004: The Hidden Job Market
The Hidden Job Market
Depending on what resource you look at, 75%-85% of all jobs are in the hidden job market. In other words, 3 out of 4 (or 4 out of 5) jobs aren’t advertised. The Hidden Job Market doesn’t mean employers are trying to hide from you. Here’s why jobs aren’t publicized:
An employer needs to confidentially replace an underperformer. They don’t want a gap between terminating the underperformer and hiring the new employee, so they are conducting a confidential search.
The employer at a public company fears that news of hiring a critical role might hurt stock prices.
The company doesn’t want to reveal plans for a new project or a new direction to the public.
The employer wants to get referrals before, or instead of, publicizing the vacancy.
The company is going to work through a third-party executive recruiter. In this situation, the executive recruiter will be doing the advertising (or using his/her network to recruit).
The employer uses social media or other free means to advertise the position.
There is a hiring freeze at the company, so they can’t publicize the position yet.
The employer is very small and doesn’t have the time or financial resources to publicize the vacancy.
The employer simply fails to publicize the vacancy.
Some of these situations present an opportunity for the savvy job searcher to use his/her network to get a foot in the door with little, or no, competition. One of the best ways to expand your network is through LinkedIn. The people you are connected to, and the people they are connected to, constitute what I call your “footprint” on LinkedIn. The bigger your footprint, the higher you will come up on recruiters’ searches on LinkedIn. This significantly increases the likelihood that a recruiter will see you and be willing to reach out to you. The more people you are connected to will give you a multiplication effect with your 2nd-level connections (the people your connections are connected to). To be more visible on LinkedIn, get more connections.
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