A conversation with my friend

Tom is a old friend of mine. He tells me that he sends out resume after resume and not even a nibble, no reply at all. This of course is nothing new. I tell him my last interview I was told that 525 responded with resumes and credentials and ironically the posting that I responded had a typo in their email address. Of those 525 respondents I was one of five individuals whom they interviewed. The odds were less than 1%, actually 0.00952% just for an interview.

We are both over 50-years old and a cursory review of the resume could determine that but why is he not even getting a nibble? I reviewed his resume and within five seconds could tell him, his resume is of a style and belief thirty years ago, one page, abbreviated experiences and credentials. My friend is simply mailing it in and before someone can sneeze it is discarded into the pile never to be looked at again.

Why? Because of competition. Resumes must speak specifically to the job (if you have a posting) or the company (if you are sending it unsolicited) and not a broadcast flier. Resume expectations have changed over the years and decades because in many ways the tools and capabilities have changed. But those who haven't changed their attitudes, are clearly showing their work ethic, not how hard they work, but how smart they are working towards their approach for this prospective job. By not responding smartly they lose, it is that simple.

Unfortunately, my friend still believes in his own old fashioned methods thinking that people who are doing the hiring think like him. I tried to inform him they do not. So he will continue to waste his time in a futile effort.

I then tried a metaphor: If you were fishing up at his parent's old Wisconsin vacation home near Eagle River and for weeks you put on your fishing pole the same bait as you had for years but you didn't get a nibble. Let us say you try every fishing spot you had known as a child and nothing, not a nibble, I asked what would he do? He said he would go to the bait shop and find out what is working? Precisely, and if they said you were using the wrong lures, that the fish had gotten smarter over time and that they were smelling you or hearing you and you had to approach them in a new way. But because you didn't like the idea of changing you waved off the expert and went back out with your old lures and wasted your vacation.

Then upon being invited to the new neighbors you had a fine dinner of freshly caught fish where you had to hear how easy it was to catch the fish right out in front of the pier. How foolish would you feel?