Career Collective post: Once a month, a group of career professionals blog on a subject topical and timely for a job seeker. We’ll post our thoughts on our own blog and link to the post of our colleagues on the same topic.

This month’s topic: How are you fooling yourself about your career/job search? What can you do about it? “How to avoid being tricked by common job search blunders?”

Imagine my surprise the other day when I received an eletter from an organization chastising the subscriber base. Here’s what it said: “After three days less than a third of you even opened the last newsletter...you voluntarily signed on...” In essence the sender thought it OK to impose their schedule on the readership and publicly lamented the fact everyone didn’t drop everything and read what this organization had to say immediately.

I sat there in stunned silence. I read it again. Surely I was reading it wrong. No. There it was. Someone was “yelling” at me for not reading what they wrote on THEIR schedule. Someone, kno wing nothing about anyone’s schedule or email volume, deemed three days an adequate amount of time to open this document. And were so convicted in that belief, they thought it OK to chastise the entire readership for not adhering to their arbitrary schedule. Really? I signed up for this eletter more than three years ago and suddenly, by virtue of that sign up, they get to tell me what to do??? About 10 minutes later, as I was digesting this craziness, I received an email from a friend who was on the same mailing list, with a note saying, “Seriously? I’m being lectured?” She unsubscribed. I didn’t...yet.

So what does this have to do with being foolish in a job search? Let’s change up the players a bit. The organization is the job seeker, the eletter their resume. I’m the hiring authority.

I personally get more than 100 emails a day (and that’s a minimal volume compared to most HR professionals.) I run a business. My priority is client and colleague correspondence. I read all the other “stuff” when I can. Sometimes it takes a day or so to plow through everything. Sometimes, I look at content through the Outlook preview box. If the information doesn’t grab my attention or convey value to me in 10-15 seconds (sound familiar???), I hit the delete button and move on to the next email without ever opening the email.

Now, imagine I’m a busy HR professional or hiring authority with a full plate – a notice insurance costs are rising yet again, an overflowing inbox, budgets are due, an argument is brewing between staff members, a toilet backed up in the employee bathroom AND 300 resumes to review for an opening in engineering … and that’s a slow day. Rather than get a document that understands my pain and brings a solution to ease that pain, I get a cover letter with “I, me or my” mentioned 21 times in two paragraphs – basically a mini-opera all about me-me-me – accompanied by a me-centered resume, starting out with: “Seeking a position where I can grow personally and professionally while helping the company grow.” My HR world is imploding (as it frequently does) and a person I don’t even know, haven’t even engaged on any level is telling me what they want. I know nothing of them and their introduction is “gimme”. Sounds sort of like that organization deciding I “should” have opened the email already with absolutely no regard to my own personal circumstance or pain.*

I tell my clients (potential clients, strangers while out shopping – it’s happened...anyone who will listen); a job search is not all about you. (WHAT?? It’s not all about me?) I go on to explain, the beginning of the search is yours – you get to decide (or circumstances do) it’s time to launch a job search. The end of the search is yours – you get to decide which offer you accept. BUT, for all points in between, every word out of your mouth, every email, every voice mail, every conversation with every person even remotely affiliated with the target organization had better deliver, repeatedly, a “this is what I bring to your organization, this is what I can do for you, this is how I can make your life easier” message or you’re destined for the delete button. In this job market, with 6.3 individuals for every open position in the US today, you’ve got to sell your value, not pound your chest, stomp your feet and scream “I want.”

Don’t be an April Fool...or even a May, June or July fool. Convey your value. Think about your audience and don’t impose your agenda on others. Remember, in addressing their needs, your agenda is handled too.

*(BTW – I was one of the 33% that had opened the email, read it and forwarded the info along to a few others who might find it interesting BEFORE they yelled. Know what? Most likely, I won’t do that again. I won’t risk my friends and associates being yelled at for not jumping through imaginary hoops ever again. Do you think the harried HR manager will save or pass along your information to a colleague? Hmmm. The unsubscribe / delete button looms...)