Should You Be Job Search-Selective in This Economy??

When I ask the question "What type of positions are you looking for?" to my clients who are seeking new employment, I have frequently heard the same answers: "Whatever is available" and "I'm open to anything." Seem like fair answers to me. Particularly over the past 4 years, this response has popped up more and more, and how can you blame individuals for wanting to keep their options as open as possible? As a matter of fact, the response that might raise some eyebrows would be "I'm only looking for X positions with X types of companies in the X industry." Our first reaction might be, "Don't you think you're keeping your job search too narrow?" or "Should you really be that selective in this economy?"


Perhaps.

The truth is that those who are too open-ended in their search may actually be doing themselves a disservice, and those who have a targeted focus may achieve more success than by using an anything-that's-available approach. Look at it this way: employers are certainly not using an open-ended approach. Hiring managers and recruiters have a specific position or positions that need to be filled, and they are looking for candidates who meet their specific criteria as much as possible. When they review resumes, they are looking for years of experience, skill sets, educational and professional development, and job-related achievements that reflect the qualifications for the position (s) they wish to fill.

Thus, it may be to your benefit to target your job search to a specific industry and companies. Rather than spend your time endlessly rewriting your resume and letter to match distinctly different requirements across multiple fields (which still may not guarantee success, particularly in a heavily requirement-specific field such as engineering), you can invest your job search time in researching companies within your target, increasing the frequency of your responses to each targeted company (e.g. identifying the decision-makers and contacting them directly), and initiating contacts within your network inside that specific field. Your focused job search will align with employers' targeted searches and will likely end in success (I have interviewed several of my clients who used this approach and they all vouched for its effectiveness).

The exceptions to this recommendation depend upon geographic and personal factors. For example, if you are struggling to make house payments, put food on the table, or pay basic bills, as a stop-gap measure, you may need to apply for anything you can and take whatever comes along. The adage "desperate times call for desperate measures" comes into play here. However, don't stop looking for the targeted position even after accepting employment for one that is not your true preference. Ultimately, you want to secure a position that you truly enjoy, so even in this scenario, you can be job search-selective.