I’m sure by now most of you have heard of LinkedIn, a business-related social networking site. Launched in 2003, it has grown to more than 100 million registered users, spanning more than 200 countries and territories worldwide.

These figures of growth are staggering, but what is more staggering, is the change from traditional job boards, to new technologies and social tools.  If you don’t have a LinkedIn profile, consider the following:

• The traditional job board is on the decline and many experts believe that they are becoming archaic, with a shift to new technologies and social online tools such as LinkedIn.
• Over 83% of recruiters use LinkedIn to source talent for job openings.
• It is estimated that 80% of employers use LinkedIn to screen job candidates.
• Employers list jobs on LinkedIn.

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There is nothing more frustrating as a job-seeker than being told that you are too over-qualified for the position, even though the position was exactly what you were looking for. I mean, what’s with them – why aren’t employers picking up on someone like you that could do the job blind-folded.

So what can you do about it to ensure that next time you won’t be rejected on the basis of being too over-qualified for a position. [Read more…]

Cracking the Hidden Job Market

Talk to most job seekers and they presume that the best way to find a job is to discover an open position posted in traditional media or online.  The problem of course with this focus, is that you will only see approximately 15% of the jobs currently available advertised this way, with the remaining 85% or so being referred to as the “hidden job market”.

The actual expression ‘hidden job market’ is a misnomer, in that the jobs are not hidden, or non-existent, it’s just that they are not in plain sight for the majority of job seekers.  These out of sight jobs are created in three ways: [Read more…]