After years of watching so many get it wrong, Korn Ferry's CEO and best-selling author Gary Burnison decided to focus his next book on the keys to great job hunting and career growth. But as Lose the Resume, Land the Job reveals, the experience from a firm that has placed millions of executives proves that the modern job search is full of unexpected steps and unusual dedication. Here is an excerpt: 

In my thirty-five years of professional life, including the last decade as CEO of a public company, I have been continuously shocked by the naiveté of people when it comes to their career. From the supposed most sophisticated to the least experienced, from Fortune 500 board members and seasoned executives to college seniors, people are confounded by how to find their next “gig.” Not knowing what to do, they resort to the old standby: “Let me send you my resume,” which has become as meaningless a cliché as “Let’s do lunch.” When you say it, you know you’re never going to have lunch. The same goes for your offer to email your resume. Unless someone genuinely wants to hear from you, your resume isn’t going anywhere. That’s why you need to lose the resume to land the right job. 

Yes, you still need to have a resume, but don’t expect it to be more than a calling card, a conversation opener. Unfortunately, people think their resume accounts for 90 percent of getting a new job, when actually it’s only 10 percent. No wonder sending out resumes isn’t getting people where they want or need to go! While it’s true that almost anyone with a decent education and some experience can get a job, finding the right job is not easy. In fact, it has never been harder. Forget unemployment rates that might not seem so bad these days; most unemployment figures mask the fact that the combination of technology and a merciless global economy has made it almost impossible to find work that offers the compensation we want or purpose we need. In survey after survey, it’s the same complaints: Wage growth isn’t happening, motivation is down, and job stability is vanishing. Here’s a ridiculous stat: Half of U.S. workers have a pay rate that fluctuates sharply every month—by almost 30 percent. 

Yet the only way out of this trap is to engage in a job search process that people never expect to be so arduous or so long.