luck!

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One Response to “Why do job seekers waste their time?”

1. Ronel Says:
   July 22nd, 2010 at 11:05 pm

   Great article! Thanks