A new study recently released stated that 51 percent of full time positions were filled by internal hires or promotions in 2009 alone. This number, up from 39 percent in 2008 and 34 percent in 2007, shows how many companies are now adopting a different hiring strategy than in past years. For the other 49 percent of jobs filled by external recruits, nearly 27 percent of the hires were based off referrals. There was, on average, one hire for every 15 referrals seen by employers. The considerable rate of new employees hired based off referrals and internal connections are due to the increasing importance of networking in the business world.
Mark Mehler, co-founder of CareerXroads, a staffing-strategy consulting firm, told The Wall Street Journal, “Job seekers should use job board and corporate sites to find information about openings, but they should use their network to apply.” He also went on to stress that networking is the most effective strategy for landing a job in this economy.
Many job board sites such as Monster.com and CareerBuilder.com are credited with gathering the majority of external talent for companies that choose to post job opportunities on their sites. More external talent was found on job boards that target specific industries or fields. A combination of the majority of industry specific job board sites accounted for nearly 27 percent of external recruits hired this year, according to recent surveys. The use of online job boards has become an increasingly popular method of reaching out to new talented people. Still, the use of networking in addition to such sites has proven to be one of the best ways for new job seekers to branch into different business-related industries.
The survey went on to state that 48 percent of respondents are planning to increase hiring in 2010 in comparison to last year’s plans. Only 11 percent of the firms surveyed said that they plan to reduce hiring in the upcoming year, while the rest planned to maintain their current hiring processes.
Technology, healthcare, and education are the new promising career tracks for new graduates looking for jobs, according to The Wall Street Journal. Career experts say that most graduates from top universities around the country will be set for future careers if they are able to integrate a degree with a growing knowledge of increasing trends.
Andrea Koncz from the National Association of Colleges and Employers told The Wall Street Journal that employers are currently looking for people with degrees in finance, engineering, and computer science. But landing these jobs will take more than a degree. Employers in these growing industries are looking for people who have secondary skills to combine with their degree to aid the future of technological advances.
It has been estimated that by 2018 more than two million new technology jobs are will be created in in-demand fields. Jobs are expected to grow in the web-based technology centers, especially with the social-networking craze, but also in the financial markets where the economic crisis had previously cut many jobs. Hospital Upgrades will also introduce a variety of new jobs in the future as many hospitals adopt different methods of maintaining medical records.
Positions in growing fields are becoming more available for external recruits, but these recruits must also obtain secondary skills useful to changing trends. It is increasingly important that new graduates entering the workforce for the first time use networking and online resources to their advantage and learn information valuable to growing industries.
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