Oh, you mean THAT job market?

Job-searching in the U.S. is like queuing in the U.K. Have you ever seen the lines next to the bus stops in London? In the U.K., people line up. It's like breathing for them. No jostling, no line-cutting. That's their thing. They're very good liner-uppers.

Here in the U.S., we apply for jobs the same way. Show us two velvet ropes, we're gonna stand between 'em. There's nothing quite like job-hunting to remind us of how rule-abiding we are. Fill out this online application. Take this personality test. Answer this twenty-minute questionnaire.

My husband says to me "There's something about forms -- online or on paper. You get a form, you start filling it out, suddenly you're six years old and every authority figure from your whole lifetime is standing over your shoulder, checking for accuracy." He's right.

We are trained to follow the rules, and when it comes time to job-hunt, we fall right in line. When I write about a rule-breaking job-seeker who got a job (and most of the folks I know who are getting good jobs right now, are breaking rules right and left) some people get discouraged. They even get mad. I always get comments that say "You're wrong, that's B.S., you can't get a job that way."

It makes some people angry to hear that other people are getting great jobs by not following the rules.
But think about it: whose rules are these? They're not laws. They're bureaucratic HR policies. You don't work for these companies (yet). Why should you follow their rules? Every resume must go into the Black Hole. No phone calls. No end-running HR, do not contact the hiring manager, do not pass Go, do not collect two hundred dollars. Yeah, well, who says?

Read the full story here.