#3 - Why you must stop relying on job boards and blind mailboxes

This is the third of a six-part series that will highlight 6 things you can do, right now, to make your job search much, much more effective. If you've been struggling with a marginal-at-best job search for a while, it's time. If you're just setting off on your job search path? It's time. Uno, dos... Tres.

Before I plead with you to stop spending the majority of your job search time hanging out on Monster, CareerBuilder, I will admit that some people DO still find cool jobs sitting right there on a job board.

Just not that many anymore. It's just a fact, sorry.

Did you know that corporations and recruiters have to pay to advertise on these sites? Often to the tune of several hundreds of dollars, per listing?

Did you know that companies often receive about 3-4 qualified resumes to every 50-100 resumes received? (That's a lot of arduous filtering, especially for firms that don't use applicant tracking systems.)

Did you know that a lot of companies are getting much better results, at a significantly lower price, by publicizing their openings in places like Linkedin Groups, Twitter or other social media word-of-mouth?

Did you know that you are competing with a gazilion other job board users, for a relative few number of open positions?

All true. Yet in spite of these truths?

Typical job seekers continue to spend 80% or more of their active search time scouring the job boards and blindly firing off resumes to unknown HR contacts.

And then they wait.

And wait. And wait.

And sooner or later, all that waiting will make even the calmest of job seekers feel impatient, frustrated or depressed. Which is when they usually fire off another round of applications, using the same exact search methods, and same exact job boards.

People. You must cut it out.

It's inefficient. It wastes time. It makes you crazy. And it forces you to compete with all of the "others" who don't understand that the name of today's job search game is this:

Bold, active, creative, networking and research-based methods. Methods that reach real people.

Active search techniques are absolutely vital if you want to land something great – in a lot less time – in today’s job market. And by “active search methods?” I mean, in large part:

Search methods that take full advantage of the enormous power of social media.

The Internet and subsequent rise of social networking has quickly, and completely, changed the job search game.

Plenty of your competitors don't get this yet. And this is good, because it can give you quite the advantage.

You've got it in you. You know you do.

Figure some of this stuff out, apply it to your search strategy, and go take 'em.

You ready to go full-on and land the job you truly want and deserve? Then stop flailing, and start planning. I can help you. On April 4, I will launch a new ebook, To Whom it May Concern: Or, How to Stop Sucking at Your Job Search. Consider it your job search BFF, all rolled into one tidy and affordable ebook. It'll walk you step-by-step through the process of calming down, crafting a game plan, and then executing a job search strategy that will actually work in today's crapola economy.