A Job You Love

Do you still use a Cover letter and a CV (or Resume)? Do you still use the network of your close friends and only the network of your close friends?

Guess what, you look for a job like in the 70s!

My dad is 60 this year, and just retired from his company after almost 40 years of good work. He started working there in 1971.

When he arrived in my city, he only knew my mother and had no contact at all. But at the time, he had a GSCE level which was good. The first job he got was to work for the local newspaper doing some admin stuff.

He got this job because my mother’s best friend had her father working there…and this guy heard of some position available. So my dad started working there but he did not stay too much (it was a temp position) and found another job in a creperie (a pancake restaurant or a crepes restaurant). He was a waiter there.

He found this job on a small piece of paper in a bakery and he went to the restaurant directly and got the job straightaway. He worked there for a couple of months (underpaid and over exploited).

But he never stopped looking for a job in a big company and found an ad in the newspaper (the same where he worked) where they were looking for people. He sent his CV and a cover letter, he got 1 interview and got the job. 39 years later, he became a senior executive in this company.

So in a nutshell: 3 jobs, 1 through his very close network, one on a piece of paper in a bakery and another one in a local newspaper as a job ad.

In the 70s this was the way of looking for a job, but even now a lot of people are looking for a job with tools from the 70s using only a CV and a cover letter, asking only to their very close network.

Now you can network in many events, you can use social media to spot people and companies you are interested in, you can show off your skills, you can expand your network easily and meet with a huge number of people, you can raise your reputation through articles, gigs or whatever. You can use recommendations from people you never met.

But no, you still use tools of the 70s…Guess what, you are wasting your time because it is 2010!

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