Remember on Lost (the TV show, I mean) when they were in the Hatch and they had to keep entering the same numbers into that computer every 120 minutes, but they really didn’t know why they were doing it or how it all worked. Well, that’s how I feel about job search sites like Monster, Careerbuilder, and Hotjobs. After faithfully searching for jobs and submitting resumes for the last four years without a single substantial result to speak of, I feel more than a little cheated. I feel a lot cheated, darn it! Duped. Bamboozled. Misled.

I mean, the way the whole thing is set up is just cruel. It’s easy to find interesting jobs, they take you directly to a customized page and you can just apply right there. You download your resume, answer a few questions, click the ‘Send’ button, and then… well, and then, who knows what happens. For all we know it gets printed up in Yeti’s lair in the far reaches of Tibet to be used as T.P. for the hairy guy. Or perhaps it gets put into a time capsule and launched into space to the Alpha Centauri system to show our galactic neighbors how naïve and foolish humans are. For all we know, it goes to this big digital drainpipe on the outskirts of the internet where it falls into the black void and disappears completely.

In all seriousness, as easy as they make it to apply, they really only increase the degrees of separation between you and hiring managers. You can’t call them, write them, or even email them. Assuming the resumes actually get to them, they only grab the top few, leaving you with no chance to plead your case or show them your shining personality. You have no way to control the process or sway it in your favor.

So, as of today, I’m swearing off job search sites. I refuse to be led captive by their friendly design, their deceptive offers to help. I’m saying, “Take a hike, Monster. And take your weird creature thing with you. No thanks, Careerbuilder. You’re not building here. Get lost, Hotjobs. This relationship has gone cold.” I’m blazing my own path of face-to-face communication, networking, and sending things via the postal service.

If you’re sick and tired of useless job search sites, join with me in ranting. Tell us about your failed relationship with those deadbeat job sites…

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 25th, 2008 at 12:16 pm and is filed under Careers. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site. Edit this entry.

Consider this nugget of wisdom (which I openly acknowledge is not of my creation): Being rich has nothing to do with how much you make, but how much you keep. Put another way, you have to make more than you spend. Unfortunately, as evidenced by the hundreds of billions of dollars owed in American credit card debt, Americans have a very hard time making more than they spend on food, shelter, transportation, insurance, toys, and bling.

Discipline is what we are missing here. It takes discipline to drive past all those fine restaurants on the way home and eat plain old macaroni and cheese. It takes discipline to ignore the Joneses as they stampede like lemmings toward the precipice. It takes discipline to put our extra income in boring, but fruitful, investments, instead of purchasing huge TVs, clothes, boats, bigger houses or cars. Discipline is dull and so against the grain of our marketing-saturated culture that it has become a bad word.

Nevertheless, the natural order of the universe is that everbody must pay the piper sooner or later. The universal law of the harvest states, You reap what you sow. You can’t put wild spending, lack of planning or budgeting, and amassed debt into a box and pull out a comfortable retirement. Think grasshoppers and ants.

Just a simple message today: if you want the good life, learn first to discipline your financial behavior and live within your income. No amount of education or job opportunities can compensate for lack of financial discipline.

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