If you limit yourself to simply emailing resumes, then no, you won’t get the job. You need to follow through. There are many sites that will explain how to network to find a good job. (There are a lot of scam sites as well, so beware. People looking for jobs should NEVER have to send in money to anybody to get a job…)

However, getting that interview is always tough. Without degenerating this into absolutes, I’ll point out that it’s very difficult nowadays to get a job without an interview. If you are good, you’ll ace the interview, but how will people know you’re good? The first step is the resume.

For every position available, there are quite a lot of people sending in resumes, and most of them don’t indicate how their experience would suit them for a particular job. With companies hiring headhunters with little or no knowledge of the actual job to “pre scan” the resumes, they end up looking simply for key words (“Well, there’s no B.S. mentioned here, I’ll ignore this resume, despite the fact that the applicant has 30 years experience in the field. Next…”). Cover letters help, but some H.R. flacks simply ignore them, since a long letter wastes their time. A short paragraph on how you are the very person they have been dying to meet may help.

Any simple trick to make your resume stand out, even as simple as reformatting using the template, won’t get you the job, but it might get your resume an additional look where a “plain brown wrapper” resume won’t. A well-written and brief cover letter (tailored to each place you are targeting) is also a plus. I think the template mentioned here would be an outstanding help in finding employment.

Oh… don’t send a Word document out. Try to make it “final form,” whether it be paper (best) or something more difficult to alter (PDF, for example). You don’t want somebody unscrupulous to make unauthorized changes and pass it along. Best suggestion: Print to PDF, and then go to Kinkos and get a couple of dozen printed on linen resume paper. It shouldn’t cost that much, and it’s another way to make your resume stand out.

“Great jobs, world class jobs, jobs people kill for… those jobs don’t get filled by people emailing in resumes. Ever.”

The things you’ve done and accomplished in your work and personal life speak louder than any resume.

(complete post: http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2008/03/why-bother-havi.html)