113 Resumes

I am one of 260,000 people laid off from Wall Street in the past several months.

Since September 20 I've submitted my resume/application (or made some sort of job contact) a total of 113 times. The actual responses I get are few and far between. I get a response for about one in every 15 resumes sent. The reasons that the response number is so low vary. Over the past three months I've determined the following:

1. Many jobs listed on the Internet by staffing agencies do not exist. One recruiter actually told me that they post jobs that don't exist just to build their database of resumes. This practice should be illegal. Truly, it is false advertising.

2. No one actually sees resumes that are submitted through online job sites. Whether the job exists or not is irrelevant in this case. Your resume gets dumped into a database without passing the eyes of any live human being. Chances are, you'll never hear back. If I can't email or talk to an individual (a live human being) about a job posting, I know that I'll never hear back, which has proven to be true 99.9% of the time over the past four months.

3. If you do get a hold of a recruiter, they generally say, "that job has already been filled, but we'll add your resume to our database and contact you if there's a match." This is either true or, more likely, the job never existed in the first place. I've seen this where I've applied for a job literally a few hours after it was posted, only to find it's already been filled. Doubtful.

3a. These staffing agency recruiters are highly inexperienced. Most are 20-something and just do the job for a paycheck. I swear, most of the ones I've talked to have zero technical background and don't even understand the technical skill set needed for job that they are recruiting for. It's pathetic and can be frustrating at times.

4. Eighty percent of jobs are gained by knowing the right person, not by applying online. Networking is key. This is why keeping up with your LinkedIn profile and contacts is so important.

5. Competition is steep. On average, right now there are three applicants for every opening.

Applying for government jobs is incredibly time-consuming. For example, I applied for one job this week that cost me hours of my time just learning the application process. The application instruction document was 23 pages long. Then, once I've applied, figuring out which "supplemental documentation" is required for that particular vacancy is a job in and of itself. Circular references are common on these web sites, and figuring out the application process is 90% of the battle.

The good thing is that you know the job actually exists if it's posted on usajobs.gov or fbijobs.gov or a similar agency web site. The drawback is that it frequently takes the agency's HR staff up to 90 days to get back to you. And that's only if you actually submitted all the correct documents, which you'll never know.

Never mind trying to get your account reinstated if you get locked out of one of these gov't agency web sites that you last signed into in 2005. You won't even get a response to repeated requests to have your password reset. There are hundreds of these agencies, and all have different application processes and requirements. It's sad that there cannot be one process for all federal jobs. Think of all the time and money that would save U.S. taxpayers!

With unemployment at 7.2%, these are difficult times. Networking is the key to getting a new job.