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We had an awesome session during my first Tele-seminar ‘5 reasons your job hunt is failing and 10 things what you can do about it today’ last Wednesday and many participants got new ideas to plan and action.

The 10 strategies I shared are practical, proactive and if applied can help you to manage those areas that affect your job hunt which you might not even have realized affect your job prospects.

Just having a resume is no longer good enough. Rising above the noise of other applicants is.

Job Hunting has changed such a lot!

I remember, way back in 1985 when I first entered the job market, job hunting was very different. One responded to vacancy advertisements, wrote lots of letters to companies with one’s resume and prayed that we had hit the bulls-eye.

Sometimes walk-in interviews were the best way to get a job. Most of us did not know about executive search firms unless we were told about them by some well meaning family friend.

Referrals for job openings played an important role because milk rounds only took place on professional campuses for engineers and MBAs. The rest of us had to fend for ourselves.

Getting into a Big 4 accounting firm, which was then the Big 8 for training as a Chartered Accountant, was a Herculean task. It required contacts and many times depended more on your background and family connections than your potential or merit.

Times have changed and the rules for getting the attention of the headhunter or prospective employer keep evolving with technology advancements. Things have become easier and at the same time, harder.

I selected the topic because, of late, I have been receiving CVs from friends, former colleagues and LinkedIn connections across the board asking for assistance in getting a job because their own efforts are not yielding results.

I’ve been asked questions on Quora about how to get a job or why the person is not receiving an interview invitation.

Submitting your resume to reputed and trusted executive search firms or headhunters is part of the solution but finding the right job depends upon your actions and initiatives.

In this post, I’m sharing one reason why job hunts fail and 8 places to look for jobs.

You are applying the strategy of waiting in your job hunt

This is a passive job hunt strategy based on waiting either on a job to be posted OR for a response from the recruiter or prospective employer at different stages of the job hunt.

This could be after submitting the resume to a job posting, after a phone screen or from the recruiter or hiring manager after an interview.

The waiting strategy is justified with the excuse that the job hunter does not want to be seen as too forward or a nuisance. But guess what? If you play the game of waiting instead of being proactive, you will not land any job or find it very difficult to find one.

An important fact that I picked up from a Forbes article, is that on an average, 118 people apply for any 1 job that is posted and only 20% of these applicants get called for the job interview.

(Update 14 June 2020: According to the Glassdoor HR and Recruiting Stats for 2019, for 1 job opening, only 2% of applicants will be called in for an interview)

Statistics often depend upon the sample chosen and survey methods used but it is a fact that when a position is announced, there will be lots of applicants for it.

Just check out a job announcement on LinkedIn or any job portal. If you find images and the words hot, know that there is competition for the opening.

So waiting is not a good strategy. In fact, waiting is NOT a strategy! Being proactive and taking responsibility for your job search is.

Stay Top of Mind of the Recruiter

Staying top of mind of the recruiter or HR professional is key to getting your resume through the door. Here is what you can do instead.

The important point is to follow up and there is information on the process in my blog post ‘Do you follow up’.

Busting the 80% jobs not posted myth

Another excuse to justify waiting is that the job seeker reads somewhere that 80% of jobs are never posted and they don’t try to think outside the box for finding open positions.

I am going to challenge this 80% myth because jobs are posted on platforms that do not comply with the strict definition of posting, which is paid advertising. There are many jobs publicly available for viewing that is not PAID for. Here are 8 places to get you started.

Now that I have pointed out the unicorn, here are 2 things you can try instead.

Strategy 3: Be more proactive and broaden your search by looking at the 8 places that I mentioned.

Strategy 4: Referrals are more important than you can imagine in securing a job interview invite. Be proactive by finding referrals within your network for companies that hire people with your skills and ask for introductions or referrals.

That was just the tip of the Job Hunt Iceberg, how would you like to create your own Job Hunt Blueprint?

How would you like to stop using the waiting strategy and wasting time reaching out to companies that will not hire you?


How would you like to apply for relevant jobs and improve your chances of getting invited for the job interview?

Wouldn’t it be nice to have a strategic plan to direct your job hunt rather than the method of ‘Submit CV and pray for the best?

You don’t have to torture or embarrass yourself by talking to friends or head hunters asking for ‘a job’ or searching online portals and blindly submitting your CV just to keep your spirits up knowing in your heart that you are not going to get a response.

Having a focused and well-targeted job hunt plan can take away a lot of that pain and the worries that keep you awake at night.

What if you could learn a step by step system (that works!) that could help you save time in your job hunt and get you noticed by the right people? What if it could help you improve the probability that you will get a response from the headhunter or HR professional of a company where you have put in your application?

That is priceless!

Your Karmic ally job hunt options

I go through this and more with my clients who enroll in the Career Coaching Program and have a career change or job hunt as an issue.

I’ve also got a package for the DIY professional who needs a bit of tweaking of actions in their job search strategy. Learn more about Job Search Success: Find your Hidden Professional Opportunities by clicking the preceding blue link or the image below. A new window will open to show you the information.

I’ve also included bonuses that will ensure you play your A Game to land that dream job.