It is necessary to bear in mind that economic conditions very much affect the market in which a job search is undertaken. Faced with the competition brought about by unfavorable economic conditions, it is necessary for the job seeker to make more intensive use of informal methods, along with more costly formal methods, such as private employment agencies. Of course, when jobs are plentiful, the job seeker may feel that it isn't necessary to spend money on employment agencies or similar help.
When you decide to change jobs and are ready to look for one, you must contact all possible places of employment and all persons who can help you. The more places you contact and the more people you see, the better will be your chance of finding work. As a start, register at your local employment office. This office receives many requests for workers for many different kinds of jobs. It also tries to contact employers to find suitable jobs for applicants. Talk to friends and neighbors-they may know about job openings. It would be especially helpful to talk with those who do the same kind of work you do-you might get some first-hand information by talking shop."
Read and answer the "want ads" in newspapers and trade journals. If hiring in your occupation is done through a union, contact yours and, at the same time, either by letter or in person, companies that employ people in your kind of work. You will find such companies listed in your classified telephone directory, or in local and state industrial directories. Inquire at the. job-placement office of your school, if it has one, and at other places such as the ''Y."
Get in touch with an apprenticeship information center, if there is one in your city, and with members of local joint apprenticeship committees. You should also contact the Bureau of Apprenticeship and Training, U.S. Department of Labor, or your state apprenticeship agency, about apprenticeship opportunities in your area. To get federal, state or local-government jobs, you will have to apply for and take a civil service examination. Obtain an application blank from your post office or your local civil service office.
You will be notified when to appear for the test, and after you take it you will receive word regarding your score.
Executive Search Service
In your strategy for changing jobs, use discretion. If your present employers find out that you are looking for another job, they may resent it. Their resentment is a fact of life in the business world, and not something you should overlook. Also, when another company is considering you, it may be for a job that is held by someone else.
A popular way to secure an intermediary is to turn your problem over to an executive-recruiting service. The better services are fully aware of the need for secrecy and for you, their client, to be happily employed.
Executive-recruiting firms work on behalf of client companies who do, in fact, pay the necessary fees. When a client company needs someone-a man or a woman-it quietly commissions the recruiting service to find the right person. The fee usually averages 20 to o25 percent of the first year's total pay for the job in question. Thus, a job paying a salary of $30,000 a year would necessitate a fee of at least $6,000 to the recruit ing service.
There was a time when the recruiting services faced certain difficulties in its search for the right person for a particular job. Today, the services need look no further than their own files. They feed a description of the person who is needed into a computer, then they contact the individuals whose cards are selected by the machine. Your card may be among those selected simply because you visited or wrote the service, and left a good resume of your qualifications with them.
One leading executive-recruiting service that regularly receives about one thousand resumes each month from executives transfers the information from the resume to computer file cards. If you are right on your toes, you won't be content with simply supplying the recruiting service with information for their massive files. You will keep in constant touch with them to make sure that you are not just a name in a file card and are not overlooked.
Search services ordinarily handle prospects who command at least $20,000 a year, since their fee is related to the salary offered. However, in some in stances, they will consider someone at a$15,000 salary, if the applicant is young and shows initiative and promise. Such a ''comer" will no doubt, at another time, seek higher-paying jobs that can yield higher fees to the recruiting service.
Sometimes, when a recruiting service is reluctant to take you on, it may not be because you are unworthy of its efforts, but because it is handling assignments for your present company without your knowledge. It is a matter of ethics for the service not to lure employees from a client company. This can sometimes have unusual results. Many large companies that are well staffed with executive talent consider it ordinary business prudence to offer assignments to the service, so as to avoid the accessibility of being raided by it at some future date. On the other hand, some major recruiting services will not take on this type of corporation as a client, for the reason that they can make more money raiding these companies for other clients.
The prevalence of executive search firms has resulted in a significant emphasis on *'the executive look." These search firms undertake to find a candidate they can place with their client in order to make money. Thus, they tend to look for a person who is a ''successful package," part of which is the ''look" of an executive. This, incidentally, has resulted in the charge that the search services have become typecasting bureaus.
If you are relatively young, bear in mind that you will most likely change companies several times, if and when you become dissatisfied with particular jobs. With each change, any one of your prospective employers will very likely look closely into your background and contact at least two of your former employers. It would be wise, therefore, to make sure that the employers and associates you leave think and speak well of you.
