The unemployment rate is not just under 10% or 20-25% for young professionals or declining or stabilizing or any of the things the media reports. For you personally, the unemployment rate is 0% or 100% (maybe 50% if you’re living in a two-income household).
The unemployment rate is not just under 10% or 20-25% for young professionals or declining or stabilizing or any of the things the media reports. For you personally, the unemployment rate is 0% or 100% (maybe 50% if you’re living in a two-income household).
Are you employed or are you unemployed? The statistic you need to track is a simple all or nothing. If your employment rate is 0% and you aren’t independently wealthy, then you need to launch a thoughtful, proactive search, regardless of what the market numbers say. In fact, you want to be even more aggressive when the news is bad because as soon as there is any good news, the competition will be even worse. You will be competing with all the employed people flocking back into the job search market at the slightest hint of a hiring uptick. Don’t delay; the market will get even tighter as the news gets better.
If your employment rate is 100%, congratulations but don’t rest on your laurels. Even more important than just whether you have a job or not, do you have the right job? Are you on the right career path? Are you happy? Are you paid fairly? If you are employed but not in the right way, then it doesn’t matter what the market radar says. Your internal radar is telling you to launch a thoughtful, proactive search to steer your career in the right direction.
Stop relying on the news to tell you whether it’s safe or good timing or opportune to enter the market. Start paying attention to your individual situation instead. It doesn’t matter if 10% of the population can’t find work. You just need one job – yours.
Is Your Job Search Flexible or Just Unfocused?
As a recruiter, I’ve seen lack of flexibility on the recruiting side with employers clinging to every last detail in their ideal spec while perfectly good candidates get overlooked. As a career coach, I see jobseekers prematurely dismissing possible targets waiting for that perfect job. It’s true that you want to be focused in your job search (otherwise you dilute your efforts and come across as scattered and possibly desperate).
5 Questions to Test If Your Resume Is Recruiter-Proof
After recruiting in search and in-house for over ten years, I have read thousands of resumes. Due to sheer volume of resumes received and all the other things that vie for the recruiter’s attention in the hiring process – scheduling, interviewing, networking, reference checks, client debriefs, and more – the resume review process is ruthlessly quick.
Why Conventional Wisdom On Work Flexibility Is Always Wrong
In a previous post, I wrote about why employment statistics are always wrong. In a similar way, conventional wisdom on work flexibility is always wrong. It is impossible to generalize something that is inherently case-by-individual case. Therefore, any boilerplate advice or conventional wisdom is bound to omit a key consideration, underweight or overemphasize other considerations, or take too long-term or short-term of a view.
