HR Block - Is It In Yet?

It's impossible for me to imagine job-hunting without the internet. I easily apply to 20+ jobs each day without breaking a sweat. I have stored on my desktop 3 versions of my resume, a cover letter template, and 2 writing samples. I get weekly (soon to be daily) emails via job agents at various companies I'm itching to get into. I am constantly in the loop.

What did people use before the internet? I'm gonna guess that newspapers were more stocked with quality jobs. Movies from the 1980s/early 90's often depict a character going through a montage of self-improvement, pouring over the Classifieds and circling their dream job that represents their new and more aware persona in a slick red pen. Yes, the good ol' days.

Well, I checked the classifieds in my local paper, the Pocono Record, and unless I want to be a telemarketer or a dry wall specialist, I'm shit outta luck. To be fair, I would most likely be shit outta luck anyway if I restricted myself to just looking locally, even if I used space-age technology in my job hunt. I digress.

So, the internet emerges as the main outlet to find a job, right? Maybe not.

I keep forgetting how tricky it is to surmount that first wall of securing a job: Human Resources. Who are they anyway? How do they know how qualified I am for a particular job? On a recent interview, in the initial HR screening, I actually had the HR representative confess that she had no idea what my prospective department did. Really? Really?

Getting past HR might just be the hardest part of landing a job somewhere, especially if you're applying to a large company where rep's go through hundreds of resumes each day. These Toby's are BUSY. Their inboxes are flooded, especially at this time of year. They probably forgot all about your carefully-worded cover letter after they had to argue with a departing intern who wouldn't return his company badge and then they had to give a tour of the facilities to a new hire.

So the question remains - how the hell do I get through this HR block?

As sad as this sounds, perhaps the only way to break through the block is to go around it, and kick things old school. I'm talking snail mail. Yes, that means you'll have to print out your resume, and a cover letter that you actually put effort into, and you'll probably have to use good paper as well. You'll need to neatly write or print their address, and make sure it's to the correct person/department, and you'll need to slip it in the mailbox and hope for the best. Don't forget postage. Don't ever forget postage.

I'm not saying you should fill the envelope with glitter and spritz it with perfume, because the fact is that if you're sending it the old fashioned way, it already stands out from the rest. In this day and age working professionals get MUCH more via email than they do through traditional mail. If you don't want to get lost in a sea of subject lines, but rather if you want to find yourself an actual place on an HR rep's desk, this is your best bet. Also, there still might be some old farts out there that think it takes more effort to send something in the mail, so that if you snailed it, it means you must really want this job. Pffft, what do they know.

HR Block is a series of posts designed to figure out the enigma that is Human Resources.