Networking = Cheating

[dsgrue3]

Mr Khan said:

dsgrue3 said:
Your mindset is all wrong here. How many interviews have you had in your field? If it's more than 5 for jobs you're perfectly capable of doing and qualified for, then it's your attitude. Mock interview yourself and tape it to see if you come across confident and personable. If you don't, work on it. If you're invited to an interview, it usually means you are qualified for a position and they are wanting to get to know you as a person and if you would be suitable for the work environment.

Don't allow professionalism and concise responses diminish your personality. If you're a robot, or coercive, or show no enthusiasm for the opportunity to interview, they will not hire you.

All about company culture for employers when they select a candidate, not just qualifications.

I've only been given the opportunity for three first-round interviews, two of which were on the phone, so zero "real" interviews (since first-round interviews are more or less there to prove you exist).

Nobody even bothers to look at my resume, if LinkedIn is to be believed.

You mentioned being unable financially to move toward areas where the market is more ludcrative for your career, but I would highly recommend not limiting your search radius, especially for a "foot in the door" opportunity as those are the more difficult to achieve as you are untested.

I don't really use LinkedIn. I created an account so I could see who was interviewing me, often times the HR manager and the associates who will interview you are on there and you can see where they graduated from and potentially spark up a conversation about that or college sports or whatever. All about showing enthusiam and interest.

Perhaps you addressed this in other thread, but are you on Monster? I can think of no better resource for employment opportunities.

I would argue that the market isn't much better than 2008, so don't be discouraged, there's 12 million other guys thinking the same thing as you.