The most obvious and unfortunately the most popular (I say unfortunately because it’s the least effective) way to look for a job is through job ads. Job ads easy to find, and easy to interact with – but especially on mega sites like Monster or CareerBuilder, you are up against hundreds of other resumes, no to mention the keyword search elimination robots. So the chances of landing an interview are really low (zero in my case).

Some job ad boards are better than others though, and I’ve had good luck with CU Career Services (because only CU students and alumni are allowed to see the jobs) and craigslist.

Of course, the best and most effective way to get a job is through a referral – through a network of friends and family. And I’m trying to network the best that I can, but it hasn’t been as helpful as I would have wished because I am looking for work in an industry (start-up/technology companies) here I don’t have a lot of contacts.

So, with the risk of running out of leads, I’ve decided to try what I call a “Top Down” approach to finding work. Rather than look for a job that needs to be filled, I will look for companies that I, at least on the first glance, would want to work in. The benefit of this approach is that it’s proactive, I don’t have to wait for jobs to be advertised, it gives me something that at least feels productive to do, and it’s an opportunity to learn about all the different companies in the industry.

I don’t know how much I should expect from the “Top Down” strategy – but it seems worth the effort.

This was my first serious effort in job hunting. Before I’ve only had to ask. So, here are a few stats accumulated over the last 5 months:

• 32: employers resume sent to
• 14: interviews; 8 in person and 6 phone interviews.
• 7: rejections; most in the form a phone call.
• 4: offers for jobs I no longer wanted.
• 3: attractive offers.

That’s a 44% response rate, if you don’t count the leads that didn’t result in an interview. I suppose it also means that there was less than 10% chance that I would receive an offer from a job applied for. But after an interview, there was 50% chance that I would receive an offer, half of which turned out to be unacceptable.

Let me know if you’d like more specific information, and I’d be happy to share it with you.