The New Generation of Job Hunting

Remember when you used to grab the local newspaper and circle help wanted ads? You would then go to the companies and drop off a copy of your one and only resume and hope to get the chance to talk to the person in charge right away. Those days are gone! The new generation of job hunting rarely even includes a newspaper!

In today’s world we use the internet to job hunt. We rarely ever know where exactly the company is, or even what the name of the company is in most cases. There is never a phone number to call and typically only an email address to which we forward a resume.

We wouldn’t even think of having only one resume prepared for all job openings. No, that is not acceptable! Now we must tweak our resume to fit each particular job post perfectly. Employers never want to receive a resume that has not been tailored to fit the job description they are seeking to fill.

In days gone by we could always expect to hear something from the company. Whether it was an invitation to interview or a polite thank you, but no thank you letter, we would always find out where we stood. Today you can send out 50 resume’s and most likely never hear a single word from 48 of them. Employers receive so many resumes on a daily basis that the mere thought of responding to each one of them would take a team of employees working full time hours!

Gone are the days of asking Uncle George for a job at his place of employment. No, no, today that would be called nepotism. Sometimes if the company is big enough, Uncle George can still get you a job as long as it does not include reporting to him or even working in his vicinity!

It used to be easy to see who was taking their job hunt seriously. All you had to do was look at their hands to see the hours spent leafing through the newspapers and the ink left behind spoke volumes. I guess we can still tell today, but today the clues are less convincing. Strained eyes, bloodshot eyeballs from staring at the computer screen could be a clue, but then again that could be from playing Poker online as well.

Remember when we would send hand written thank you notes to employers for taking the time to interview us? Now we shoot off a quick “to whom it may concern” thank you email and call it good.

Regardless of the job, we always showed up in a suit and tie, ladies always wore a skirt and blouse. Today interviewers are lucky to see potential employees in anything dressier than khaki’s.

Times have changed. Job hunting has become a game of who can get their resume sent the fastest after the initial job posting shows up online. Don’t forget to use spell check and for heaven’s sakes don’t mention that you are related to Uncle George!