Why the Job Search Is Like ‘Throwing Paper Airplanes into the Galaxy’

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Matt Nager / Bloomberg / Getty Images

Job seekers work on computers at a Workforce Solutions Greater Dallas employment center in Irving, Texas, Nov. 19, 2009.

Ellehuus also cites the use of “smart sourcing,” in which employers pull back from searching the mass market and focus instead on canvassing “internal employees, professional networks, job contracts where you work with third parties and even customers” in order to find leads to good candidates. “Companies can be smarter about where they leverage existing networks,” he says.

Meanwhile, Barankay offers another caveat, this time one that addresses the time-honored tradition of face-to-face interviews with job candidates. “The predictive power of interviews is low unless they are very structured, which includes asking all the candidates the same questions, and then grading and evaluating them the same way,” he says, adding that extensive research backs up this finding. “A freeform interview where you just meander along in a conversation doesn’t reveal any important information.”

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Getting Connected

Even in a down economy, companies continue to hire, according to Bersin. “The turnover rate is about 15% to 20%, and that doesn’t change. It’s not that there aren’t any job openings; it’s that companies are hiring more slowly.”

Whether the economy is roaring ahead or limping along, HR experts and researchers say anyone looking for a job needs to do more than scan online sites and hit the “submit resume” button. Most companies have a recruiter and a hiring manager, says Bersin. The recruiter is a screener. The hiring manager will make the actual decision. The job candidate’s goal is to “become so compelling to the recruiter that he or she gets through to the hiring manager.”

He advises candidates to make sure their resume addresses the “skills, capabilities and values of the company. If the company is passionate about customer service, an applicant should use the words ‘customer service’ in his or her resume. The resume searching software is not very smart, but it’s smart enough to compare phrases on the job descriptions and the resumes.” In addition, Bersin says, applicants for a particular job “should see if they know anyone who works there, talk to their friends, try to find a connection. The most valuable way to get a job is still through a referral.”

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Crispin agrees, citing surveys he has done with companies about their reasons for hiring one applicant over another. This past year, he says, at least 28% of all hires came from employee referrals, although he suggests the number may be even higher. If a job applicant has someone in the company who is referring him or her, “that is huge. It’s a game changer.”

A recruiter has limited time to spend on each job application “because he or she may have 30 other jobs to fill,” Crispin adds. “I [as the recruiter] am looking at a screen, scrolling down and seeing line after line of data…. Those lines have a weight related to three criteria. And then a tag line comes up saying this person comes with an employee referral. That person goes right to the top. I can’t afford to ignore that referral.”

Monica McGrath, an adjunct management professor at Wharton, echoes the need for job seekers to use their network and “the network of their networks while job hunting. We don’t emphasize enough their importance.” A young person looking for a job in a retail store, for example, should go into the store, talk to salespeople, ask them who to contact about applying and so forth. “People are too embarrassed to do that, or they think it won’t lead to a job.” But face-to-face, or perhaps in-your-face, efforts can be effective. McGrath cites a newspaper article describing two recent college graduates dressed in business suits who stood near Philadelphia’s Benjamin Franklin bridge handing out their resumes. “I bet some employer driving over the bridge who saw these two decided to give them a shot,” she says.

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Samantha Zupan is the corporate communications director at Glassdoor, a jobs and career company based in Sausalito, Calif., whose free site provides job listings, company reviews and salary reports, among other data, for about 150,000 companies. Zupan says Glassdoor just launched a new feature called “Inside Connection,” which encourages people to expand their network via Facebook. “We found that 70% of our users include work history in their Facebook pages,” she notes. “Inside Connection offers the ability to leverage that network so you can find out which of your friends, and friends of your friends, has recently worked at a company you are interested in.”

As for the application process, Zupan advises focusing on possible key words. “It’s almost as if the phrase ‘key words’ has gotten a bad reputation,” she notes, “because everyone says you have to use them to beat the system.” She suggests viewing key words as good clues to what the company wants, and then incorporating these clues into resumes and cover letters. Beyond that, Zupan quotes a phrase from a well-known career expert: “Ingredient X is your brand.” It refers to “that certain something that makes you unique, that will be your selling point to the employer,” says Zupan. “It’s how you choose to promote yourself.”

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