1st Steps In The Hunt: Daily News For Job Hunters and Recruiters

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Jobhunting is a Job

May 02, 2003

Jobhunting is a Job. And how professionally you treat the process affects your pay dramatically.

For example, take two workers at Acme Explosives, Inc. Both earn $30K/yr and have similar abilities, Job titles, experience, and duties. Mr. Coyote is looking for another Job once a week for a couple hours, scanning the classifieds, updating his resume, and checking out Job postings occasionally. He sends out a resume or two a week, generating a form rejection letter (if he gets any response at all). He doesn't follow up his written inquiries with any phone calls, because he feels uncomfortable "bothering anyone".

Ms. Roadrunner takes an entirely different approach. She has several resumes online, each targeted toward a specific Job at companies she has done background research on. She spends ten hours a week maintaining, massaging, and building her network of industry connections. Part of her time is devoted to company research, targeting Jobs and hiring managers, and figuring out how to get the inside track to them. She phones and emails people she doesn't know, but with whom she has a common reference point or person.

Eventually, both find Jobs. Mr. Coyote takes six months and accepts a Job with a company he knows only by name, and gets a marginal raise to $32K/yr. He has no idea whether his new boss throws tantrums at work, or is a chronic blameshifter. Ms. Roadrunner accepts one of a series of offers from Employers she is confident she will be comfortable working for. She negotiates a salary at $36K/yr with a cushy benefits package worth an extra 4K/yr - and it only takes her two months to get the Job she wants.

Obviously, Ms. Roadrunner has worked harder for a better deal than Mr. Coyote. But just how much more has she really earned, and what are the longer-term implications of both of their actions? Read the answer Monday in 1st Steps in the Hunt. (If you can't wait visit the archived page.)

-Carrie Baggs

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