As I mentioned in my fundraising note this past Thursday, there was an article in The Wall Street Journal entitled: The Secret to A Successful Job Search. (Exchange Section, Saturday/Sunday, June 1-2, 2024) Allow me to provide you with a few highlights.

No great surprise to hear that employers are drowning in job applications. The word I hear from search professionals I have spoken with in recent years is that postings on LinkedIn generate as many as 1,000 responses. To get through that many responses, companies take many short cuts such as using AI for screening. (As they say, untouched by human hands.)

There is an old expression: It’s not what you know, it’s who you know. The FENG method is to apply to publicly promoted opportunities that interest you, but then open your well-worn Member Directory Search function on The FENG website and see if any of your fellow members work there or have worked there.

To quote from the article: “Personal connections can pluck your resume out of online obscurity and ensure it’s seen by a real person.”

Another interesting quote from the hiring software firm Greenhouse is that applicants with referrals have a 50% chance of advancing compared to 12% odds for other external candidates. They go on to say that 30% of eventual hires had referrals, even though people with referrals represented just 5% of the applicant pool.

If that doesn’t get you motivated to network, I don’t know what will.

To quote Rob Tansey, a Tech Recruiter, mentioned in the article: “There’s an idealist in me that wants to look at all the resumes. The reality is you just can’t.”

Networking is a lot of hard work. (I guess that’s why the word “work” is embedded in it.)

But as one of our members long ago once said, it’s either networking or not working.

The choice is yours.

(If you wonder what we spend your generous donations on, please know a large portion is invested in continuously updating The FENG’s Membership Database. Our professional staff sends out update requests several times a year to ensure you as a member have access to well-formatted and current information. I am not aware of ANY other organizations that do this.)

Regards, Matt