January 27th, 2012 
Admin How many jobs have you applied for on the web? How many job provides have they gotten for you? It would be my educated guess that the answer is zero. Don’t worry—you’re not the only 1. Online job applications are almost certainly the most typical, yet least efficient, job search effort.
Why isn’t applying online an effective strategy?
Think about this: When you see a job posting on the web, how quite a few other men and women do you imagine have seen it, too? Thousands. So when you throw your hat into the ring, how simple is it to get lost in the crowd? Very. If you don’t have the best application with the exact keywords that the HR department of that firm is searching for, you won’t even get a “Dear John” letter.
That’s why. On the internet applications don’t support you stand out. They are a time-wasting black hole.
Now, believe about this: What would you say is the way most individuals get jobs? By means of folks they know—their networks. Networking has constantly been the most successful way to land a job. Why? For 1 thing, individuals like to hire candidates who have been recommended to them by a person they know and trust. There’s a connection. Now, that somebody could be a personal connection, a professional connection, a recruiter—you get the idea.
But you can take this one step further. The other reason networking works is simply because it puts you in front of the hiring manager, who is the decision-maker (and keeps you away from gate-keeping, candidate-blocking Human Resources departments). That alone helps you stand out.
The good news is, you can contact hiring managers directly. The most effective way to do this is via LinkedIn. LinkedIn is an effortless way to get in front of hiring managers, who can then check out your profile, see who you’re connected to, see what you’ve said in discussions, and really feel like they know some thing about you.
There are other techniques to contact hiring managers directly, of course: making use of your own networks is a fantastic way to do that. But LinkedIn gets you a larger number of managers, which increases your chances that one of them will be interested in discovering out more about you.
If you need help with figuring out effective methods to use this technique, find a career coach to help you. In addition, a career coach can aid you position yourself in the marketplace in order to attract the attention you want in your job search—which just might make hiring managers contact you.
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