At least in New England, things may be starting to loosen up a bit. According to Jason Blais, director of business development at the JobsInTheUS.com (JiUS) network, “New England’s recruiting experts are beginning to see some very positive signs.”
Here are the stats:
• Local (New England) employers posted nearly 8,000 open positions on the JiUS network in March.
• That’s a 10% increase over February *and* marks the second consecutive month of growth in an important statistic
At the same time, recruiters saw one of the largest applicant pools in years — with JiUS recording about 1.8 million visits in March (a 13% jump over February). Blais said, “We only allow job postings from legitimate, in-state employers, so the increase in postings is truly reflective of the increase in actual employment opportunities.” He adds, “What this tells us is that the confidence among employers is growing. For the past few months, many businesses were holding their breath. Two consecutive months of growth in online postings indicates that employers are beginning to collectively exhale and get back to the business of doing business.”
Blais’s recommendations (and I fully concur, but from a different perspective): He tells businesses to “stay out in front of jobseekers.” I tell jobseekers to be professionally persistent and relentless in their networking efforts and to stay highly visible among everyone in their spheres of influence. (I also advise *not* to spend more than an hour or two out of every eight hours of targeted job search at the computer… get on the phone, get out there and meet-and-greet, do coffee, breakfast, *talk* to people.)
Jan Melnik, MRW, CCM, CPRW, President, Absolute Advantage and Career Management Expert, Career Thought Leaders Consortium
Source: Career Management Alliance E-Bridge and http://xrl.us/bfah4t
In job search, it remains the number one way that folks find their next jobs. I’ve been preaching this to clients for years (decades!). And here’s some new backup data: “According to the 2009 Executive Job Market Intelligence Report, executives are more likely to have updated their profile on a public networking site (71%) than updated their resume in the last three months (60%). However, when asked to identify the most effective activities for creating and identifying career opportunities, posting a resume in an online database and maintaining an online profile trailed networking by a wide market.”
Here’s how the stats break out for each of the top five job-search activities used at the middle- and executive-level tiers:
#1 - Networking (70%)
#2 - Responding to Online Job Postings (14%)
#3 - Posting Resume in Online Database (5%)
#4 - Maintaining an Online Profile (4%)
#5 - Researching Target Companies / Cold Calling (3%)
So if you’re actively job seeking and currently unemployed, you should be spending at least 28 of your 40-hour ‘job-search work week’ in active networking (not passively sitting at your computer posting to the job boards).
Sources: Career Management Alliance E-Bridge #475 (8/10/09 Newsletter) and https://www.myresumeagent.com/tipsandtactics_article.php?ch=20090723_ECSNMRA
– Jan Melnik, MRW, CCM, CPRW, President, Absolute Advantage, and Career Management Expert, Career Thought Leaders Consortium #ctls
– LinkedIn/Facebook: JanMelnik
– Twitter: @janmelnik