Sunday, August 23, 2009

The Good Ol' Black Hole: Applying to Jobs Online

  We all know the sinking feeling that follows applying to a job online, the thought (and very real assumption) that it will not be looked at seriously for more than a few seconds.  Not because it sucks, which it hopefully doesn't, but because you don't know them and they don't know you. 

  Well that sinking feeling is real, and it's caused by something called the Black Hole.  No wonder it leaves you discouraged and drained.  It swallows thousands of qualified attempts, never to see the light of day again.  There's a big chance it wont even get read.  It lumps you into the stack of who knows how many, with slick sketches, or great previous jobs.

  You feel helpless because they just asked for your entire person to be laid out in black and white, or worse, in 150kb or less (Craigslist).  You time it right, based on how you think the person who will be reading it will feel like it at that time.  It gets crazy, does it not folks?

  Thats the Black Hole of Doom at work.  Thats the black hole of the non-connected, the unfortunate, the unlucky, the sorry-not-today's, the better-luck-next-time's, the we-went-with-Bob's-Nephew's.

  I can't blame them though, putting up a job posting and then hiring someone because they are a friend of someones.  Honestly, when hiring, they just want to hire someone they can trust, who is good at what they do.  They want it just handed to them, they dont want to sift through thousands of applications.  But that's what they get isn't it?  And thats why its a hopeless Black Hole.

  Its who you know.  Try to email it to someone specifically, and if thats not possible, pray you're ass off.