Earlier this week, I was asked this question by one of my clients.
She asked me what I believed were the three most important things
someone should be doing if they are looking for a new job, or if they're in career transition.
My name is Bill Benoist. I'm a certified professional career coach here in Silicon Valley.
And in today's video, I want to share my answer to this question that my client had asked me,
because it may be surprising for some of the individuals out there,
but in this order, this is what I think is most important in this order. Number one,
your network, number two, ensuring that your LinkedIn profile is optimized. And number three,
coming in at the very bottom was your resume. So let me explain my reasoning behind
all of this. I think we all know we've all heard out there that jobs are filled mainly
through networking and referrals, not by mindlessly sending out your resume.
You know, I've talked about the importance of networking. In previous videos. I recently had
three clients that were all making over $400,000 a year. I had them all within a one-month time span
and without even really going into networking, we were actually talking about the resume
and in one way or another, all three of these clients said to me that they did not
see their resume as anything other than an afterthought. They knew that it was going to be
their network that was going to help them land. The next job. These were three very,
very successful individuals they'd been successful throughout their career. So number one, I mean,
if you are currently working right now, there's no better time to start building your network,
but you can start networking, even if you're in crude transition and you haven't really been
cultivating a network before I have an online class that I share exactly how to do this.
And you can check this in the note section below, but I'm not trying to sell my class
or anything. I just want you to understand networking is what I believe is going to be
the number one most important thing that somebody needs to do. If they're in career transition or
they're looking for another job, again, 80% of the companies out there that have filled positions
have been through networking and referrals. Number two was maximizing the LinkedIn profile.
You see with resume, it's reactive in nature. You see a job opening out there. You sit in
your resume. Somebody says, Hey, George, send me your resume. I'm going to float it to my
manager. You send them over your resume, but LinkedIn, you have 90% of recruiters out there
will be searching LinkedIn for candidates to fill. And you want to come up in those search
fields because a lot of these positions out there are in the hidden job market.
So you can be at the yoga studio. You could be at the grocery store, you can be taking a nap.
You could be working someplace else, but your LinkedIn profile is working for you 24 by seven.
Now finally, it's going to be the resume. The resume does have to be a foundation. You're
going to build upon the resume, but here's the reason why I put it down as number three.
First off, there is a statistic out there by the job board glass store, 2017,
they found that on average, 250 resumes are being received for every job opening.
Number two, there was another study done this time by the job board, the ladders,
what they did is they videotaped the eye movement of recruiters looking at resumes,
and they found that the average recruiter was only spending about six seconds on a resume.
Now they were doing a pretty good job except rating the yes, pile from the no pile.
But imagine this 250 resumes, you're not going to spend a lot of time reading each one. You're going
to be scanning it. However, this all really kind of relies on the fact that you're going to have a
human that is actually looking at your resume because over 90% of large companies and 35%
of small to medium-sized companies are now using applicant tracking systems. Your resume
is submitted. It gets uploaded into the ATS. Some people call them resume robots. The information is
parsed out, put into various database fields, and it's going to be this computer program
that matches you up to the job description. Let me share a little story with you completely
off topic here, but I'll get back into the applicant tracking system in just a moment.
I recently changed grocery stores that I was
shopping at. And in this little shopping center, there was a Chinese food restaurant.
And I'd happened to ask the clerk at the grocery store. What do you think about the,
uh, this Chinese restaurant next door? And he said, Oh, it's great. I, you know,
have lunch there all the time. So I went over and actually got lunch for myself and my wife
and brought him home. Now my wife absolutely loves Chinese food. I can take it or leave it. It was a
Sunday afternoon, um, when I brought this back, but she loved the food and the next weekend she
wanted Chinese food. Again, you know, for lunch on Saturday, it was of those where you go in and say,
okay, I'll have the channel, man. I'll have the general chicken. I'll have the beef and broccoli,
you know, kind of cafeteria style there. So we went and it seems like every couple of weeks
we go there. Now I've gotten to the point that, you know, sometimes I just drive her there.
She can get her lunch. I'll go over to someplace else and get something this one day, it was just
a few weeks ago. I was sitting in the car as she went in to get the Chinese food. And I was looking
at Yelp to see where else maybe I might want to find something. And this is pretty common. I mean,
think about it. You go to a new town, you don't know where you're going to go eat dinner at you,
burn, hook you up, say, Oh yeah, I'll go over here. Well, I brought up Yelp and I happened
to just notice this Chinese restaurant that we'd been going to, and it only had two stars.
Looked at Yelp first. I would never have even considered that Chinese restaurant.
I just wouldn't. But the bottom line is it was a referral to Mae and I hadn't had any problems. My
wife hadn't had any problems. So we've enjoyed the food. This is what can happen with an applicant
tracking system told you I had circled back around to the applicant tracking system. If you're not
using the right keywords, then that applicant tracking system that resume robot can eliminate
you from consideration, but with a networking and referrals, we're going back up to the talk. Now
having somebody bring your resume in to the hiring manager or to a recruiter
really can pay off. And that's where that 80% of jobs are filled through networking
and referrals. You know, going back to the, uh, to the study that was done by glass door,
they said on average, 250 resumes for every job opening. Well, what they usually do is
they only pick five of those resumes to call in for interviews. And I would imagine two
or three are called in for a second interview is, and then one of those individuals will be
hired. You can
Play the numbers game. You know, it will work eventually. It always does. But if you want to
maximize your time, this is what you need to do. So I hope you found this video informative
and useful. If you haven't already subscribed to this channel, make sure that you do so hit
the bell notification as a do upload new career tips and strategies every Tuesday. And I'd hate
for you to miss anything. Thanks for stopping by. And I look forward to seeing you next week.