Any high school guidance counselor worth their salt will tell you that you should send out to at least six universities that are evenly distributed among three groups: schools you want to get into (dream schools), schools you can probably get into (realistic schools), and schools you know you can get into (“Well crap, looks like I’m going here” schools). In fact, if you think back to sessions with your high school guidance counselor, you’re probably going to find tons of nuggets of info about applying to colleges that could work for job apps, too. But the three tiers are the key, and one of the reasons that most people are having trouble finding work.
In marketing, one of the ways that customers are segmented is into three groups: A, B and C groups. The A group is people who do not buy your product, have never bought your product, and may never buy your product. The B group is people who have bought your product once or twice or three times; B group members are light users. If someone’s in the C group, they use the product frequently and are big fans of the brand; C group contains anyone from frequent users to fanatics.
Unsurprisingly, most companies try to cater their marketing to the A group to increase market share, even if catering to the B group might get them more profits, and catering to the C group could lead to more word-of-mouth and positive reviews from their already devoted consumers.
When people apply for jobs, they tend to stick with businesses that are in the B group (aka the realistic schools), rather than branching out. And this is stupid.
By limiting yourself to a certain type of employer along a single spectrum, they’re helping to create a sort of job seeker-bottleneck where certain positions receive a heavy influx of applicants, while others receive next to none. As a result, fewer people get jobs, and more positions remain unfilled for longer.
You might be wondering how this bottleneck is created, if people are on different levels of experience and education. The answer to that is locked up in some government/independent study that I’m too lazy to look up. But the short answer is that too many people read into job descriptions too much, counting themselves out from work that they are qualified for, perceiving themselves as on a level similar to their peers. This is why there’s a big problem with finding employment for workers who once held entry-level and mid-upper level positions.
The bottleneck does serve the purpose of bringing in better candidates, but that helps the companies, not the unemployed.
When someone applies for a job that they think is beneath them, there’s only two things that really need to be dealt with: the overqualification hurdle and personal justification for job whoring. Other than that, there’s no reason why you can’t sell out. It’s much better to be able to pay for rent and food and utilities than becoming a hobo. And if worst comes to worst, those applying for a backup (aka “C” group) job can always come up with an exit strategy.
As for the “A” group applications, all I can say is that a lot of people are more qualified than they might think. It might behoove some applicants to apply for the position anyway – some seemingly inconsequential experience can end up netting a ridiculously good job. And there are some occasions where a hiring manager will promote from within to give the applicant work one or two rungs down on the corporate ladder anyway.
So when it comes to sending out resumes, don’t be limited by what you think you can get. Explore the other two ends of the spectrum to create a three-tiered approach. You might be surprised at the results!
