You’ve probably heard about the Pareto Principle, also known as the 80-20 ratio: that 80% of profits come from 20% of the work, or 80% of people only have 20% of the world’s money, or something like that. And although that ratio may vary in exactness, it is pretty accurate.
Look at it this way: 80% of your time will be spent on applications, even though only 20% of them will get read. Does this mean that you should stop applying to 80% of jobs and focus on the 20% you think you can get? NO! It just means that you have to work a bit smarter.
In The 4-Hour Workweek, author Timothy Ferriss notes that he cut down his business’ customer list by around 95% to focus on the few clients who made him the most money and caused the least problems.
If you apply this lesson to the job search, it becomes something more like, “cut out the jobs you know you won’t get and focus on the jobs you know you are qualified for or those that you really want.” I found that by paring down my job search to those jobs, I got more positive responses (and responses in general) while spending less time looking and applying for work I was applying for just for the sake of applying for it. I also had more time to devote to side projects and volunteer work, and worked more comfortably than I had while feeling bogged down by the job search.
By simplifying your job search with the Pareto Principle, you might find that you get 80% more results for only 20% of the work that you used to do!
