RESEARCHING THE JOB MARKET

Economic and labour trends

It is useful to consider the economic trends both nationally and locally when researching the job market. Issues such as the impact of local and national government budgets within your area may affect the economic flow and therefore your employment. Your local Chamber of Commerce, the Town Hall and Jobcentres could provide the information you require.

It is of benefit to you to research employment statistics with in your locality. Do you live in a high unemployment area? Would it be worth widening your catchment area and commuting? Are there times of the year when there are more jobs on the market — before Christmas or during the summer? A temporary job during these times could lead to networking contacts.

Keeping up to date with trends in technology

Although technology has enabled new markets and better service, it has also contributed to higher unemployment. Technology has, in part, replaced people. What happens to the people? They can learn either the skills to operate the technology or new skills. Applied technology is a booming market — computers, media, robotics, virtual reality — all steadily growing areas. If you choose to jump on the bandwagon and secure your future, you need to be aware of the development of technology in your field of expertise. Will employment dwindle as technology entrenches itself further? Do you want to be involved in that technology? Could you find a sideways niche in your market that doesn’t involve so much technology? You need to keep up-to-date with developments and training opportunities. Or maybe you will decide to change your field of expertise altogether.

Be aware of the development of individual companies

Which companies are making people redundant in your area? What new companies are moving in? Are any established companies considering expansion?

Know the demand rate within your own professional area

Are you aware of the demand rate for your area of expertise? Is your work seasonal, e.g. lecturing? Do you need to upgrade your skills to keep abreast of current trends? Are you aware of new trends within your profession?

Do you know?

• 1.Which are the ten biggest factories in your county?
• 2.Which are the two biggest factories in your town or city?
• 3.Which are the ten biggest office firms in your county?
• 4.Which are the two biggest office firms in your town or city?
• 5.Which firms have announced redundancies in your town or city within the last six months?
• 6.Which new firms have moved into your town or city with-in the last six months?

RETURNING TO STUDY

As you do your research, it may become apparent that returning to study or re-training may be appropriate. Issues to consider might include:

• whether you want to return full or part-time
• costs such as course fees, exam fees, books and equipment, travel and childcare
• whether you want a qualification course for a new job
• whether you want a course for updating skills in your current profession
• whether you want a course to help you set up in self employment
• what effects retraining might have on your benefits.

ORGANISING YOUR JOBSEARCH STRATEGY

Setting your target job

You will need to decide:

• what skills you want to use
• at what level you want to work
• in what market you want to work
• in what geographical area you want to work
• the salary you require.

Budgeting the cost of jobsearch

Your budget should include a financial allowance for the following:

• computer usage including paper, envelopes and printer cartridge
• stationery including stapler, paper clips and presentation folder
• subscriptions to periodicals, trade journals and newspapers
• reference books and manuals
• photocopying
• telephone
• car, including parking and petrol
• other travel
• postage.

Using Jobcentre Plus

Employment Services have now become part of Jobcentre Plus. In 17 areas Jobcentre Plus pathfinder offices are already offering a fully integrated work and benefit services and there are plans to open further fully integrated Jobcentre Plus offices from October 2002. It will take several years to integrate the entire local office network of Jobcentres and Benefits Agency offices fully. During this time, services will continue to be provided in local social security offices and Jobcentres (guidance on benefits, work and training), which will be part of the Jobcentre Plus network. To find out if you live in one of the 17 areas already offering a work focus for everyone of working age who is claiming benefit visit www.jobcentreplus.gov.uk for the number of your nearest office. When you call Jobcentre Plus in these 17 areas you will be asked if you want to claim benefit and if you think you are ready to look for work. If you are looking for work you will be given details of local vacancies for which you are suitable. The person you speak to will take your personal details and arrange for you to meet a personal adviser.

Using the TECs

The Training and Enterprise Councils provide funding and access to a broad range of programmes for those wishing to improve their working life.

Career counselling

This is a growing area of business where you will be charged for the service provided. There are both general and specific areas of counselling, e.g. women, redundancy, coming up to retirement. Career counselling:

• tells you about working environments
• may suggest possible contacts
• tells you what kind of jobs match your skills, needs and experience
• defines what skills are needed for a particular job

• recommends additional training to give credibility
• may uncover areas of employment you hadn’t considered
• will challenge you to think more creatively.

