Master Career Counselor

Carla Hunter, President of Career Span, Inc. is a Master Career Counselor (MCC) by the National Career Development Association and a Certified Career Coach by the National Board for Certified Counselors. She is an expert in writing resumes, effective job search strategies and interviewing success. Most recently, with over 20 years of navigating the complexity of today's world of work, she published "Finding Your Place in the World of Work", a career interest inventory (2014) and CareerView, an iPad app. As a private practice career counselor and a workforce development consultant, this blog is Carla's trove of ideas, trends, forecasts, and career tips for finding meaningful work.

Thursday, October 7, 2010

The job market continues to get a BAD rap

Found in a recent article:


For every one posting, there were at least 5 to 6 workers that were applying and needed the job.

In essence, according to grim views of the job market, there are more job seekers than there are jobs at a 1 to 5 or 6 ratio. Most of the research data is based on the number of online job postings.

Here's something to consider:

First and foremost, NOT ALL JOBS ARE POSTED!!!!!!!

When a job seeker learns this imperative rule, he or she is on the road to job recovery. I would estimate that at least 70% of all job openings (if not more) are never posted online or in some type of print advertisement.

Job titles are constantly evolving and altering nearly daily due to technology, the global economy and the shifting labor force with diverse and broad needs. Thus, a company may have an opening with a certain job title but within weeks or months, such a title has become obsolete.

Employers are not posting openings online because they are looking for a worker that goes beyond a static job posting or description. They want TALENT, VISION, COMPETENCE and ENERGY. What they are looking for is not found online or posted in bright lights at multiple search engine job boards. Yes, people do find jobs online. It is a tool but not the ONLY tool. It doesn't have the best rate of success.

What does? It is called "getting out and connecting to the world around you more than searching online".

I want to know who is counting the number of people that find jobs that were never posted online? What about the job seekers who got of their behinds and got out of the house and met people? What about the ones who were very intentional in going for a company they wanted to work for even when no opening was officially posted? After all, that is the majority of the authentic pool of employers and those who seek employment.

Yes it may be true that there is one job online for every five to six job seekers. But that is not the full picture.

The more important story is that there are employers who never post such openings and are hiring that never get accounted for in data that makes the job market seem abysmal.

That is a very sad illusion that has disconnected and depressed people from even trying to find a job. Never forget...when one part of the market contracts, there is another part expanding.

The key is whether or not the job seeker knows how to navigate the course to locating that expansion.