[Rodney King]

Well, if you interview with someone and send them a thank you note, then they ought to respond to you.

However, I have news for the guy who sent off 1,000 emails: Email is not the way to apply for a job. Sure, it has worked for some, but you need to get off you butt, buy some resume paper, write a decent cover letter, and send via US MAIL.

[antaresequity]

Who's to blame?

Why does their have to be someone to blame?...guy picked a field that is saturated with talent, his does not meet the standard for whatever reason...He has no right to a job...to damn bad...learn a new trade...or maybe trying knocking on doors instead sitting on your butt sending out emails...what a joke...

I will bet you if this guy picked the one company he wanted to work for and went their everyday (ala Bud Fox)...he would get his job...Having run several business...persaverance of this type always won me over...

[antaresequity]

Well, if you interview with someone and send them a thank you note, then they ought to respond to you.

Pure nonsense. I wouldnt give a rats Arse if some guy sent me a thank you...I would evaluate the field of candidates based on merit and my own instinct, narrow it down...ask myself can I do better then this?...if not select one...if so...re-canvas for recruits...

[Tacis]

Even if you send paper cover letters with first class postage for a known vacancy for which you are perfectly qualified, if you are over age 50, you will not get a response.

There is no more widely spread discrimination in this country than the discrimination against older job applicants. At the same time, no discrimination violation is more widely disregarded.

Do a Lexis/Nexis search an you'll find lots of cases of age discrimination suits involving the TERMINATION of older workers but few, if any, involving an employers failure to hire an older worker.

Once an HR weanie has decidied that a candidate or a stack of candidates or a file cabinet of candidates will not be hired, there is no reason to waste on time on them, there is no profit in it, no return on effort. And, it doesn't count against the oufit in a competition like the Baldwin Awards.

[templar]

These guys need to either got to where the jobs are or retrain for a field more in demand.

[JZoback]

Well, if you interview with someone and send them a thank you note, then they ought to respond to you.

Send them a thank you note? Hah!

Who has time for that these days?

When I interview people for open positions for the company I work for, I never tell them either way if they got the job or not. That can be an implied verbal agreement.

There are way too many legal land-mines to imply anything because of gender, racial, ethnic, age or disability issues that pond scum lawyers will sue you in a heartbeat over.

Every applicant is given a full interview and thanked for coming in and told they will be considered with all the other applicants.

The ones I like and are qualified, I call back for a second interview.

You would be shocked on how many don't come back because never wanted the job in the first place.

[gcruse]

I had a resume posted at the state WorkSearch. Pacific Legal, a legal documentation service, called me and asked me to come in for an interview. They are in the IBM building in downtown Seattle. It cost me ten dollars in parking just to go to the interview. The production manager interviewed me and said he would need to consult with the managing partner, but that I would be in a second round of interviews at worst. There was no offer to pick up the parking garage tab and after I left that day, I never heard from them again.

[Semi Civil Servant]

"Doug Ecklund totes up 11 months of job searching with these figures: about 1,000 resumes sent out via e-mail, just two interviews in person, one over the telephone, and zero offers."


Richard Nelson Bolles built a multi-million dollar specialty publishing empire based on the undeniable truth that blindly sending your resume everywhere you can think of is a titantic waste of your time (and the time of prospective employers).

Of course, Bolles' mega-best-seller on job hunting, "What Color Is Your Parachute?", has only been out about three or four decades. I guess the word gets out real slow in Mr. Ecklund's home town of Huntley Ill.

What's that famous line? "Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results."

Someone in the Huntley, Ill., job search community please GIVE THIS GUY A CLUE!

[Buffalo Head]

The best investment a job seeker can make is to purchase the latest edition of "What Color Is Your Parachute?". And do it before time is wasted on sending out resumes.

[PoorMuttly]

Ahh. So it's Doug Ecklund's fault. His resume must be terrible, to have ruined it for the rest of us.

I'm adding a line to my own :

And I'm no friend of Doug Ecklund.

[freebilly]

Resume Black Hole

Damn, I thought this thread was about The Oakland Raidahs and their Black Hole, The Network Coliseum....

[FixitGuy]

What kind of a goober expects to get a job by sending out resumes?

This aproach is what is suggested by counselors, "placement firrms" and other unknowlegable nerds.

Personal contact or "knowing someone" is the only way!

[Voltage]

But if the lack of success is discouraging, what irritates the systems analyst is the overall dearth of return communication.

What? People now expect responses to junk mail? These letters are cranked out by computer, all following a standard format..How I can save your company millions etc. Only the services cranking out these annoying letters are benefiting from this scam.