Using registers and placement agencies

In general, these tend to cater for junior, professional and lower management. Some agencies cater for more specific requirements such as accountancy, secretarial and clerical, nurses or sales personnel. Charges are made to the employer and not to yourself. Be aware of being asked for money in return for work. This is unethical. Keep a record of the contacts you make with agencies (see Figure 8).

Colleges and universities

Colleges and universities have their own career counselling departments which outsiders may be able to access. They may also provide information on local employment opportunities.

Using the careers office

There are career centres in most large towns and they provide information on local employment opportunities, career descriptions, information on what skills are needed for a particular job, information on training and educational opportunities. They are primarily aimed at younger people.

Using the library

The reference part of any library is an invaluable source of information. They usually have the national and local papers for reference as well as trade directories for researching company profiles. You can access contact names, addresses and telephone numbers. A photocopier is usually available.

Researching a prospective employer

You can access the latest accounts and other financial information plus directors’ names from the Registrar of Companies and Limited Partnerships. Your local Chamber of Commerce may also be able to help. You can also use the company reference books in your local library.

JOBSEARCH ON THE INTERNET

The internet is a huge information resource where you can find out about:

• job vacancies
• re-training opportunities
• job search strategies
• company profiles
• freelance work
• voluntary organisations
• vacancies advertised by employers
• online ‘employment agencies’ where you enter your CV into a database which can be accessed by employers.
• advice on making a job application
• job leads locally, nationally and abroad
• writing a suitable CV, a covering letter or a letter of application
• tips on coping with interviews.

Search engines and directories

Essentially, the difference between search engines and directories should be that the latter are handpicked or semi-auto-matically chosen sets of links devoted to a particular area, while search engines allow a dynamic search of the whole internet. The benefit of the search engine is that it will find sites that may have been overlooked or which have come into existence since the directory was created. Thus, each of these types of information source is useful in their own way and to research any subject thoroughly using the internet, both should be utilised. Some useful sites include:

• 1.UK Directory www.ukdirectory.co.uk
  Lists over 10,200 UK web sites. Employment category lists agencies working in IT, general, professional and technical categories with links to the agencies.
• 2.Yahoo! UK and Ireland
  www.yahoo.co.uk/Regional/Countries/United_Kingdom/Business
  This address gets you straight into lists of employment sites in UK — just input up to ‘co.uk’ if you want to see the whole index.
• 3.Global Online Directory www.god.co.uk
  UK based search engine — input ‘jobs’ for example in the search facility and it comes up with about 50 matches, including various magazines and recruitment agencies.
• 4.Galaxy www.einet.net/galaxy.html
  There are directories of professional internet resources in the following categories: Business and Commerce, Engineering and Technology, Government, Humanities, Law, Medicine, Reference, Science and Social Sciences.
• 5.Webcrawler www.webcrawler.com
  Through Business and then Employment links, you can reach links to American job sites, indexes to job sites and newsgroups.
• 6.InfoSeek www2.infoseek.com/Home?pg=Home.html
  Click on Business, and then Find a Job to find a listing of over 250 job sites.
• 7.Alta Vista www.altavista.digital.com
  Covers a great many more sites on the web than do most and has advanced Boolean search features as well as simple search facilities.

Boolean searches

Often, search engines will offer some form of advanced search facility, allowing the user to specify their information needs much more accurately. These facilities are useful for reducing the typical size of result sets from an internet search and are well worth investigating. Most use some set of Boolean operators, which allow the user’s search query to be more specific. The most typical of these are:

• AND between search words looks for documents which include ALL of your words, which NARROWS your search. For example, you could put ‘accounting and bookkeeping’, which would return all documents which mentioned both words, but none which mentioned just one of them.
• OR between search words looks for documents, which include ANY of your words, which WIDENS your search. For example, if you put ‘accounting or bookkeeping’, you would get all documents which mentioned one or both terms.
• NOT between search words EXCLUDES documents from your search. For example, you might put ‘accounting not bookkeeping’, which would find documents which mention accounting but not bookkeeping. Note that if a document mentioned both, it would be excluded by this search term so you need to be careful how you use this. NEAR between search words looks for proximity between the words. You can use this as in the example in Alta Vista above, for terms such as ‘accounting near jobs’. It makes it more likely that you will get documents returned which really are job opportunities in research. Otherwise you could be presented with thousands of documents, which mention ‘accounting’ and ‘jobs’ in wholly different contexts.

