Getting a Job in a Down -- But Stimulated -- Economy

Getting a Job in a Down -- But Stimulated -- Economy

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by Maureen Crawford Hentz

As if it's not hard enough to find a job normally, an economy like the one following the 2008 meltdown complicates matters significantly. Yes, it's bad, but despite what your brother-in-law, your barber, your neighbor, and the guy you pass while walking Fido all tell you, there are jobs to be found. The key is to be informed and work strategically.

Stimulus package jokes abound, and yet the stimulus package is pumping money into the economy. Even though you may not be a multimillion-dollar bank on the brink of collapse, you still can access your piece of the pie.

Go to the Source

The USAjobs.gov Website is a good resource, but it lists limited jobs, including federal jobs. You'll also find a link on the front page to search for American Recovery and Reinvestment jobs. It's a fine source of jobs, but you can do even better with a little know-how.

On the other hand, Recovery.gov is the official U.S. government stimulus package website. This is where the pie is kept. Recovery.gov isn't a jobs site, so you will have to do some digging for what you really seek -- specific open jobs created from the stimulus package. On Recovery.gov, you can find the names of new projects funded by the Recovery Act, including the company names and the projects funded.

Additional resources include:

In addition, look for a recovery site for your own state. And, as an article in the ExecuNet newsletter points out, a hidden workforce of 10.5 million people employed as contractors and subcontractors to the federal government will continue to turn over, providing additional opportunities.

This is how to use these sites to power up your job search:

Check out all the resources on the site. One of the best gold mines of information is a section called Where is the Money Going?. At this part of the website, you can easily query for contracts awarded in your state.
After you've honed in on your state, take a look at the kinds of projects that are funded. A quick look at my home state's funding, for example, showed projects in health,
Make a list of 10 or so companies and projects for which you can anticipate extra people power will be required.
Head over to the Websites of the companies awarded contracts and apply on the company site. Indicate in your cover letter that you found out about the company by doing research at the Recovery Act grants page. This extra work alone might be impressive enough to get you the interview.

Get Google to Tell You

You can also set up a Google alert with these search terms: "your city (or state)" and "awarded" and "Recovery Act"

Google will email you hot-off-the presses information every time a company in your area issues a press release announcing a stimulus award.

Get in the Worker Pool

When you've identified a company that's been awarded stimulus money, applying on its corporate Website as soon as possible is key. Even if you don't see jobs specific to the stimulus project or specific to what you want to do, apply to the general pool or general application. In this way, your resume will be in the system and available for searching.

When a job opens up at our company, for example, the very first step for our recruiters is called Tier One recruiting, which means recruiters are required to search in the database of current applicants -- for all jobs -- to see if they contain anyone who should be invited to apply for the new jobs.

You can also apply to general pools of jobs by going to the USAjobs.gov site. When you click on the recovery jobs site and query for jobs in your state, you are likely to see requisitions for "standing registers" of applicants. Here, you can apply for categories of jobs like "project manager" and "engineer/architect."

Keep your resume fresh. When company recruiters look in their applicant tracking systems, they can usually see the date on which the candidate last updated the profile. Update your profile at least once every two weeks, even if updating is merely adding a period one week and deleting it the next.

Automate the Search

In addition to applying to a company's general database, set up a job alert in the company's careers section. You will thus be emailed when new jobs are listed. As an added bonus, some company recruiters think more highly of candidates who have expressed continued interest in the company by setting up a job alert. A caveat, though: don't apply for every job that is emailed to you. Doing so may have a negative effect on your candidacy. You can't genuinely be interested in and qualified for a PhD-level scientist job and a lower-level accounting clerk and 20 other jobs. We have a couple of people who have job alerts set for our careers page who seem to apply for every job -- regardless of the job's requirements. Needless to say, these folks probably aren't being considered as seriously for jobs for which they are qualified because they are enacting the job-seeker's version of the boy who cried wolf.

Think all this sounds like too much work? Think about it; you aren't sending cold resumes out into the world, but rather to companies who are actually hiring right now. Even when you send a resume to a position listed on one of The Big Three job boards (Monster, CareerBuilder, and Yahoo Hotjobs), you can't be entirely sure those companies have open positions. They could be pipeline recruiting, meaning that although they don't have jobs now, they want to keep fresh candidates flowing into their applicant tracking system for when things get better. I don't know about you, but I'd rather spend my time applying to a company with jobs, rather than just a pipeline.

There are jobs and you can get one. Good luck.

Questions about some of the terminology used in this article? Get more information (definitions and links) on key college, career, and job-search terms by going to our Job-Seeker's Glossary of Job-Hunting Terms.

This article is part of Job Action Day.

Regular QuintZine contributor Maureen Crawford Hentz is manager of talent acquisition, development and compliance for OSRAM SYLVANIA Inc., a Siemens company. She is a nationally recognized expert on social networking and new media recruiting. With more than15 years of experience in the recruiting, consulting and employment areas, her interests include college student recruiting, disabilities in the workplace, business etiquette, and GLBT issues. Crawford Hentz has been quoted by The New York Times, NewsDay, The Boston Globe, and National Public Radio, among others. In addition to her work for QuintZine, she is a contributor to the Boston.com HR blog. She conducts workshops, keynotes and conference sessions nationally. Crawford Hentz holds a master of arts degree in college student personnel from Bowling Green State University, Bowling Green, OH, and a bachelor of arts degree in international studies from The American University, Washington, DC. She lives outside Boston, MA.

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