Underemployment

This week marked the first week in many, many years that I've been in an underemployed or unemployed state.  Fortunately it wasn't a surprise, it had been brewing for sometime and I was working diligently ahead of time to mitigate the impact this would have.  However, losing your job when you are the sole income source for a family is still a challenge.

I have a simple strategy, reduce spending as much as possible and network, network, network to locate a new position.  I see this as a great opportunity for me both professionally and personally. We are going to have an opportunity to move to a new city and meet new people, I'm going to be able to work in a new career with a new company.  That of course, is glossing over many of the difficulties associated with this but on the whole, I expect it to be a positive experience.


So far, one of the most eye opening and surprising things I've discovered is how non-responsive recruiters are to potential candidates.  I know they are generally snowed under with applicants, candidates and other stress of the recruitment process but communications are the key to the process working.  On the other side, it is a hard lesson for a candidate to learn but recruiters don't work for candidates, they work for companies and if a candidate can't fill a current need, the recruiter can't afford to spend much (if any) time with the candidate.  In many ways, the process is broken.


I remember years ago when the job search process was a task intensive operation of reading local newspapers, calling job services, and contacting employment agencies.  It was difficult to learn about openings and was difficult for employers to get a broad selection of candidates for roles.  Contrast that with today's environment where virtually every job is published world wide and essentially unlimited numbers of qualified (and unqualified) candidates are able to apply to positions.  It is as truly a daunting task for companies and recruiters to sift through all of the noise to find the star candidates as it is for candidates to get into the hands of the selection managers.


Further complicating things is with all of the noise in the process, there has been an evolution in hiring to screen candidates with long lists of perfect selection criteria.  Seemingly gone are the days in which a candidate was judged by his or her potential to be the next superstar the company needs and has been replaced by an arduous process of ensuring that every potential wish list of qualification has been already covered by the candidate's job history.  Hiring for aptitude and attitude seem to have gone by the wayside as old fashioned and out of favor.


Its time for a new approach to recruitment and job searches.  Differentiation in resume appears to be one of the few tools available to candidates to attempt to stand out in the candidate pile.  I've worked with a pioneer in the area of contrarian thinking to the job search process.  Doug Whatley has developed the PIP (Personal Intellectual Property) process of developing a resume.  While the process might have some people that don't like the format, looking at a PIP CV is an eye opener for sure.  I've had a number of recruiters tell me that they didn't know where I belonged, they just knew that I belonged at their company.  All of those comments are from the enlightened nature of the CV itself.


So, I'll continue my networking and searching, working my way through the system of recruitment and hiring.  Wish me luck (and don't forget to help me network).