August 7, 2011

Underemployed and returning to the networking trenches

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One of the key tenets of my Hire Ground advice to job seekers has always been to remain positive. Grumbling and negativity can spread like a plague and lead to desperation, which is deadly to any serious employment search. That said, my ability to abide by Rule #1 has been severely tested these last few weeks.

In mid-July, I joined the 128,000 other people in the Puget Sound region who are currently looking for permanent work. My full-time employer (not affiliated with The Seattle Times), the U.K.-based Schofield Media Group, ran into financial difficulty and swiftly shut down its U.S. operations, laying off nearly 200 employees. After working for more than 20 years in the media world, I've come to expect these things to happen now and again. But the suddenness of this news still came as a shock that I've yet to overcome.

Like many other writers and editors I know, I had kept up a little freelance work on the side during my full-time work, so I can't say I'm truly unemployed -- "underemployed" is a better fit. But it's clear that I will need a more substantial income to make my mortgage lender happy, so I've girded myself to face my greatest fear: Practicing what I preach. It's time to reconnect with my most trusted contacts, research companies I'd like to work for, attend networking events, start making my presence known on the social media, offer help to other colleagues and, above all, stay upbeat.

With head held high and confidence in my stride, I set back out into the job market as July turned to August, and this is what I saw: Absolute gridlock in Congress regarding a political faux crisis over the debt ceiling, another lackluster jobs report showing only modest growth for July, a 500-point one-day plunge in the Dow and the first-ever downgrade of America's credit rating. And this was just the first four days of the month!

To top things off on the local front, the usually optimistic Employment Security Department (ESD) released the results of an April 2011 survey showing that 75 percent of those job seekers in Washington state who had exhausted their unemployment benefits after as many as 99 weeks had still not found a new job. And for those who did find a job, 80 percent of these "exhaustees" had found work that paid an average of 29 percent less than what they had been making.

Feeling confident yet?

Such gloomy news is enough to send anyone back under the covers until Labor Day. However, a little closer reading of the ESD survey results produced at least one rose among the thorns, and revealed some clues about a possible way out of the brambles.

The more than 1,200 exhaustees (I love that word) in the survey who said they had secured a job since their benefits expired were also asked which method for finding work was most successful. The most popular method was an online search (38 percent) followed closely by networking efforts (32 percent). The other, more traditional job-seeking methods lagged far behind -- employment agencies (9 percent), direct application (8 percent), advertisements and training programs (both 4 percent), and going into self-employment (3 percent).

In other words, online search and networking, either alone or in combination, were used by about 70 percent of those people who successfully found work. This, once again, is more evidence of how important it is to rely on your list of business contacts for job search help and to stay as active as possible in online social networking groups.

While I can't say I'm thrilled to be back in this underemployed position, I do feel optimistic that the ESD findings have supported what I've said in many ways in Hire Ground: It really is more about who you know than what you know that gets you that all-important interview. I'll keep you posted on my progress, and maybe I'll see you out there at the next networking social or in the LinkedIn discussion groups.

As always, good luck and good hunting.

Randy Woods writes about job-search tools, networking techniques and other tips to help you land your dream job.

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economy, networking, social media, unemployment