Is It Really Easier To Find a Job If You Have One?

[svp]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qhB-pw52RNs[/svp]

A great question and a belief that everyone takes for granted . . . but is it true?

 

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Is it really easier to find a job if you have one?

Great question! That’s one of those old saws, old beliefs that people have but I think it may not be entirely true.

Usually what people mean by this is that you avoid the bias that employers have about a person being out of work. That’s only a piece of it. The other variable is that, if you are working, you have advantage because you feel freer to turn down an offer you don’t like and you can negotiate harder because you already have something.

To me, this is a 1950s mentality – – you know, work hard, get promotions, get ahead – – there really isn’t a part of the lexicon anymore. These days, people get ahead by being alert to opportunities. Sometimes those are internal to the organization; most of the time they’re external.

So, finding a job when you’re ready have one stems from the myth that passive job hunters are better and more valuable than active ones (I can shred that belief system and two seconds because I helped to create the myth of the passive job applicant years ago. That’s not the purpose of this video).

1. From your vantage point, you’re a more desirable person based upon that myth that passive job applicants are better potential hires than active ones.

2. You can associate harder if you have something currently because the next employer is always fearful that they might lose you to the current situation.

From the time standpoint, however, it’s hard looking for a job we already have one. The wear and tear of bouncing from interview to interview while you’re trying to do the job, looking for things and networking while you’re working full-time is physically hard. Emotionally it’s hard, too, and that is in taking into account when people make that trade statement.

So is it easier? Is it harder? The answer, like with so many things, is yes and no.

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Do you really think employers are trying to help you? You already know you can’t trust recruiters—they tell as they think you need to know to take the job they after representing so they collect their payday.

The skills needed to find a job are different yet complement the skills needed to do a job.

Jeff Altman, The Big Game Hunter has been a career coach and recruiter for what seems like one hundred years.

JobSearchCoachingHQ.com is there to change that with great advice for job hunters—videos, my books and guides to job hunting, podcasts, articles, PLUS a community for you to ask questions of PLUS the ability to ask me questions where I function as your ally with no conflict of interest answering your questions.

Connect with me on LinkedIn http://bit.ly/thebiggamehunter