Career Mission's Chief Executive Officer, Harrison Barnes, discussed the importance of designing your job search differently from what all the others are doing. Harrison believes that one of the surest ways to succeed in a job search is to follow an entirely new path.
He talks about the guerrillas war that American colonists fought against the British in the American Revolutionary War. guerrillas warfare is different from other methods of fighting a war in the way that guerrillas will often employ methods that take the enemy by surprise. This gives them a distinct advantage because the enemy is ill-prepared to tackle the sudden onslaught.
Harrison talks about the art of war as defined by Sun Tzu and how wars are fought in two ways: on heavy ground and on deadly ground. He goes on to talk about the significance of winning and the similarities of warfare with a job search. A job search is more likely to succeed if it follows a new path; this can include applying for job openings that may not always be advertised. Most often though, job seekers end up following what everybody else is doing. This is because most jobs are well-advertised, either by employers themselves or through recruiters. Eventually, this results in far more applications for a single job, reducing the odds of actually landing the particular position. In contrast, unusual job-search tactics might work. Harrison cites examples of how job seekers with less than perfect credentials are actually managing successful careers now thanks to applying for openings that were never really advertised as jobs.