This week, Work Is Not for Sissies turns three years old. Not long in people years, but an eternity in cyber time. My how times have changed.

For example, back in the “old days” of 2005, most people had never heard of YouTube. Three former PayPal employees founded it in February 2005 and Google bought it for $1,650,000,000 in Google stock in October 2006.

Many people, including Paul Harvey and myself, openly questioned the wisdom of this. After all, YouTube had never made a profit (and still hasn’t). And Google already had an online video service called Google Video.

Only time will tell if it this was a shrewd investment, or $1.6 billion in “stupid tax”. If it turns out to be the latter, Google won’t be the first major company to make billion dollar blunders. Ford bought Land Rover and Jaguar for $5.2 billion, but only netted $1.7 billion when they closed the deal to sell the two companies to Tata Motors in India last week.

Regardless of whether YouTube ever makes a profit, it launched the explosion of online video, which continues to play a larger and larger part in many areas of our everyday lives, from politics to employment.

Recently, one very high profile employer turned to YouTube in a desperate attempt to fill a job opening. His name is Neal Schon. You may not recognize his name, but you know his resume. He is the musical prodigy who joined Santana as a guitarist at age 15, and later co founded Journey.

After Journey’s gargantuous popularity in the seventies and eighties, they lost their lead singer, Steve Perry. Because Steve’s tenor voice was so incredible, Journey went through two replacement singers but never came close to recapturing the old magic of Journey’s heyday.

I saw Journey at the Omni in Atlanta in 1981 when I was a freshman at Georgia Tech, and can remember hearing Steve hit those high notes like no one else could.

When Neal went looking for a third replacement, he was frustrated at his inability to find anyone who could come remotely close to Steve. He spent days on YouTube, watching video after video on the off chance he might find a diamond in the rough.

And then it happened. He found a video of an unknown band called The Zoo, in the Philippines. They were playing the Journey song “Faithfully” in a nearly empty bar where no one seemed to be listening, but Neal heard something he couldn’t believe. Here are his exact words:

“After watching the videos over and over again, I had to walk away from the computer and let what

I heard sink in because it sounded too good to be true. I thought, 'he can't be that good.'”

But he was. The singer’s name was Arnel Pineda, and Neal immediately sent him a plane ticket to come audition for Journey. When the customs officer at the Manila airport asked Arnel why he was leaving the country, he didn’t believe his answer. So Arnel had to sing  “Wheel in the Sky” for security. They were convinced, and so was Journey.

A real Cinderella story came to life, and rock and roll history was made. So why should you care?

Because there are four important lessons to be learned from this - three for managers, and one for those of you who aren't happy at your present job.

First, as more tech savvy Generation Y employees enter the workforce, online recruiting will play a larger part in all companies. You'll need to become familiar with websites such as LinkedIn, Twitter, and FaceBook. (In a similar story, legendary rock band Boston just found their new singer on MySpace). Generation Y will not turn to the help wanted ads in newspaper the way Baby Boomers and Gen X did.

Second, Neal Schon spent hours upon hours upon hours scouring YouTube for someone who could fit the bill. It's hard to find good people in any business, so managers have to work harder than ever at recruiting.

Third, there is someone out there somewhere who can fill any position you need to fill, no matter how unique the job may be, if you cast your net far and wide enough.

And for those of you who want a job that fits you better, there's one out there somewhere. You also have to cast your net far and wide enough to find it.

To Your Success,