Monster works?

Joe and I spoke on Friday about his desire to land a new position as an engineer. One of the questions I asked him was how he landed his current position. He went a bit quiet as he thought back and then started to chuckle as he replied, "Believe it or not, I think I had my resume on Monster and a recruiter called me." 

I responded, "You sound surprised."

"I am. Those things never work."

"I agree. That's why I focus my clients on networking. It's just amazing to hear someone who actually landed a job off Monster say that it doesn't work. They do work 20% of the time, it's just such a small percentage that, particularly with the merger of Monster and Yahoo! HotJobs, you have as good a chance at finding a needle in a haystack."

"I agree. I'm still shocked I got the call from the recruiter here."

Joe and I had a good laugh about his experience landing his job off Monster. Here's a top notch engineer that landed a job with a premier technology company four years ago, off Monster.com, and he has no faith in job boards.  As we continued to chat about what he was looking for from a career coach, I was impressed by Joe's initiative to get his resume organized and laid out in a fashion that put his best foot forward in today's high-stakes market.

Is Joe's job in jeopardy? No.
Has Joe been forewarned of a layoff? No.
Why is Joe preparing his Resume?

He's the same as 25% of all employed professionals that are keeping their eyes and ears open for other opportunities in today's market. Having your resume and Linked In profile reviewed and revised by a professional career coach gives you the upper hand in today's overcrowded market. It gets your phone ringing before something happens that requires you to start making outbound calls.