Where Are the Jobs Accessing the Hidden Job Market - Hire Imaging

Where Are the Jobs Accessing the Hidden Job Market - Hire Imaging The essence of the hidden job market. In my 30-plus years as a career coach, one of the mantras I’ve heard repeated is, “There are no jobs out there”. I’ve heard it in good and bad economies. In the days when you typed up your resume and snail mailed it. And today when much of job search is technology driven. Those who have heard of the hidden job market, often are not applying strategies to do a targeted search in this area. To understand the hidden job market, you need to understand the total job market, and how organizations fill positions. You have to abandon the notion of “job seeker” and adopt a more aerial view. The essence of the hidden job market. The hidden job market includes all the jobs that are filled before the organization needs to post the job. Organizations then avoid sifting through hundreds or thousands of applications. Those jobs don’t formally appear anywhere. When an employee goes back to school or to parent full time, she or he may well refer a friend for her position. The friend is qualified. Done! And the hidden job market is not just friends hiring friends! You don’t need to have any friends to succeed in in the hidden job market. Companies get applications all the time, in person and online. When a manager needs an employee, he or she often doesn’t have to post an opening; but only to talk to the latest applicant. If the custodian or the vice president of finance quits, the manager can just talk to the next custodian or finance professional to walk in the door. At least half of all jobs that transition go to someone who did not respond to a posted opening. Click To Tweet The hidden market also includes all the jobs filled by temporary or contract workers who come on board in permanent, full-time roles. The business analyst doing project work whose contributions influenced the boss to hire her as full-time staff. Organizations love to take on contingent workers, because they know what they’re getting. From the employer’s point of view, they want to keep resume banks full of information on folks. When they reach into their database, they are making a placement in the hidden market. You’ll never see that transition from outside the HR office. The hidden job market also includes posted and advertised jobs! Yes, they’re’ advertised; but the person who gets hired does not respond to (or even know about) that posting. Why? We’re back to thinking from the organization’s perspective â€" thinking like a hiring authority. You have 900 hundred applicants for a position, and you know that a good percentage of them are embellishing on their resumes. Someone walks into your office and says, “I know Jim from ABC Company. He’s really good!” Will you sift through 900 resumes, or talk to Jim? In a nutshell, the hidden job market is any job that you don’t see posted. It’s hidden to you, but it’s there. Here are the two things to remember: At least half of all jobs that transition go to someone who did not respond to a posted opening. Only about one-third of open jobs are every posted anywhere. The crux of the evident job market. Think of that sign in a window marked “Help Wanted” or classified ads that used to appear in newspapers and are now largely posted online. That’s the overt market , and unfortunately where most job seekers spend most of their time. You can hide behind your computer and apply to jobs. You can wrestle with reading instructions, copy and pasting resumes, sending attachments in specific formats, creating and registering user names and passwords, trying to remember if you applied to the same position last month. The truth is that some folks like to avoid actually going out in the real world and talking to people. They feel more comfortable following computerized instructions. But if that’s all that’s done, it’s simply statistically ineffective. It’s hard to stand out in a sea of thousands of resumes. You need to rise out of the sea. The gist of where jobs come from. Let’s dispel one misconception. HR doesn’t create jobs unless they are in HR. A manager decides he needs help. The company’s growth has exploded, and there’s new technology recently implemented. The staff is overworked. He tried to train some of his team in new skills, but those folks are not feeling the love or drive. He may plug the gap with temps and contract workers for a bit. Then he makes the final decision. Have to hire someone. The work is not getting done as it should. He intends to initiate the hiring process. But he too is overworked, so it’s delayed. In this phase, he asks around. He is responsive to networking queries or cold contacts he might have ignored otherwise. He’d be happy to talk to friends or acquaintances of existing employees if they have the right skill set. If none of these are right, he will initiate the formal staffing process. He finally calls HR to say he needs help yesterday. In a day or a week, HR sends someone over to analyze the work to be performed, and that person writes a job description. If HR doesn’t have the right resumes in their database, they’ll post the opening. It takes a few more weeks to collect new applications and review resumes, then phone screens, in-person interviews, call-backs, background and reference checks and finally, an offer and salary negotiation. If you look at it from an organization’s point of view, it’s no wonder most managers would do anything to speed up the process! That’s where new jobs come from. Remembering that half of new jobs are filled before they get all the way to the posting phase, why post a job and create needless delays and extra work? If you can inject yourself into this scenario before the job is posted, you can save everyone a lot of money, time and sweat! Not only do you open doors; you also shrink your competition by a vast percentage. If you contact that manager while he’s overworked and unhappy, your potential competition is his mind-set. He has not decided to solve this problem yet, but if you can convince him that you are a low-risk, high-performer, he may decide to hire you. Once HR is involved, the competition heats up dramatically. They will insert requirements in the job posting that you don’t have. They will look for purple squirrels. Get in the mix before the manager calls HR. What’s interesting is that intelligent folks get this. They realize that all the competition comes after a job is posted, and the best way to get hired is to approach people before the posting. And yet, they will sit at their computers and apply for posted openings in the middle of the night, with little else in terms of strategy. Why? They’re not sure how to insert themselves before the posting and at the business-unit level. This involves identifying what you want and raw leads to help you. Converting those raw leads into specific names. Transforming the name into a meeting. Selling in the meeting or interview. Staying robust through the hiring process. And closing the deal! It’s roll-up-your-sleeves work. But it’s very effective. What’s your experience with tapping the hidden market? I’d love to hear from you!