in reply to The need to work and re-train

Getting a job is all about connections, connections, connections.

First of all, as explained here, job boards (at least the big ones) are not an effective way to get jobs. Connections are. Furthermore when you're showing up to a job prospect through connections, issues like the one above about resume filtering become much smaller - the connection can point those facts out.

Secondly you'll have to accept that there are a lot of dysfunctional organizations out there. Stories like Anne Learns to Recruit are not far from what actually happens. So you can't be hired at some places. That's life.

Thirdly you have to become OK with this problem. You can fail 100 times without grief, so long as you succeed once. There are far more jobs that you're not qualified for than you are qualified for. As long as you can find one that you're a fit for, this isn't a problem. And you're more likely to find that fit if you can retain an upbeat opinion through it all.

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Re^2: The need to work and re-train
by hv (Prior) on Sep 29, 2004 at 11:32 UTC

    Your first referenced article is an interesting read, but doesn't match my experience. Between 1996 and 2001 I found 6 different contracts; of those, the first and last were found by personal referral (and served to get me respectively into and out of the contracting game), while each of the other 4 I found on a job board (JobSearch (UK)).

    Maybe I was just lucky, or maybe the figures are misleading - I'm sure that there are many sectors in which vanishingly few positions are filled via Internet listings, and I'd guess therefore that in the IT sector a much higher percentage than the average are filled that way.

    Hugo