Plan for Failure

Plan for Failure I found a great post by David Meerman Scott (highly regarded in the marketing and PR space) titled When failure is cheap, why not give it a go? He starts his post talking about his daughter applying to universities in the olden days the application process was tedious and costly.  Today, his daughter can easily apply online and her application tendencies are more of a throw mud on the wall approach than what his approach was, which was more planned and calculated. He specifically talks about job seekers, and how this applies to us also: Some idea is at play for job search. It is so easy to search for openings on online job boards and company web sites and then just zap over your electronic CV even if youre not qualified. In the old days of paper it was more difficult to find out where the openings were and to actually apply required writing a cover letter, licking stamps and whatnot, so fewer people applied for positions. I am sad to think job seekers are sitting at home applying like crazy to job after job after job for a few reasons, but when I read this I realized that not only are you applying against other qualified applicants, you are applying against people who are completely unqualified but have a few minutes on their hands. Optimistic view: yes, you might stand out more since you are actually a better fit, Pessimistic view: my heavens, the candidate pool is MUDDY since its too easy to apply.  You are less than just a number, youve become, along with the others, a nuisance David says: The web has developed a culture of planning for failure Isnt that interesting? Yes, plan for failure, embrace it, move on from it but dont throw a bunch of mud on the wall and hope something sticks. Read his entire post here, its great food for thought. Plan for Failure I found a great post by David Meerman Scott (highly regarded in the marketing and PR space) titled When failure is cheap, why not give it a go? He starts his post talking about his daughter applying to universities in the olden days the application process was tedious and costly.  Today, his daughter can easily apply online and her application tendencies are more of a throw mud on the wall approach than what his approach was, which was more planned and calculated. He specifically talks about job seekers, and how this applies to us also: Some idea is at play for job search. It is so easy to search for openings on online job boards and company web sites and then just zap over your electronic CV even if youre not qualified. In the old days of paper it was more difficult to find out where the openings were and to actually apply required writing a cover letter, licking stamps and whatnot, so fewer people applied for positions. I am sad to think job seekers are sitting at home applying like crazy to job after job after job for a few reasons, but when I read this I realized that not only are you applying against other qualified applicants, you are applying against people who are completely unqualified but have a few minutes on their hands. Optimistic view: yes, you might stand out more since you are actually a better fit, Pessimistic view: my heavens, the candidate pool is MUDDY since its too easy to apply.  You are less than just a number, youve become, along with the others, a nuisance David says: The web has developed a culture of planning for failure Isnt that interesting? Yes, plan for failure, embrace it, move on from it but dont throw a bunch of mud on the wall and hope something sticks. Read his entire post here, its great food for thought.