[patio11]

I'm so totally with you on this part:

Take your time, research some companies where you'd be a good fit and REALLY do your best to

and then it needs to get followed with "convince the person with hiring authority in the company to hire you." The resume is designed to be rejected.

[kevingadd]

In my experience, the resume is so thoroughly designed to be rejected that you basically can't rely on it. I don't know how ordinary people would actually get jobs in this market by simply submitting a resume for an open requisition; there will always be someone out there whose resume has less HR red flags on it (probably because they falsified it) so you never even get an email back from hiring.

100% of my job opportunities have been from networking (or nepotism) and most of the people I know have the same experience.