The Real Story: Resume Blast Services

I was over on Twitter a few weeks ago, and there were several blurbs aimed at job seekers for “resume blast” sites such as Resume Zapper. Basically, you pay them a fee and they “blast” your resume to tons of recruiters. What they don’t tell you is that all they are doing is sending emails to email addresses like “jobs@microsoft.com” or “careers@acmewidgets.net”. They don’t have any real “in” to specific companies and they aren’t targeting your job search for you.

Now, you may think that this would be helpful from a sheer numbers point of view, but here’s the thing. At least in the US, *most* companies are bombarded with resumes, and recruiters are only looking at applicants that apply directly (via website or referral, or with an email specifying the position in the subject line) to a specific position, and often times the “blasted” resumes are treated as spam and just deleted, so you have just wasted your money.

One of the worst things you can do is receive a call from a recruiter and have no idea what company they are calling from. *If* your resume somehow manages to defy the odds and ends up in the hands of a recruiter that is interested in your candidacy, will you have any idea who they are when they contact you?

I’ve performed Headhunting Services for clients before. This means that they contract with me to find opportunities for them. But I run every opportunity by them to judge their level of interest before I vet them to the company. This is the role of the external recruiter. The truth of the matter is that this is *your* job search, and you should be in control of it and know what is going on with it at all times.

It’s your money to spend, but I’d recommend investing it somewhere that will generate positive returns, like taking former colleagues out to coffee or attending networking functions.

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