The Industry is Changing – is your job search strategy changing along with it?
There are two phrases used by recruiters to describe conditions out on the job market – its either always going to be a “buyer’s†market†or a “seller’s marketâ€. For the last few years, it has been a buyer’s market – there were more jobs than candidates, opportunities were abundant, and pay rates were on the rise. However, recent changes in the economy have firms drastically cutting back on hiring, shifting the pendulum back into what can be described as a seller’s market. With the shift, the job seeker needs to adapt his strategy and it becomes helpful to describe a bit of the current climate from the recruiter’s point of view.
First, there are still job openings out there – there always will be. I can’t think of a single customer who, if approached with a “must have†candidate, won’t find a way to free up budget to bring them in. The top 10% of a field will always find work. Keeping this in mind, it becomes important to consider where you stand among your peers. Stack rank yourself; are you in that 10%? If not, what needs to happen for you to rise to the top? Additional training, a broadening your job responsibilities, or perhaps a change in scenery can help you progress your career.
Another shift for the recruiter has been a drastic drop in the number of available positions. Whereas before,  a recruiter may have had as many as 40 openings open at one time, they may now only have 5. Two additional factors add to this pressure: with the massive growth in job openings we’ve seen in the past few years, the number of recruiting firms trying to fill those positions has also increased. Also, an increased number of job applicants means that there are now more qualified people than ever to fill those openings.
What this means typically is that when an employer does open up a job, within days – sometimes hours – they have enough resumes in front of them to fill the position. In fact chances are, by the time you see a job opening come across a board, the client is already receiving resumes to interview.
As a job seeker, it becomes more important than ever to be proactive in your search. In addition to traditional channels, such as responding to postings online, one must build a relationship with their recruiter. Don’t just network a recruiter, network their peers. While this post will not go into how to  deal with corporate in-house recruiters, it may help to picture this – imagine a stack of resumes on a recruiter’s desk. When you hang up the phone with that recruiter, your resume is on the top of that pile. However, as time passes and more and more resumes are added, your resume moves to the middle and soon enough, it’s on the bottom. Every time you connect with your recruiter, your resume gets put back on top.
Remember, in order for a recruiter to have a shot at filling a position, they will need to have a pool of qualified, available candidates to send to a customer at just a moment’s notice. While we may not have anything open for you at this moment, if you want to be submitted for a position that opens up the next day, it’s important to keep yourself on the radar. Otherwise something as benign as a missed phone call could cost you that job. This also means that it’s important to consider the future and network with a recruiter even if you are currently employed.
If this all sounds like doom and gloom, it’s not. The recipe for being a successful job seeker has not changed – knowing how to game the system, networking with your peers, and keeping your abilities evolving have always been and continue to be the keys to getting a job. It’s just that it’s been a while for many since they’ve had to dust off these “best practicesâ€.
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Add comment December 12th, 2008