The higher up the ladder you go in a company, the more frequently you’ll find that open positions are never advertised to the general public. As a general rule of thumb, the closer to the executive ranks a job is, the less likely you are to see it posted on an internet job board or in the classified sections.
One of the biggest reasons for these unadvertised jobs is the cost that “help wanted” postings generate for the company. Most listings for open positions are met with hundreds (if not thousands) of applications. If you’re a company relying on filling open positions solely through public postings, then you’re committing to a serious added burden on your human resources department, who will likely have to devote several people to nothing more than poring through resumes, making follow-up calls and conducting interviews all day. This assumes that the company is even large enough to have a human resources department—for smaller companies, this burden falls on a general manager or even the owner, taking time away from all of their other regular duties.
As you can see, it’s becoming increasingly rare for companies to make some sort of public declaration for every job opening that they have. So how do job seekers crack in to this “closed market” of available jobs that the general public never hears about? Usually, it’s by networking. Unfortunately for job seekers, the type of interpersonal networks that lead to reliable links to job openings usually take years of time at the higher levels of the industry to build.
Employment Agencies: Shortcutting The Networking Process
If you’re unemployed and need a job obviously you don’t have the time and resources to focus on uncompensated networking. Fortunately, there’s a better answer than schmoozing on LinkedIn and blasting out resumes in the vague hope that something happens for you.
Employers can’t possibly fill all of their open positions simply through personal referrals from people who are already at their company. They still need to let the public know they have open jobs; they’re just doing it in an increasingly smarter and selective way that puts less of a strain on their internal resources.
That’s where an employment agency comes in. An employment agency acts as a trusted middleman to both employers and job seekers. For employers, they significantly reduce the burden of screening candidates and act as a curator to a pool of continually available talent. And employment agencies allow job seekers to quickly break through the wall that usually separates them from the closed-off majority of available jobs.
Employment agencies work carefully with both of their primary types of clients to understand their needs. The agency takes the time to understand exactly what unique qualities an employer needs for their open positions; in other words, what makes one particular candidate stand out from a group that has very similar qualifications and experience. The agency spends an equal amount of time getting to know their employment candidates, profiling their unique strengths and combinations of experience. That way, when an employer contacts them with a new job opening, they can quickly form a short list of the most appropriate candidates. It’s not only more efficient for the employer, it saves job seekers a tremendous amount of time in directing them only to jobs that they have a high likelihood of getting hired to and being happy with.
As a job seeker who signs up for our services, you’ll find it easy to search our job opportunities that are appropriate to you and to apply for those that are a great fit. Contact us to begin the process of finding your perfect fit, or check out this blog post for more job search tips!
