Today’s Unemployment Figures

Today we’ll be hearing the latest unemployment figures and whether they be better or worse most jobseekers will still only be feeling frustration.

There is such discord between the way employers are looking for staff in 2012 and the way jobseekers, especially the longer term unemployed and graduates, are looking for work.

It’s a tough economy and employers are under pressure to reduce the amount of money they spend recruiting staff so more and more of them are choosing a different way. Advertising and recruitment agencies are expensive so they turn to to social media. They attend events like tomorrow’s Social Media in Recruitment conference and they learn how.

Employers also feel overwhelmed by the large volumes of unsuitable applications they receive. By looking on social media networks for candidates they find that they are in control and can have their message heard more selectively.

Sadly, the unemployed or those looking to return to work are not hearing how important it is to use social media in their job search.

Recently, I caught up with Sue Hill, from Sue Hill Recruitment a specialist employment agency to the information sector, and she told me the tale of hiring her latest staff member.

Sue was in a shop and overheard a young girl (let’s call her Jill) asking the shop owner if he had any work, he said no so she left her CV. Sue, not being very shy, caught up with her outside and asked her about her search.

Sue found that:

• Jill had been advised by her local job centre to travel to the West End and hand over 20 copies of her printed CV… sounds expensive.
• Jill was feeling intimidated so thought she would look in the Waterloo area instead…. so would I!
• Her CV contained her full home address and home number as she had been advised to include… young, pretty girl leaving CVs with strangers, not wise!
• She was not advised to collect the contact details of the shop owners so she could follow up her applications… lost opportunity.

Well it turned out to be Jill’s lucky day because Sue was looking to hire someone and Jill was employed! This however, is rarely the case and the poor advice coming out of this government body led Sue and I to have an impassioned conversation on where improvements could be made.

I find it ironic that David Cameron, who is on LinkedIn (though he has not accepted my request to connect!) and happily tweets from @Number10gov, clearly sees the benefit of social media yet the importance of incorporating it into a job search is not being filtered down to where it matters.

Yesterday, there was a great article in FINs finance about PwC. PwC will be hiring 45,000 staff in the next year in the US, UK, China, Central and Eastern Europe and India so they have done a big deal with the leading professional social network, LinkedIn, and they have also hired more internal recruiters. Sure they’re still using agencies but the fact that they are working with LinkedIn shows that they’ll be seeking candidates directly themselves on social media networks.

This is just one example of thousands I could give you.

If today’s jobseekers are going to stand out from the crowd, have their message heard and feel empowered, it makes sense that they have a strong online presence. They need to be networking appropriately and effectively so that they are seen by potential employers and find the opportunities that are not being advertised.

Social media is like word of mouth on steroids. If you think about it, how many people do you know who got their last role through someone they knew rather than via an agent or an advert?

If anyone has any suggestions of how I can get my message heard by Directgov or has a senior contact there, please add it in the comments or drop me a line.

Related Job Search training: