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ASK THE HEADHUNTER®
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What's the best way to reply to job listings?

  
Question
You recommend spending only a limited amount of time on responding to job listings. Still, many listings do represent real opportunities with solid, growing companies who know they have a need. So, here's the question: How should one respond to the listing that looks worthwhile, but doesn't show a company name, and which demands a resume with salary history?

Nick's Reply
I don't recommend spending any time at all on job listings. But the job listings are like a bug light; they have an attraction. The answer to your question is hidden in what you wrote. Please consider what you're saying:

  1. Still, many listings do represent real opportunities with solid, growing companies who know they have a need.
  2. How should one respond to the listing that looks worthwhile, but doesn't show a company name?

See the contradiction? If there's no company name, how do you know it's a real opportunity? If it's "real" and "worthwhile", the company will include its name in order to leverage its great reputation. If a good company needs to hide its identity, it will use a headhunter to do the search quietly, and the headhunter won't solicit thousands of resumes.

Now consider the kind of "blind ad" you're talking about. Imagine the deluge of resumes this "company" will get. (It may not be an employer advertising at all. It could be someone gathering personal information for purposes we're not going to cover here.) The deluge will be full of utter garbage. If that's the "opportunity" you're worrying about, don't. Top companies with great jobs don't run blind ads on job boards.

That said, there are undoubtedly some good, legit jobs on the boards. I don't think it's worth trying to find them because they're not likely to be filled via the boards. Studies done by job-board watcher CareerXroads  shows that companies make no more than about 3% of their new hires from the boards. Those are the odds you're facing, assuming you're the right candidate.

So, what if you actually find a legit job posting? How do you apply? Don't. Forget about responding to the ad. Go to the company directly through your own channels. Find the manager and arrange an introduction by a credible intermediary. That takes a lot of work, but the value of an applicant to a company is directly related to the value of the introduction. Job boards: 3%. Personal contacts: 40-70% (that's how many jobs are found and filled through personal contacts). Is there any question about how to spend your time?

If you want a meaningful edge, you've got to demonstrate your credibility by finding someone who is trusted by the hiring manager and demonstrating that it behooves them to recommend you. There's nothing easy about it. But that's as it should be, no? How else can a company separate the wheat from the chaff, when it's got 5,000 resumes a day coming in the door and no easy -- or effective -- way to sift through them?

Reconsider: Is that job posting really a good one? The odds are tiny. And if you find a good one, do you really want to be one of those 5,000 resumes? While your resume is aging in a data base, my candidate is having lunch with the hiring manager. The thing is, what I do as a headhunter is no mystery. It's basic, dopey stuff. But it requires focus, patience, and persistence -- and a lot of work.

So maybe the calculation leaves you thinking, "Geez, why should I do all that work to meet the right people, when there's still no guarantee? Screw it -- I'll just play the numbers and zap out 10,000 resumes to increase my chances!" If you do it my way, whether you land a job or not, you've met several good people in your business -- contacts that could stand you well for years if you cultivate them. Contacts that will stimulate new ideas and possibilities you never thought of.

Your way, you've got bupkus. You don't know what company you're applying to. You've talked with no one. You have developed no new information; no new insight; no new vantage point; no new friends to introduce you to yet more new friends. There is none of that in sending a resume to an ad -- much less to a blind ad (where the company is not named). Now please try and answer the very last part of your question yourself: Should you send your resume, filled with personal information including your salary history to someone you don't know?

Like I said, doing it the right way isn't easy. But it works 40-70% of the time, if what you want is odds. Even if you don't get the job, communicating with real people always pays off.

Cheers,
Nick Corcodilos
Ask The Headhunter®

 

 
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I think your answer to the question, "Can I goose up the offer?" [1/27/04 edition] was just plain outstanding. I agree with you 110%.

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