Set the Employment Blender to 'Liquify' - Jobs

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I answer questions from job hunters and employers for a living. I love the in-your-face questions like, "How do I decline to tell an employer my salary history and still survive the interview?"
But the more common ones are the most painful, such as, "How can I make myself stand out to employers?" That question usually comes out as an agonized plea: "Please let me stand out from all those other people so I'll be the one who gets hired!"
Stand out. How do job hunters do that?
They write and use resumes, like everybody else.They dump their data into job boards, like everybody else.They go to networking meetings, like everybody else, where unemployed people get together to exchange job leads. Job hunters travel together in packs, hoping their competition is going somewhere else. Even job hunters who want to stand out do most--or all--of the things in that list.
WTF? Those things don't make you stand out. They make you blend in because the employment system is set to PUREE and you can't stand out. Aw, you know it, but you do those things anyway because that's how the machine works and you just can't ... get ... out.
People aren't stupid. They're just frustrated, doing the best they can. I know that. But today I saw an example of how even savvy job hunters let their brains get sucked through a straw ... Yewww! And they don't even know it.
You need to know it. You can't escape and use your brain to get a job until you get out of the blender.
The author of Unqualified.org smacks down TheLadders with gusto (and rightly so). But this enlightened job hunter reveals a nasty blindspot most job hunters have. Stumbling down the rungs of TheLadders perfectly illustrates the conflict between needing to stand out and carelessly slipping into the vortex that swallows most resumes.
Slogging through TheLadders job postings, Unqualified.org complains:
"I was annoyed when I'd have to link to an external employer's site to complete a job application, filling out yet another profile and uploading yet another resume. This didn't happen just once or twice, but over the course of my interaction with the site I estimated that I had to do this at least 25-35% of the time. I understand that every company has their own resource management and human resources function, but isn't this why man invented middleware?"
Like you, I'm sure this job hunter wants to stand out, to land that "$100k+" job interview TheLadders promises. But read that complaint carefully. Unqualified is begging to turn the blender up to LIQUIFY. "Help me stand out less!"
And therein lies the systemic brainwashing of job hunters and employers everywhere. They recognize the failure of the system, but they still expect the system to help them.
There's a free copy of my book (How to Work With Headhunters) to the firstperson who explains why Unqualified.org doesn't really want what Unqualified is asking for. (Note the hint that I've italicized.)
(Of course, I shall be the sole arbiter of who explains it first to help me make my point. Kinda like how a hiring manager is the sole arbiter of your next job success....)

Nick Corcodilos is the author of How to Work with Headhunters. He also writes the free weekly Ask The Headhunter Newsletter. Ask The Headhunter is a registered trademark.

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