How Did You Find Your Past Jobs? It Probably Wasn’t Through The Front Door

This past week I facilitated a two-day job search techniques workshop that focused on penetrating the so-called “hidden job market”. We had 30 very active participants in the workshop that on average have been out looking for about five months.

I opened the workshop with an exercise asking the participants to review how they learned about their past five jobs, starting with their most recent position and then working backwards. The worksheet asked them to tally their responses by the following categories: Friends/Family, Co-workers, Managers, Staffing Agencies, Others, and Online Posting/Advertising. The participants consolidated their data together with the others at their respective table and then each table recorded their data on the master flipchart to reveal the entire class’s results. Drum roll please: 73% of the jobs were found through friends/family, co-workers, managers, staffing agencies, or some other connection. Only 27% of the jobs were found through advertised postings– the front door.

We have all heard that roughly about 10 to 15% of all jobs are ever advertised. That means that the other 85% to 90% of the jobs are filled through other methods, the hidden job market. The hidden job market is the jobs that are found through friends, family, co-workers, managers, connections, and networking and to a smaller percentage, through recruiters. The Department of Labor provided results that revealed that only 5% of jobs were filled through advertised posting. 48% were found through referrals, 24% were found the direct networking, and 23% were through agencies.

When I happen to get into a job search discussion about job postings and networking with people that I meet, I regularly ask them the same question that I asked the workshop participants, how did they learned about their past jobs? Inevitably, they pause and say that it was a friend, co-worker or some other type of connection that introduced them to the job opportunity. Typically they will say that 4 out 5 of their past positions were found that way. It surprises them after they say that, because they never really have thought about it from that perspective. One job seeker that I recently spoke with indicated that she hadn’t really searched for a job in the past because she always just put the word out to her friends and they always connected her to her next job. I pointed out that she was actually job searching, and that she was leveraging her network of friends as connections.

I asked the workshop participants a follow up question: Where are you currently spending the majority of your job search time looking for work? Is it searching job boards and responding to ads or is it out networking and trying to make new connections? Most participants nodded and raised their hands to the first option, searching job boards and responding to ads. They were spending a disproportionate, and typically the vast majority, of their time on the smallest slice of the pie.

As I shared with the workshop participants, I recommend that you spend less time trying to get through the front door of the company (applying for jobs that are advertised) and focus the majority of your time on getting through the back door, side door, patio door, hidden door, trap door, cellar door or any other crack or opening that you might find. That is how they found their past jobs and will likely be how they find their next job. The same will be true for you as well.