Believe it or not, there are a lot of jobs out there in spite of the poor the economic outlook.
And there surely can be nothing more soul-destroying than looking for a job.
This is especially apparent for CA’s who are undoubtedly the most highly qualified business people available.
So why the mismatch?
Well it’s all about perceived value.
You might not know this but social media has changed the face of the talent search process.
Previously companies had to rely on outsourced recruiters to find staff.
I remember when I was in corporate I always resisted the recruiter route – I just found their fees in excess of my budget. I once instructed my HR to place an advert in the local press instead of using the conventional recruiter route. The result? We were buried in a mountain of CV’s most of which did not come anywhere near the required job spec. I quickly discovered that paying recruiter fees was worth it simply because it saved a lot of valuable time.
The playing fields have now changed.
With the advent of the internet, recruiters are finding stiff competition. Companies have discovered that they can access candidate search platforms like P-Net and LinkedIn quite easily and at very little cost. Furthermore they can pre-sort the type of candidates that they are looking for and turn a tedious process into something quite manageable. The cherry on the top? Saving the high recruitment fees.
This is a global shift!
So what does this all mean to you?
Let me stop and ask this question.
How different would it be, as a job seeker, if you had prospective employers knocking on your door begging you to come and join them? You could then be in a position where you could choose which company you wanted to join and maybe even auction off your services to the highest bidder.
Lula Land?
Well maybe not quite – or maybe not so far away.
But its all up to you.
Knowing what I have now told you might give you a significant edge.
So you need to be available where the candidate searching is taking place.
And if you work on your personal branding you can present yourself very effectively on LinkedIn. You will quickly find a lot more interest in what you have to offer (if you know what it is you are selling!).
In other words instead of you contacting them, they will contact you.
Now that sounds much better!