Searching for a job in the Great Recession...

In a recent article by Dan Burrows in Daily Finance, the lead on the story is “Bernanke between the lines: We’re in for the mother of all jobless recoveries”.  The government’s “bail out” and “stimulus” programs seem to be working.   The “too large to allow to fail” mantra and policies have saved many companies, which now – after huge layoffs – are beginning to show a profit and the stock market is on its way to complete recovery.

But, what happened to the second part of the government program to develop new jobs?  So far, that is a failure.   Unemployment has risen nationally to 10.2%, and it’s more like 17.5% if you count the people who have given up looking for a job. Over the last two years, 8 million people have seen their jobs in the private sector just disappear and in some cases they re-appeared in some distant country.

A few weeks ago, AA-Careers ran a job ad on Craigslist.  When we ran the same ad 3 years ago, we received 48 resumes in a 30 day period.  The November, 2009 result?  This time, we received over 650 resumes in less than a week.  We learned a few things from that ad – and these are the most commonly made mistakes:

1. Over 70 resumes could not be recovered, the attachments would not open.  Suggestion:  Send your resume to a few friends and see if they can open it up, before you send it to companies.
2. Over 15% of the cover letters had statements that eliminated them from consideration, and we never looked for the resume. 
   Suggestion:  Keep the cover letter simple and short, don’t put in statements such as, “although it may seem that I am over qualified for this job, I really need a job”, or “I don’t have any real experience in that area, but I am a quick learner” and a sad one said, “since my husband is sick, and I don’t know when he will get better, I have to return to the job market after not having worked for many years”. Suggestion: don’t provide too much information. The ONLY purpose of the cover letter is to get them to read the resume. Keep it short and to the point.
3. Far too many spelling and grammar mistakes in both the cover letter and resume.   If a person is having problems with a prepared letter and document, how can they answer the phone and carry on a conversation with someone?  How will they write while on the job? Suggestion: Use spell check on your resume and cover letter.
4. If the ratio of resumes to jobs, 650 to 1 continues in the job market, then maybe answering job listings is the hard way to go in Job Hunting.  Government figures show 100,000 new people per month trying to find a job. Based on those numbers, plus the unemployed, and the expected GDP growth for 2010 of 2.9% (Wall Street Journal’s economic  forecasting survey) then it isn’t going to get much better in 2010.  Suggestion:  Do not base your job search on job postings.  Read on…

The majority of job hunters, for at least the next 18 months, must learn and use, the method of “contacts and networking” if they want to increase their odds of finding a job.  There are several good articles on CareerBuilder on how to develop and use a network.  Learn them, practice them with a friend and then apply them. Always keep in mind that about 90% of the labor force is working.  Join the majority, don’t stay with the minority.   Looking for a job is a full time job, and it takes a lot of effort and time.

Good hunting!