Online applications are a waste of time. Here’s why.

Here’s an interesting fact I love to share.

It’s something so shocking that it’s almost always met with disbelief and cynicism.

But it is a true fact. 

And it also perfectly illustrates why online applications are a complete waste of time. And that if you are still choosing to job hunt ONLY using online applications, you are missing out on so many opportunities. 

Here’s the fact I love to share:

In my 7 years working in the Marketing team at Nike London, I never met a single person who got their job through an online application.

Not one. 

Nike is a big company. I’m confident there are plenty of people who did apply online and get through the blackhole of the internet to secure a role.

But in our Marketing team of 90, I never met one in my 7 years working there.

Why did no one get their job this way? 

Because by the time the online applications were in,  people had made their themselves visible to hiring managers at Nike in other ways.

It wasn’t that Nike hired people they already knew. 

It was that people who wanted to work there went over and above what the average person did to get noticed by hiring managers at Nike.

In fact, I still look back at the lengths people went to, and marvel as to how I ever managed to get a job there myself! 

For example…

There was the girl who spent every weekend at track meets with her professional athlete brother hoping to find a connection at Nike to help her apply for a role.

There was the guy who took photos of himself running around the world in his Nike Free Running shoes and sent a compilation of these photos to the Nike European HQ.

Or the guy who took a retail job at NikeTown upon graduating because he thought this was a better way into head office. Long game but a smart game.

All of these strategies worked. And I saw so many more like them over the years.

What struck me was the level of commitment people put into getting a job in this company. 

No one simply put an application in online and hoped it got through. 

They hunted down current employees and made sure their applications got noticed.

10 years after leaving Nike, I now teach these same tactics to people on my Creative Career Level Up programme. All compiled from years of watching smart, motivated people strategise their way into Nike. 

After all those years of watching these crafty people, I realised - if you are job hunting and you are ONLY applying online, you are missing out on so many opportunities.

Online applications really do feel like a waste of time once you realise the levels that other people are going to to secure the best Marketing roles in the world.