Five Best Ways to Look for a Job

What Color Is Your Parachute? 2012: A Practical Manual for Job-Hunters and Career-Changers lists the five best ways to look for a job as follows:

• Asking for job leads from: family members, friends, people in the community, staff at career centers -- especially at your local community college of the high school or college where you graduated -- 33% success rate


• Knocking on the door of any employer, factory, or office that interests you, whether they are known to have a vacancy or not -- 47% success rate


• By yourself, using the index to your phone book's Yellow Pages to identify subjects or fields of interest to you in the town or city where you want to work, then calling up or visiting the employers listed in that field, to ask if they are hiring for the type of position you can do, and do well. -- 65% success rate


• In a group with other job-hunters, a kind of "job club" or "job support group", using the phone book's Yellow Pages to identify subjects or fields of interest to you in the town or city where you are, and then calling up or visiting the employers listed in that field, to ask if they are hiring for the type of position you can do, and do well. -- 70% success rate


• Doing an inventory of yourself (doing extensive homework on yourself before you go out and pound the pavement) -- 86% success rate

FYI, the percentage numbers are estimates based on the author's experience.

It's interesting that none of these has ever worked for me (in fact, I haven't even tried the middle three) except the first one and the last (if you count preparing a detailed resume and developing specific interview questions as "doing an inventory of yourself.")

In the listing of all the jobs I've ever had, here's how I've found the jobs:

• Pre-College -- submitted an application (I guess this could technically count as "knocking on the door" of a business")


• College -- Networking through the school/financial aid office


• Graduate School -- Networking through the school/financial aid office


• Introduction to the Real World -- Campus placement office


• Second Job a Winner -- Executive recruiter


• Working for a Maniac -- Internal job promotion


• Promotion, Success, and Failure -- Internal job promotion


• I Get My Dream Job -- Sent in resume in response to an ad in a trade journal


• The Dream Job Turns into a Nightmare -- Same job as above


• The Dot Com Bubble Bursts -- Networking


• The Blame's on Me -- Networking


• An Interesting Transition -- Networking

One thing to note, I think the "best" ways to find a job differ based on the level of the job (fresh out of college versus senior executive), type of job (construction versus banking), area of the country (big city versus small town), size of company (Fortune 500 versus 5-person firm), and so on. If I was looking for a new job, my network and executive recruiters would be the first places I'd go -- and only one of these is on the list above.

What's your take on these? Have you tried any of them? Did they work or were they a waste of time?

Comments

[Everyday Tips]

I would love to know how he came up with these percentages, and when he did this study. Knocking on the door of a factory in the late 90s versus 2011 (if it is even still open) is probably much different.

Personally I think these percentages cannot be right.

[FMF]

Everyday Tips --

"the percentage numbers are estimates based on the author's experience."

[dcs]

Yeah, wow, way to prove "the author's experience" is not only in left field, but it's out there two days after the game. For one thing, I suspect most people under 40 in anything resembling an urban or suburban area (where they can get broadband internet) probably don't even have a phone book in their house. If they do, it likely props open a door or boosts visiting children at the dining room table and has never been opened. Mine takes a direct, non-stop flight from the front porch to the recycling bin.

[Mike B.]

The absolute best way of finding a job is knowing someone at the company who hand-delivers your resume to a hiring manager. AKA networking. Knocking on a company door? No way. Ludicrous.

I was on board with the "worst ways" until I saw the "best ways". Some of those worst ways seem a lot better than these. Asking somenone at a "career center"? I would guess 0.0001% based on this author's experience.

[Sunil from The Extra Money Blog]

NETWORKING! At all levels - Can't say enough about this underestimated and underutilized approach