Finding a job in a bad economy
Posted on | December 10, 2008 | No Comments
By every conceivable metric, the United States is experiencing an economic downturn. In the prior month alone unemployment shot up dramatically, NBER officially declared a recession, and many of the country’s iconic firms have conducted massive layoffs.
At Personforce we thought it might be useful to give you a few tips on how to find a job in this bad economy.
1. Keep perspective. There are still over 3 million job vacancies out there that companies are trying to fill, 93% of the of the workforce does have a job, and the economy is still producing $14.6 trillion dollars in goods and services. In short there are ample jobs out there for the majority of people. The impact of the recession is on the marginal, borderline candidate.
2. Don’t be a marginal candidate. The best way to avoid being a borderline candidates is to focus on a particular industry or function. Know the companies in the space, understand their issues, and know the job. The company you want to work for might hire 10 people this year instead of 20; you need to do what it takes be one of the chosen ones.
3. Network. Talk to people who have the jobs that you want. Talk to alumni from your university. Talk to people two or three years older than you. To our chagrin, some of the best jobs never get posted to public job boards. Talk to as many people as you can and create channels by which you hear about these opportunities.
4. Use unique job search resources. Generic job search sites are being overrun with panicked candidates, creating an immense amount of noise for employers trying to find qualified candidates. If you want to stand out, look for jobs that are posted on niche sites like alumni sites, blogs, and industry associations.
And finally, use Personforce job search. We’ve aggregated all the jobs that our posted on our network here. We’ve also made some enhancements so that our job search provides more effective results in this current economy.
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