What Color Is Your Parachute? 2016: A Practical Manual for Job-Hunters and Career-Changers - Softcover

RICHARD N. BOLLES has led the career development field for more than forty years and has helped millions identify their unique gifts and find their dream jobs. Visit JobHuntersBible.com and eParachute.com.
From the Hardcover edition.

Where You Post Your Resume Makes a Difference

Let’s say that again: where you post your resume makes all the difference in the world. Research has discovered that the number of face-to-face interviews that employers need to conduct before they find someone they want to hire, stays pretty constant—around 5.4—once they’ve sifted through all the resumes or applications. So, to conserve their energy, they instinctively ask themselves, “Where would I have to sift through the least number of resumes, before I decide who to do those 5.4 interviews with?” Fortunately, we know the answer. Somebody did a study. 

If employers post their vacancy on a job-board such as Monster.com or CareerBuilder.com, they typically have to look through 219 resumes from job-hunters who respond, before they find someone to interview and hire.

If employers consider resumes from job-hunters who come through social media sites, such as LinkedIn or Facebook, they typically have to look through 116 resumes, before they find someone to interview and hire.

If employers post their vacancy on their own website, they typically have to look through 33 resumes from job-hunters who respond, before they find someone to interview and hire.

And if the job-hunter takes the initiative to find a very specific job, rather than waiting to find a vacancy, and does this, say, by typing the name of that kind of job into a search engine, then sending resumes to any companies whose name turns up, employers only have to look through 32 applications, before they find someone to interview and hire.

And if the job-hunter takes even more initiative, chooses a company where they’d like to work, and gets a referral (i.e., gets some employee within that company to recommend them), employers have to look through only 10 such candidates, before they find someone to interview and hire.