Is it worth it to (snail) mail resumes to employers anymore?
Question:
Is it worth it to (snail) mail resumes to employers anymore?
Answer:
Not really. Your time is better spent tailoring your resume and writing a knock-out cover letter for a smaller number of jobs than just “spraying and praying” by sending your resume out to employers who may or may not be hiring for your kind of role (or at all).
Explanation:
Once upon a time, a common aspect of job searching was printing out dozens of copies of your resume, making a list of companies (and their mailing addresses), spending hours addressing envelopes, taking them to the post office, and then waiting for the phone to ring.
When I tell younger folks today that’s how it worked, they immediately ask me: “Did it work?” And the answer is yes, yes it did. I myself got a job that way in 2008. I know, that seems like eons ago (to me too), but it was after the internet age was up and running so it shows that the “old school” way of getting employers to notice you worked, at least for a little while, even after the advent of the online job application.
But nowadays there is just so much noise that I really don’t recommend this strategy. If you’re targeting small businesses only? Maybe. It might work. If you’re not unemployed and can afford the cost of the mailings (for reference, stamps were $0.42 in 2008 and I was an unemployed college student who was targeting law firms with particular specialties), it certainly won’t hurt your chances. But it’s like trying to hit a bullseye with a shotgun. You’re much better off spending that time looking for open positions, carefully studying the job posting, closely tailoring your resume to the position, and writing a customized knock-their-socks-off cover letter. Seriously, if you do that for even one-tenth of the number of resumes you would blindly send out, you’ll get better results.
And don’t even bother trying to snail mail your resume to a big company. There’s next to zero chance it’s going to make it to the desk of someone with any kind of hiring authority. Even if it did, they’ve probably already got a huge stack of resumes from the hundreds of applicants to their open positions, some of which are likely much more tailored than your resume.
Job searching is time consuming. For those who have done it “whole hog,” you know it’s a full-time job in itself. Use your time wisely. One carefully placed shot with a rifle is much more likely to hit the bullseye.
