Often wrong, never in doubt. Those are the words we use to describe my wonderfully spunky and confident 4-year old daughter.

For example, last week she proclaimed, “I want a girl cheese for lunch!” It took us a while to convince her that the actual sandwich is a “grilled cheese” and that we weren’t the ones saying it incorrectly.

We all have the tendency to be like my daughter. We are confident in what we “know”. We charge ahead with full determination…. in the wrong direction. A couple of weeks ago, I was talking to a job seeker (let’s call him Arthur) who really wanted to stand out as a candidate. He told me that he mailed hard copy resumes to large, multi-national corporations hoping that HR would notice his efforts. The problem with Arthur’s tactic is that he wasn’t addressing the envelope to a particular person in the company. I am sure the envelopes ended up in a massive mail room trash can or they were opened by the wrong person.

Job seeker, maybe you aren’t creating a resume landfill like Arthur, but maybe you are taking a reactive approach to your job search. Are you exclusively spending your job search time responding to job boards? If you aren’t meeting face-to-face with decision makers, know… There really is a better way.

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