Job searching: shotgun or sharpshooter?

Dear Coach:


I’m graduating in January and I’m already dreading Christmas vacation because my relatives are bound to ask “What are you going to do now?” I’ve sent out over 200 resumes to big job sites without a single response. Everyone says the job market has never been hotter. What am I doing wrong?

Sinking Fast

Dear SF:

The job market is hot for certain service jobs (like retail clerks), for certain trades (like plumbers), and for certain grads in “red hot” technical areas (like nanochip designers). If you live in Vancouver and you can lift a hammer you can probably get a job during the pre-Olympics building craze, for example. Actually, if you’re a mammal you can probably get a job in Vancouver right now.

But it sounds like you’re not in a sought-after field and you’re looking for a job with growth potential (a career). The jobs you’re looking for are scarcer. Unfortunately, you’ve been taking a shotgun approach that isn’t going to land one of these scarcer jobs unless you are very, very, very lucky. How many students do you think are applying for the same jobs you are on a monstrous job site? Unless you have some unique skills you will probably be competing with hundreds (and maybe thousands) of applicants. Getting a job under these circumstances is like winning a lottery. It could happen, but I wouldn’t bank on it.

So how do you increase your odds and home in on employers that will look at your resume? You need to do a little more upfront work. You need to know about more targeted job sites to zero in as precisely as possible. You need to find out how to apply directly to the companies you want to work for using their websites. You need to learn how to use key words to bring your resume to the top of the pile. In short, you need a more refined sharp shooter’s strategy.

To cover what you need would take a book. Fortunately, you can buy one like Job Searching for Dummies by Canadian Pam Dixon that tells you how to target your on-line job search. It’s easy, accessible and it’s well worth the investment.

It may sound like a lot of work, but picking up these on-line skills is a lot less soul-killing then sending out 200 resumes without a single response. Trust me.