When Searching For A Job In It

It had been such a long time since I had updated

my resume on Monster, Hotjobs, and a few other

job boards and as I was updating my 'hard copy'

of my resume, I thought I'd update those as

well. I finished updating them all around 2:30pm

on Wednesday afternoon.

Within a half hour several emails popped into

my mailbox. I had two phone calls already for me

when I got home and another one while I was

having dinner. The next morning 10 new emails

were in my email box. Most were from headhunters

that 'heard that I was really good at what I

do'. I got home on Thursday and found 11 voice

messages waiting for me.

So then, the craziness starts. Not one of the

people who called me was actually hiring for their

own company. They were all recruiters looking to

help someone like me land the next hot job. When

I told them that I wasn't seriously looking at

this time, many were trying to urge me towards

leaving my job now. One was even so rude as to

ask why and when I said 'personal reasons' they

pressed me for a more informative answer.

Then I had the task of replying to all of the

emails I received. I assumed that I could be

really bold with them and see what type of

response I'd get. Assuming that most were not

interested in talking to me so soon, I wrote them

all the same polite email that explained:

• That I wouldn't accept a job unless it was in
  one of several geographic locations.

• That I wasn't look for any positions with
  consulting firms

• My salary requirements

• The time period during which I expected to be
  changing jobs.

Needless to say, that did the trick. I didn't

hear back from most of them. But several did,

and so I learned an important lesson. Here's

part of an email that I received:

I suggest you take you resume off Monster so that

no one starts sending it out already and

potentially messing things up for you. So people

just send it out, but then won't be able to

deliver you for an interview, but you now are

known at that company, so that if in 3-4 months

you are presented again (this time when you are

ready) you do not get

considered.

I quickly blocked the visibility of my resumes

as he told me. Now the calls and emails have

slowed down considerably.

I had such a poor response last year when I

was searching for a job out of school that I made

the wrong assumption that the same would occur

again. How wrong I was? While it's encouraging

to know that there are that many jobs out there,

this has been quite overwhelming. I've

definitely learned from this and now I know the

routine for when I decide to look for a new job

again.

Happy to be your guinea pig,

JP Hackworth

hackworth@newstrolls.com

NewsTrolls, Inc.