With all of the layoffs and dire economic forecasts, there are more people than ever looking for a new job. One side effect of higher unemployment and less jobs is that a lot of people are getting pretty free and loose with their job search approach, and it’s showing in the numbers of resumes recruiters and employers are getting from their job postings.

For a job posting that would have pulled 20 or 30 responses 10 years ago, today some jobs are getting thousands of responses. It’s not just that there are more people looking… it’s also that the online “one click job search” has opened the floodgates and taht means more of the resumes are off the mark, a real shot in the dark.

And that means they are going to be rejected.

It may seem like sending out more resumes is the answer to finding a job faster, but the truth is just the opposite.

It’s not about quantity, It’s about quality.

Anything less is a total waste of everyone’s time, including yours, and this approach of quality over quantity will preserve your emotional state of mind, too.

When I was actively recruiting, there were days I would spend hours reviewing resumes. One day was so memorable for me, I wrote about it.

I was recruiting for a product manager job with a consumer electronics company. A pretty straightforward job with a straightforward posting.

I wrote the post to clearly say that I was looking for someone whose last job was as a product manager with a consumer electronics company. Because my job was to find someone with experience as a product manager with a consumer electronics company. Because my client needed someone with product management experience in consumer electronics to round out their team. Sorry, I know I’m repeating myself, but it is worth repeating. The mission was straightforward. Product manager from consumer electronics.

So I reviewed 100 or so resumes, feeling very excited to have a good response to my posting. And what happened is that there were only four people who had experience as a product manager with a consumer electronics company.

The other 96% had a few close-but-no-cigar applications, but mostly included a whole lot of what-in-the-world-are-you-thinking replies: there was a CEO from a consulting firm, an advertising account executive, a buyer from a department store, several people who had done outside sales for semiconductor products, and an architect. For real. I kid you not.

The vast majority of the resumes I reviewed didn’t have a snowball’s chance in hell of being selected for an interview. Zip. Nada. It would never happen, not even if they were my best friend, because they simply are not appropriate for the job. (Did I mention I was looking for a product manager from a consumer electronics company?)

And the people who submitted them had wasted their time, and risked feeling rejected even more.

What’s happening right now is that as jobs get scarcer, companies who are hiring can become even more selective. And on the other hand, job-seekers are beginning to feel more desperate, and so they start applying to jobs they’ll never get.

Then, when they aren’t selected (which, of course, never had a snowball’s chance in hell of happening), they feel rejected and discouraged, and probably complaining about how bad recruiters are that they can’t even get interviews, and so they get more desperate and send even more inappropriate resumes out.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the picture, the people doing the screening are having to vet resumes we never should have seen in the first place, which mean we’re spending far more time to identify candidates, and are getting frustrated.

It’s all a vicious cycle. But it’s an easy cycle to break.

Stop sending out resumes to jobs you are not qualified for.

For real. Stop making yourself crazier by just blasting out your resume to every job you see. You aren’t going to get those interviews and you’re wasting your time and inviting inevitable rejection.

Stop applying to long-shot jobs.

I know, I know, some of the experts are telling you that you should be spending hours every day applying to jobs, no matter what kind they are, and that looking for a job requires turning over a lot of rocks and exploring a lot of options. I say yes, work on it every day… and no, no, no to the rest of it.

And if you don’t have the background a job requires, you are not going to be selected for an interview, and you certainly are not going to be hired. Period.

It’s a waste of your time to send the application in and it’s a waste of the recruiter or screener’s job to have to review and assess it (if it even makes it past the computer ATS screen).

Instead, focus on quality and the jobs that fit who you are and what you do. 

Job searches do take work, but thoughtful focused strategic intention will take you a whole lot farther than the scattershot busywork of sending out volumes of resumes.

Be realistic with yourself. What is your experience? Where is your area of expertise? What do you bring to the table? The answers to these questions tell you where you should be focused on looking for a job.

If your expertise is as an advertising manager, then spend your time researching which companies are spending on advertising right now. When you uncover a possible company, send one great resume and cover note to see if you can get in to speak to those people.

Don’t waste your time sending a resume to jobs you’re not qualified for, because it steals the time that could be spent applying to a job you have a shot at.

Instead of sending out ten pointless resumes, you could be online asking your friends who they know in that company you’d like to work for, or reading your target company’s latest press release, or finding an introduction to someone who already works in a place you’d like to work.

Instead of sending out ten resumes on jobs you’ll never get, you could be modifying and customizing your resume so it highlights all the things in your background that will make you an obvious contender for that one job that does fit your experience.

Yes, sometimes you’ll see a posting for the wrong job in the right company. When that happens, send your resume with a note that says “I’m not the person for the job you posted, but your company sounds like the kind of place I’m looking for, and I’m sending my resume to see if you have a need for a buyer/salesperson/bookkeeper (or whatever you do).” The person on the receiving end will appreciate your honesty, and is much more likely to consider you for other openings.

Remember, it’s about quality, not quantity.

Wearing yourself down by putting yourself in the line of guaranteed repeated rejection doesn’t do your job search, or your spirit, any good.

Focus on the jobs that you are going to be most competitive for, and invest your time into making the very best impression and your search will be much more efficient, and much easier on your psyche. I promise.