I keep trying to puzzle out in my head what people are thinking when they apply for a job they haven’t really ever done.

I want to understand it better to become a better recruiter, and so that I can give better advice to job seekers. But I’m not sure I can completely understand it because I’m not sure it’s rational.

If it was a movie it would be like something from Alfred Hitchcock: the job seeker is sitting at the dining room table, nervously pretending to work their home computer, awkwardly wearing clothes they’d never normally wear on a Tuesday or Wednesday. As they work, they realize the house is abnormally quiet. Suddenly they start to notice things they’ve never seen at home that time of the day.

Then it gets surreal – a pea-soup-thick fog rolls in…every sound is magnified, every swirl in the fog briefly takes the shape of something potentially ominous. They sit in the fog and scan the internet for job postings, and when they see something that looks vaguely familiar and safe, they instinctively move toward it.

They scroll down and let their eye linger on the few words and phrases they recognize, and a warm, safe thought comes over them: “I bet I could do that…it says, ‘Build good rapport with executives’ and I’m great at rapport building.”

It’s the only line that matches for them, but they see a tiny sliver of hope and fire off that resume.

I know – it’s not funny, and fog doesn’t normally roll into people’s dining rooms. But it seems like some kind of mysterious unemployment fog seeps into people’s brains, tricking them into applying for things they have no business applying for – vague shapes and ethereal possibilities that aren’t real.

They pull up their resume, tweak a few things, go through the online application ‘hoop-jumping’ process they hate, then carefully log their submission in a spreadsheet. They store up a little hope in their heart and wait to hear something back.

Maybe it’s like whistling as you walk through the fog…a familiar, safe tune for the ear that tries to compensate for strange things happening to the eyes. A normal, controlled noise that tells you you’re not losing your mind. A lonely little whistle of hope that there’s nothing sinister or abnormal out there in the job hunting fog.

There are a heck of a lot of people on social media sites bemoaning how awful it is that no one in the job hunting world will sympathize and give you a chance. I feel for you…and I want you to get back to work. But I’m not going to coddle you.

Because on the other side of that Ethernet connection is someone who lives in the harsh light of day – who has obligations to managers and employees and themselves. On that world, there’s no ‘hoping,’ only hard, cold facts. That manager, who will get one shot at hiring someone to get the work done, doesn’t respond to the bravery of your halting whistle – to him it looks like you’re stumbling around with your eyes closed.

So let me offer you a stone cold, hard-as-life little secret from the professional marketing world in a way that I hope is clear…

You can’t dress up a pumpkin and convince someone it’s a date to the prom.

If someone wants to hire a prom date, and you’re a pumpkin, there’s no sense applying for the job and hoping something miraculous happens. Miraculous things happen in the movies, but frankly that kind of hope is wasted here in real life. Hope might be the best of things (a line from a great movie), bu only properly applied. Ignorantly applied hope wears you down over time. It’s of no more use than whistling in the fog hoping it will help you see better.

It doesn’t mean I care for you less because I’m telling you this.

There’s a little old saying from the good book – “Better bruises from a friend than kisses from an enemy.” No matter how bad it hurts, let me be your friend for a minute.

If you’re a pumpkin looking for work, you’re better off spending 100% of your time finding the market for pumpkins and selling your stuff to pumpkin buyers. If there’s not a market for pumpkins (and you know who you are), you’re better off spending 100% of your time reinventing yourself to be what the market needs.

Like a former client, David A., who spent over a year getting new technical certifications (on his own dime), finding opportunities for entry level programmers, and working to convince companies that there are dozens of reasons to hire a 20-year guy  into an entry level position. He even came up with a “Baker’s Dozen Reasons NOT to Hire a Kid for an Entry Level Job.”

He worked his butt off to find a market and become what it needed. And he got himself back to work.

VERY, VERY seldom does someone at a company see a resume completely unrelated to the job at hand and decide to take a chance on a person who hasn’t already done the primary elements of the job. When they do, it’s usually a friend or a relative, and there’s a high probability it will turn out badly.

So you’re thinking, “Well what’s the harm, maybe something miraculous will happen.” Which proves that you might be one of the people I wrote this for

The harm is that are undermining the time and strength you have to fix what you’re doing wrong with the subtle dishonesty of sending in a resume (a positive action) for a job you’re not qualified for (which will not produce a result.)

See, in any system that’s designed to produce a specific result, there are certain bits of information floating around. That information can be used to help you tell you whether you’re on the right track or not.

For example, the thermostat in your home measures and reports so that you know if the cooling system is producing the desired result, so you don’t toss and turn all night in the sweltering heat of July. The information in this closed system is reliable and allows the system to work normally. But if you ignore the information presented and don’t turn on the air, you can cuss the heat and the system all night long, but you’re still not getting any sleep.

One of the primary reasons systems fail is that people are afraid, and I know how true that is for a job seeker (I’ve been one for LONG periods of time too). People who are afraid don’t want to be (or do not know how to be) accountable for their actions when they’re not sure what the outcome will be. So they purposefully avoid measurement and accountability in what they do, hoping to avoid ‘failure…’ which of course, engineers failure right into the system.

I know too many job seekers who are not listening to the market, or aren’t willing to hear like David did!

Whistling in the fog is a primary daily task for these people.

Screwing up your courage (a phrase I’ve used too many times but really like), committing yourself to not sleeping until you totally, absolutely penetrate the pumpkin buying world, is your best bet. Every second you waste hoping to get asked to the prom is literally killing time, energy, hope and and the opportunity to hone your ability to deliver a message to the right buyers to generate positive responses from your actions.

Marketing guru’s call it ‘blind archery.’ That’s where you blindfold yourself, guess where the target is and fire away.

Applying for jobs where you’re ‘hoping’ is blind archery.

You can fix it. You can change it for today, and gain skills you can use for the rest of your career to make sure you are always in the market where great jobs happen.

It takes courage. It’s painful. But when you stop whistling and act on the information the market’s giving you, you will eventually figure out how to reinvent your marketing or yourself to get on with life.