Are Executives Suffering from Job Search Reality Disconnect?

These fascinating statistics were passed on to me through a recent Career Masters Institute member newletter:

WEDDLE’s continuously conducts both primary and secondary research on Best Practices in employment excellence and HR leadership. They recently asked the visitors to the WEDDLE’s Web site to tell where they expect to find their next job. A total of 1,270 people participated in the survey. Here’s how they think they’ll be successful in future job search campaigns:

57.6% Responding to an ad posted on an Internet job board
16.8% Networking at business and social events
7.2% Responding to an ad posted on an employer’s Web-site
7.6% Sending a resume to an employer by mail
3.9% Receiving a call from a headhunter
1.9% Receiving a call from a staffing firm
1.9% Attending a career fair
1.6% Responding to a newspaper ad
0.7% Joining a social networking site

You can learn more about this survey at the Weddles site.

Since it is accepted wisdom that most executive level jobs are found via some form of networking, this points to a major disconnect in the minds of employment seekers and the real world. Most statistics point to networking as the most lucrative source of job leads! While Web posting of your executive resume and job board/recruiter site searching are worthwhile activities, one would certainly want to use them only to supplement rigorous pursuit of networking (which, by the way, can also be done to great effect via the Web).