Further guidance on Boolean searching is available under the Advanced Search page at the Alta Vista site.

Newsgroups

You can read and send messages to newsgroups such as uk.jobs.offered, uk.jobs.wanted and similar groups for countries all over the world. Netscape has a newsreader built in, choose Netscape News from the Windows menu and then Show all Newsgroups from the Options menu. Newsgroups dedicated to discussion of specialist areas may also carry adverts for jobs so don’t limit your reading to groups that mention jobs in their title. Newsgroups can be a good way to keep up with what’s happening in a specialist area. Observe discussions for a while to become familiar with the group’s attitudes and then begin to develop a presence by asking questions about careers and jobs. Develop as many contacts as you can. Remember to thank people for any help they give you.

MAKING SPECULATIVE CONTACTS

Direct mail could prove an effective way into a company. Selling yourself through a letter addressed to a decision-maker may bring in a lead or even an interview. Most employers respect initiative — and most vacancies are filled by the applicant being at the right place at the right time. Keep a record of your speculative approaches (see Figure 9).

USING THE MEDIA

Press advertisements

It isn’t advisable to place an advertisement for your services unless you are self employed or looking to invest capital. Apart from the local press, professional and trade journals, the national newspapers are a good source of vacancies. Most concentrate on specific professional areas on particular days.

STARTING TO NETWORK

What is networking?

Effective networking helps us to keep our balance and perspective. The right information, the best resources and the strongest support are needed to keep us focused in the midst of change.

Why network?

• to make a career change
• to increase knowledge and expertise in your field of work
• to make your skills and expertise more visible to others.

Questions for assessing your networking needs

• What are my career goals for the next six months?
• What are my career goals for the next twelve months?
• Why are these goals important to me?
• Who can I get to help me achieve these goals?
• How can they help me achieve these goals?
• How will I know when I have achieved them?

How to network

• never ask for a job — ask for information
• keep in touch with your contact
• ask if you can do anything in return
• respect the limits of confidentiality
• be as active as you can in any associations you belong to
• be assertive
• ask the right questions
• use effective image and presentation skills
• be viewed as knowledgeable or skilful
• network by telephone and email
• attend meetings and conferences
• write letters
• when approaching companies with spec letters locate the decision maker and make it clear you will be following up your inquiry.

Using personal contacts

You could use:

neighbours	social contacts
relatives	friends
doctor/dentist/optician	club contacts
local shopkeepers	vet
past college friends	past university friends
old boy/girl network	priest/rabbi/minister
rotary club colleagues	Freemasons

Using professional contacts

You could use:

previous clients	former work contacts
tutors	consultants
professional organisations	customers
suppliers	solicitors
fellow members of professional	accountants
associations
past employers	military organisations
veterans associations	voluntary institutions
meetings and conferences
new names from trade journal/company brochures/newspapers/magazines.

Starting a formal network

It might be possible to start a formal network after being told of your redundancy but before you leave. Or you could initiate a network after leaving. The methods you could use might include:

• newsletters
• brochures
• speeches
• staff meetings
• being a floater
• getting a mentor
• building a team by sponsoring or mentoring others
• getting sponsors
• networking your boss
• doing favours — bank some favours
• continually maintaining visibility through teaching, writing, speaking and leading.

You can keep a record of your networking contacts in the same way as for agencies and speculative approaches to companies.

Your support network

A support network is made up of personal contacts (not including professionals) who can support you as you redefine, change and grow through this phase of career development.

My support network needs to include

• someone I can rely upon in a crisis
• someone whom I can talk to when I am worried
• someone who mentally stimulates me
• someone I can have fun with socially
• someone whom I can feel close to
• someone who values me
• someone who challenges me
• someone who gives me constructive feedback.

CREATING YOUR OWN JOB

You might feel as you do your research, both on yourself and on the market trends, that there is no job for you out there. In which case, create your own and become self-employed.

So you’ve done your research and you are considering whether to return to study or organise your jobsearch strategy. Whatever you choose, it should reflect how you think and feel at this point. Everything is open to change and you may find your decisions now aren’t appropriate in six months’ time. You may find problems along the way and you will need perseverance and lateral thinking to overcome them.