“Am I supposed to put my education section first, or my experience? Also, should I put my Physics class in ‘related coursework’? And I’m not wild about my objective statement. What do you think?”

Hold on a minute. Don’t get me wrong, it’s important to take the time to craft a well-written resume. To make sure the experiences you list are relevant, and speak to skills and accomplishments rather than just responsibilities. To have someone from career services take a look when you’re finished, just to be sure. But you’ve been job searching for a while now, and you aren’t having much luck. Obsess over the little details all you want, but your resume is not the problem.

“But there are hundreds of other people applying through these job boards! If my resume isn’t perfect, how will I stand out?”

According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 70% of people get their jobs through networking. So why are you spending all of your time on job boards, sending resume after resume to places that aren’t responding? Networking is always important, but when searching for a job in a tough economy, your connections are invaluable. Scale back the time you spend scouring Monster.com and use it to start building relationships through networking.

“But networking is scary, and I suck at it.”

You use networking skills all the time, and you don’t even know it. Let’s talk about three things you should be pretty comfortable with already, and how they relate to networking:

Asking questions. People love to talk about themselves. When you meet someone new, ask questions to get to know them better. They’ll enjoy their encounter with you a lot more, and there’s a pretty good chance you’ll learn something. Sure, much of the time it won’t be anything helpful to your job search. But maybe she was a summer intern at that accounting firm you’re interested in, and knows people in the HR department. If you’re too busy talking about yourself, you’ll never know. Important caveat: you have to actually be interested in the answers to the questions you’re asking, otherwise you’ll come off as an insincere jerk.

Being helpful. Most people aren’t going to respond well if you walk up to them and immediately start asking for favors. Don’t be “that guy.” Make an effort to approach every new relationship with the goal of being helpful. It doesn’t have to be some big gesture, but a small display of kindness goes a long way. People will be much more willing to help you (unprompted, even) if they see you as a helpful person.

Knowing what you want. If you’re good at the first two skills I mentioned, many of the people you encounter will be willing to help you out if they can. But there’s no way they’ll be able to do that if they don’t know how to help! You need to be able to articulate your passion, skills, and goals when the subject comes up. Once you can do that, you’ll be amazed at the number of opportunities people will send your way.

“OK, I guess I never realized that those ‘networking’ skills are things that I’m already good at, just in another context. But where do I start?”

Glad you asked. Pick one of these and start doing it this week:

• Reach out to your weak ties using tools like LinkedIn and Facebook
• Connect with fellow students through extracurricular activities
• Find someone who has the job you want in 5 years and ask for an informational interview
• Follow people on Twitter to develop new relationships with others in your field
• Become active in a professional organization

Each new relationship that you develop offers the potential to put you one step closer to the job you really want. Don’t you think that’s a better use of your time than obsessing over the minutiae of your resume, and on how many times you can send it out?

Photo credit: goh-wz.livejournal.com