The Effectiveness of Various Methods for Finding a Job

(As developed by Richard N. Bolles in The 2002 What Color is Your Parachute? A Practical Manual for Job Hunters and Career Changers, 411 pages, Ten Speed Press, Berkeley, California, 2002)

According to Bolles, the number one worst job search method is trying to find a job on the Internet. The success rate for this method is about 4%. Out of every 100 job hunters who use the internet as a search method, four of them will a job if they use only this method to search for a job. If you are seeking a technical or computer-related job like finance or engineering or O.D., the rate of success rises to about 10% but for others the success rate drops to 1%. In looking at four resume posting sites, they found one with 26,644 resumes and 41 employers looking during a 90 day period. Another had 40,000 resumes and 400 employers looking. The third had 59,283 resume and 1,366 employers looking. And, the fourth had 85,00 resumes and 850 employers looking. Bolles says these basic ratios have not changed in thirty years.

1. Mailing out resumes to employers at random. 7% success rate.
   
   
2. Answering ads in professional journals in your field. 7% success rate.
   
   
3. Answering local newspaper ads. 5-28% success rate, depending on salary.
   
   
4. Private employment agencies/search firms 5-28% success rate depending on salary.
   
   
5. Going to Job Fairs and places where employers pick out workers, 8% success rate
   
   
6. Taking a Civil Service Exam, 12% success rate.
   
   
7. Asking a former teacher/professor for job leads, 12% success rate.
   
   
8. State/Federal Employment Services Office, 14% success rate.
   
   Bolles wants you to know that the odds of these methods working for you are really bad and if they are not working for you you will not take this quite so personally. The most effective methods are:
   
   
9. Asking for job leads from family, friends, community contacts, career centers at high school or college where you graduated. 33% success.
   
   
10. Knocking on the door of any employer,  factory or office that interests you, 47% success rate.
    
    
11. Using the Yellow Pages to find employers in fields that interest you and calling those employers to ask if they are hiring for the job that you can do well, 69% success rate.
    
    
12. In a group with other job hunters, using the Yellow Pages to identify employers in fields of interest to you and calling those employers to ask if they are hiring for jobs you can do well, 84% success rate.
    
    
13. Doing a life-changing job-hunt, 86% success rate.

(You can order Bolles’s latest  book for $16.95 by calling 1-800-888-4945)