I'm Louise Fletcher. As President of 
I'm Chandlee Bryan. As a career coach and resume writer with experience from Manhattan to Main Street, I help job seekers connect with opportunity by sharing news, trends and best practices. I'm the Managing Editor of Career Hub and run 
A February 21 eWeek article relates some fascinating data from a survey recently conducted by Hudson (a global staffing company). As the author Deborah Perelman points out, the results support the conventional wisdom that who you know plays a key role in job hunting.
A whopping 73% of managers indicated that hiring internally was the first source tapped for filling open positions, before considering a search outside the company. In order of preference, the 3 most-preferred sources were internal hire (40%), employee referral (24%), and personal reference (20%). Adding these up, 84% of managers felt that the best way to fill an opening was via something other than job boards, recruiters, company websites, or newspaper ads!
Input from employees regarding how they had landed their current position bears out the trend indicated in the employers’ responses above. A full 28% of all workers and 33% of all managers found their jobs through networking. Especially striking is the fact that of those earning $75,000 to $100,000 annually, 39% had found their jobs through networking.
This survey provides further confirmation of an ongoing revolution in the way that hiring takes place. While job boards have great appeal as a seemingly easy job search method, it is clear that the odds are not in your favor if you are using them as your primary strategy. Statistics are a bit better with recruiters, especially if you approach your dealings with them as an ongoing, mutually beneficial relationship to be maintained throughout your career, rather than as a resource to approach with hat in hand when you need a job. When you build relationships with recruiters, they effectively become part of your network.
The take away from this? (1) Leverage your network heavily as you seek to advance your career, both inside and outside your company. (2) Make building and nurturing a robust network a priority throughout your working life. Whether your career ship sails away or founders will depend on it!
Posted by Laurie Smith
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