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More Hiring Doesn't Mean Less Competition For Jobs
By Sheryl Silver
Job prospects have been improving. Last year, 2.2 million new non-farm payroll jobs were added to the U.S. economy. That 2004 jobs total encouraged many recruiters since it represented the largest 12-month increase in jobs since September 2000, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS).
Now, a hiring projections survey released by Management Recruiters International (MRI) suggests job growth will remain brisk during the first half of 2005. According to MRI, 58.2 percent of the 500 executives polled plan to add managerial and professional level staff during the first six months of this year. This forecast represents an 11.7 point increase over projections obtained by MRI a year ago in a survey that focused on hiring for the first half of 2004.
"The rise in the number of companies planning to add new hires started during the last half of 2004, and the trend appears to be gaining momentum, said Allen Salikof, president and CEO of MRI, which has offices in California. "We have not seen these kinds of numbers since 2001."
Despite the encouraging survey data, outplacement executives caution job hunters not to slack off on their search efforts since competition for available jobs remains keen.
"Before the upturn in the job market in recent months, people with jobs hunkered down, did their jobs and for the most part, decided to wait it out until the economy recovered. With the job market continuing to improve, these [employed] people are now venturing into the job market and they're hungry to make a change," said Don Wells, a senior vice president and general manager in California for Lee Hecht Harrison, a leading global career management company. "The better the [job] market gets, the more employed people we're likely to see out job hunting. So I encourage unemployed candidates to really keep hustling and, in fact, to pick up the pace of their search efforts."
To compete against employed job hunters, Wells says unemployed candidates need to be even better prepared to communicate with employers. "People need to prepare thoroughly for interviews. They need to be ready to articulate their relevant skills, experiences, and accomplishments," he said. "In fact, I encourage people to do mock interviews with a friend they trust. The friend can role play, asking common interview questions, then providing feedback on how well the person answered and how they might improve."
According to Wells, one of the most important aspects of preparing for a job search is building solid accomplishment statements. "You'll need them for your resume, for interviews. A resume without accomplishments is weaker and not as impressive and the candidate it represents won't be as competitive as one whose resume includes strong accomplishments statements," he explained.
Wells reminded individuals who have done consulting and project work while between jobs to be sure and include accomplishments from those assignments. "It's more important to highlight such assignments if you've been unemployed a fairly long time," he said. "Clearly the more relevant the assignments are to your job objective the better."
Wells also urges job hunters to keep the opportunity pipeline full. "Too often, people count on getting an offer from a particular employer. Then, when it doesn't materialize, they're devastated and have to start their searches over from scratch," he said.
"We encourage people to have a salesperson's mentality. Salespeople know they usually have to talk with a lot of potential customers to get a sale. With job hunting, if you pursue a larger number of appropriate opportunities, you increase the odds that one of them will result in a job offer. You also increase the chances of cultivating more than one offer and if you do, the greater the chance that you'll pick the job that's a better match for you," said Wells. "On the other hand, if you look at a limited set of options and only get one offer, you may feel compelled to accept it even if you sense it's not the right fit."
Finally, Wells said it may help your case with certain employers to emphasize the advantages of your unemployed status. "If the employer needs someone to start right away, being unemployed may give you an advantage. An employed candidate will need to give his current employer at least two weeks notice, possibly more if the person is a key player on a project," said Wells.
With unemployed candidates, employers don't have to worry about counteroffers undermining or adding to the cost of their negotiations, either, said Wells.
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