The famous hidden job market, what is it? How to find it

For years everybody has heard of the hidden job market. In the beginning it was basically a myth spread by third party recruiters to draw in candidates. The myth said that you had to sign up with recruiters because they controlled this great wealth of hidden, exclusive jobs and you would never find them without their help. This was not true then and it certainly isn’t entirely true today. With very rare exceptions the only recruiters who control access to jobs are retained recruiters working on primarily VP & C level jobs. Ninety five percent of recruiters are contingency and do not exclusively control access. Most employers who give a job to a recruiter give it to more than one and also look on their own through job boards and their own website. TIP... You are always better off to apply directly to the employer as you do not come with a big fee attached.

There are now career/job search coaches and coaching firms who are trying to use the claim that they have access to the hidden marked to justify charging $3,000 to $10,000 for their services. They claim that they have and/or control jobs from their exclusive networks and you will never find out about what could be the perfect job for you unless you pay their outrageous fees. Unless these coaches double as retained recruiters this claim is also false. If this is the primary motivation for hiring the coach save your money.

Now that we have debunked a myth and learned what the hidden job market isn’t what is the real hidden market and how do we access it? There are three categories of jobs in the hidden market. The first group of jobs are simply unadvertised or advertised in a very limited fashion that makes them very hard to find. Companies are starting to move away from the big job boards like Monster and CareerBuilder because do to the high unemployment they get buried in resumes/applications and most of the responders are not qualified. Posting on these boards can result in a time consuming nightmare; an absolute blizzard of paper and emails. In an attempt to avoid these employers first seek the help of their current employees offering lucrative bonuses for referrals that result in a hire. Next they post/advertise in highly specialized, targeted publications and small, off the beaten path, specialty job boards that are hard to find for the average job hunter. These boards target a limited group of niche employees. They believe that if you are qualified you know about the boards. This limited advertisement might include the company website.

The next group of jobs are legitimate openings that are not posted or advertised anywhere because the employer is just not ready to fill them. They may be on the drawing board for months down the road so there is no active effort to fill them. They will however fill them should they stumble on a perfectly qualified candidate.

The last group are not actual jobs. They are problems waiting for a solution. The employer/company has a real problem with a segment of the business and is not finding anybody in the company who can solve it. If an outsider comes to them with a legitimate solution the problem now becomes a job for the person with the solution.

There you have it. That is the hidden job market. How do you find the jobs in this market? The answer is networking, networking and more networking. You must find people who work for or have worked for companies you would like to work for. You find out from them about existing jobs, problems the company is having and through these relationships and many other sources identify key decision makers. The type of networking you need to do is hard and the average job hunter won’t do it because it is out of their comfort zone. If you do it you join the ranks of the employed. How to do it, when to do it, what to say and how to develop relationships through networking is a big complicated topic for another time and article. Or hire a good coach and let him teach you. Sorry, I had to get at least one little pitch in.

Happy hunting

Comments

[Yachts Crew Agencies]

Very well said ,thanks for sharing I reall enjoyed reading ...Keep on posting !.

[Rick]

Awesome post Mark. This should be read by everyone searching for a job!

[steve dill]

I totally agree about many companies not using the big generalist job boards like Monstar and Career Builders any longer. They are posting their jobs on niche job boards specific to their industry, to avoid being deluged with unqualified resumes.

In my industry, medical sales, many of these jobs are being posted on a hot new job board exclusively for jobs in medical sales called GorillaMed.com. They feature medical device jobs and pharmaceutical sales jobs.

[Happily employed]

I have to disagree with you about recruiters. I recently got a job through a recruiting agency for a position that was not even posted on the company website or any other popular and niche job boards. And I've searched many job boards as I had been looking for work for the last year. I had sent approx. 40-50 resumes and personalized cover letters to companies directly and this agency found my resume on monster and got my foot in the door for a job that was everything I had been looking for.

Not only did they make the process smooth by being the first point of contact, they even negotiated a higher salary for me and found a position that was a good fit for my skills and personality.

I think different agencies may be better than others but I would not rule them out entirely.

[job search]

I really enjoyed reading your article! Everywhere on the Internet and newspapers you hear about hidden job market but you can hardly guess what it means. And here is a step-by-step explanation. Great!