Worst Way to Get a Job: Apply

It's been about a decade since I last had to look for a job.  And, my oh my has it changed.

At the time Dice and Monster were the (relatively) new hotness and when you applied there, you generally got a response pretty quickly. Nowadays, Monster is a brutal train wreck of excess. I haven't looked at Dice lately and LinkedIn and Indeed.com have sprung up out of nowhere.

There are a massive number of jobs out there. For example, on Indeed if you search for "Los Angeles", you get over 60,000 listings. That's a lot of jobs. Unfortunately, I've found that applying for them is the equivalent of printing out your resume and putting it in the shredder. Actually, that would be more fun.

Social Networking Qualms

While I'm no fan of the consumer web sites that purport to help you get and stay connected, I have been spending a lot of time on LinkedIn. I've probably made mention of the forums there and other features in a post here and there. 

However, all social networking sites are primarily a function in expanding your network, sharing information with them and so forth. This has given rise to the term "Super Conductor" which is considered as anyone with over 500 to 1,000 connections. Opinions vary on the number, but I really have to question why it's an issue of numbers at all. Where is the metric of quality?