When I tell the candidate her resume looks fine, she invariably asks, “Then why am I not getting any responses?” I soon find out her job leads consist solely of want ads and online job postings. Therein lies the problem.  

Too many job seekers rely on job boards and want ads as their only source of job leads. Since these leads are public knowledge, job seekers are competing with what feels like the entire human race, or at least the part that has an internet connection. No matter how well you’ve written your resume, you’re going against tough odds. You could be getting lost in the numbers.

Tip: Advertised jobs make up only 20% – 30% of all the open jobs, yet they attract over 90% of the job seeking population. Your odds of landing a good position drastically improve when you use other resources as well to find out about possible openings.  Some examples of other ways you might find out about available positions include networking using social media networks, mingling with other professionals at user groups and other professional gatherings, as well as, utilizing recruiters to find out about positions they have available with their clients.