Why It's Hard to Find a Job.

My wife and I have just returned from a church workshop on careers and employment. The missionaries that were giving this workshop did an excellent job and it really provided me with some incite on how to effectively find a job.

In the LDS Employment Resource book entitled "The Career Workshop" there is a section on the importance of networking. Previously to our discussion on this section I felt that the phrase "it's all a matter of who you know" was reserved for rappers and actors, boy was I wrong. The book cites a survey by J. Michael Farr, from www.jistworks.com/jstips.htm. Of all the people who were surveyed, 14% of them found jobs through the Want Ads; which could be due to the idea that those jobs are filled by the time they reach the press. Who takes those jobs before they reach the papers? Most likely by those who share the same practice as the 30% of people who found their jobs through direct employer contact.

Going back to rappers and actors, they are right. It is all who you know. According to the survey 36%, the highest percentage, of people gained their employment through networking. I can testify that this is true, because every job that I've ever hopped through hoops for, after finding it through the classifieds, has turned me down; where as, all the jobs that I have had in my life were found using my six degrees of separation.

Go figure, all that talk of setting a good example and having a good reputation does pay off. Tally that one up as another token of knowledge that I wish I had as a teenager.