6 Ways to Ensure Your Job Search Will Likely Fail

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It's amazing, though understandable, that so many people are pursuing job search strategies that are apt to yield no results.

The job search environment is more complex and requires greater sophistication to navigate than ever before. Here are 8 of the things you should not do to avoid getting stalled in your job search.

1. Give your resume to your contact list and assume you've done their networking

2. Failed to get your resume into the hands of the right people at all of your target companies

3. Spend significant time searching on job boards and company websites looking for jobs to apply to

4. Put your profile up on LinkedIn without attention to keywords and your personal/career brand and assume that "if you build it they will come"

5. Spend just a few hours per week on your job search

6. Do your entire job search from home without making appointments to meet with networking contacts and hiring authorities

The new job search is a social search - involving the use of Twitter, YouTube, and Facebook, among many others. These are places hiring authorities are looking for candidates. And they are places you can also create networking opportunities times 10.

The new job search is more competitive. Recruiters want 10 out of 10 of their requirements met. Hiring authorities can usually find someone who matches their needs on LinkedIn, which has become a Big Data resource for them.

That means there is a premium on alternative job search methods that will produce direct face-to-face contact with decision makers, a context in which you can pitch your value, not just be someone evaluated with a checklist. It also means that, to get results, you need to spend serious time each week looking for the right job.

The savvy job seeker of 2012 has mastered new skills that will hold him or her in good stead for now and into the future - understanding that new changes are sure to come that will require further adaptive skills.