Quit Applying for Jobs Online...Waste of Time

So here’s the deal. Globalization is here. Which means you can get cheap clothes and shows from China to fill your closets. YAY!! Which also means that jobs are disappearing from the US at a rate of 400% (yes, for every job that is created here, 4 leave the shores). Which also means that you are competing for the same jobs with not just fellow Americans but the best and brightest from China, India and Brazil. And I don’t mean guys like you. I mean the stereotypical guy who has an IQ of 140 and has 3 college degrees.

So how do normal guys like you compete? Quit applying online for jobs. Huh? You heard me. It’s a blessed waste of time. 

Here are some statistics:

• 5%-15% of jobs are landed by applying for them on job websites.
• 10% were headhunted.
• 5% were filled internally within the company.
• 65-80% were filled by networking and personal referral.

So if you want to strike lucky, go apply online. I'm actually the ONLY person I know who got a job from applying on a website after 2007. Everyone around me got their jobs by a college buddy, a former coworker, a parent who pointed them to a manager that hired him. The only exception are my engineer guys who mostly got recruited out of college. 

So get to know people. And do informational interviews. I hate to say it...network. Right now, that looks like the only way to land jobs.