I’ve worked in the executive recruitment space for more than 12 years now, identifying and engaging C-suite and senior management employees for my clients.
In this time I’ve worked with thousands of candidates and I’m often asked “where did all the job advertisements go?!”
If you’re in the job market right now – or think you soon might be – you need to understand exactly why and how the job market has changed.
This knowledge will help you find a new job more quickly.
The launch of LinkedIn in 2003 created an open database of information about people working in every profession and industry in the world.
I saw the potential of this database immediately and became an early adopter of LinkedIn. Using the platform’s search function, I was able to quickly find people suited to my clients’ C-suite roles.
So why has that impacted the number of jobs ads?
An advertisement for a C-suite or senior management role will likely get up to 200 responses. I have personally recruited roles that attracted nearly 400 applications.
What are the chances that every one of those candidates has the right skills, experience and qualifications? Pretty slim. But I still need to read through every single resume, to make sure I sift out the people who do fit the brief.
That takes time. It makes the recruitment process very slow and expensive. It also burns hundreds of great candidates who put in a huge effort to apply, but don’t succeed because they don’t quite fit this particular role.
Now imagine if I start the process by contacting ONLY people who already have what I’m looking for (which I can see from their LinkedIn profile).
It’s fast. It’s efficient.
All I have to do is contact them, introduce myself and ask if they’re interested in discussing a potential new role with me. If they’re not interested, that’s fine. I just move on to the next person on my list. If they are interested, then I’m starting the recruitment process with someone I’ve “pre-qualified” in just a few minutes, rather than hours of resume-reading.
Today, LinkedIn sells a licence that provides full access to the entire global member database. My team and I use this access every single day.
But it’s not just recruiters doing this. Any company can buy a licence and do their own searches, cutting out the recruiter entirely.
Recruitment has, in the past, been an expensive service. It’s a “regrettable spend”, meaning that people have to pay for it, but they’re not happy about it.
So, if you were a company that needed to recruit, wouldn’t you try to save money doing it? Instead of paying thousands for a recruiter to fill just one role, you can employ a full-time person who can hire every person you need. (In a later post, I’ll talk about whether this is always a good idea.)
And of course, internal company people don’t want to wade through hundreds of applications either.
So that’s why you don’t see many job ads anymore, certainly not compared to pre-GFC days when the economy was strong and there was no LinkedIn.
What does this all mean for you?
With recruiters and companies now finding their candidates through LinkedIn and not ads, then I’m hoping you’ve realised that you need to make sure your profile is found in these searches.
In an upcoming article, I’ll show you exactly how to optimise your profile so that you appear high up in search results. Follow me on LinkedIn so you don’t miss it when it’s published.
In the meantime, I’m sending you my best wishes for great success in your job search. If you would like to attend one of my upcoming workshops in Melbourne or Sydney
