Aaron Crowe

A comment was recently made by a WalletPop reader on my story about callbacks for job interviews. He didn’t gain anything from the story, which is fine, and he made a point that I think is worth remembering in the search for a job. The full letter is linked to the story, but this is part of what he wrote:

“I’ve also been unemployed for 6 months, and I’ve found the simplestatement “I’m here to work, what do you want me to do?”has hired more people than the most elaborate resume or most timely call back.”

I see the point and agree that too often job searchers can spend too much time on resumes and worrying about callbacks and other things out of their control that they can lose sight of the simple thing they’re trying to do: Get a job. Granted, it’s not easy in a recession, but there are jobs out there and it’s good advice to keep it simple and not worry about callbacks. I, like I expect most people, try to learn from my mistakes and want to find out better ways that I could have presented myself to get the job. While I still plan on using as many methods as I can to find a job, maybe it’s best to try them and then move on if they don’t work. Let them fall by the side of the road if they don’t work and see what else might work.

As Henry David Thoreau said: Simplify, simplify, simplify.