Job Hunters Urged to Find a Job Fast in Face of Employment Downturn

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With little changes in the unemployment rates in Canada and the U.S., professional job hunter Chris Pires is rallying people to go out and seek employment but take the unconventional route to guarantee better results. Unemployment rate in the U.S. fell by 0.4 % to 9% last January, and increased in Canada by 0.2% to 7.8% in the same period, reports from the U.S. Labor Department and Statistics Canada said respectively.

Businesses have been cutting back so much that they have reached a point where they could no longer take it. The workload has been piling up and people are needed to get the job done, and fast.

With little changes in the unemployment rates in Canada and the U.S., professional job hunter Chris Pires is rallying people to go out and seek employment but take the unconventional route to guarantee better results.

Unemployment rate in the U.S. fell by 0.4 % to 9% last January, and increased in Canada by 0.2% to 7.8% in the same period, reports from the U.S. Labor Department and Statistics Canada said respectively.

Pires, in explaining his position on the matter said "Businesses have been cutting back so much that they have reached a point where they could no longer take it. The workload has been piling up and people are needed to get the job done, and fast."

However, Pires warned job hunters not to start sending resumes to their target companies. He said this move can be fatal to the career. Resumes in today's job market only end up in two areas: the growing resume pile and the garbage can. "Your resume is an interesting conversation starter, but don't expect your resume to land you a job interview," the job hunter guru added. Pires, author of "Shred Your Resume and Find a Job Fast" believes that the best way to get a job interview is through networking.

"There is the traditional networking where you build your contacts during career conferences, job fair expos, and your informational interviews. And then there are the social networking sites which reinforces my point on the importance of establishing relationships," Pires stressed.

Social networking sites like Linked In and FaceBook have shown society the importance of relationships. Job hunters now have easier access to hiring managers. However, hiring managers found on these social networking sites remain the same human beings offline and are looking to build relationships. They will trust someone who has built a good and solid virtual relationship with them over some piece of paper received in the mail- which hopefully is not your resume, he quipped.

Pires said it's a question of trust. "Job hunters trolling Linked In or FaceBook for hiring managers should find out the needs of these managers, build a relationship with them and win their trust. That way when a job becomes available they are already lined up," he added.

Pires narrated how he started looking for a job. He said that like everyone else he relied on his resume to get him an interview. After sending about a thousand resumes without getting any feedback he decided to toss it and change strategies. Through the help of a job hunter friend they made a career plan and he started going to informational interviews with managers who can hire him. Two weeks after his graduation a manager he had met had referred him to another company where he landed an interview without a resume. The interview ended with him getting hired with a position created for him on the spot.

He advised job hunters to make a career plan, figure out which companies to target and to start contacting managers who are authorized to hire people. You can connect through the phone, social networks, or in person. He doesn't recommend the use of e-mail.

He assures that using this method it will only be a matter of time before an opportunity comes up from these relationships.

Meanwhile, he maintains that now is the best time to go out there and find a job. As an example he said the company he works for has streamlined from 270 to 170 IT staff in the last two years. "Now they have realized that it was counter-productive so they are hiring 50 people within the next two months to cope with the workload."

He said similar companies are experiencing the same. "Companies need to fill the gaps caused by the cutbacks so if you want a job, now is the best time to go out and find one."

To get more creative job search tips, visit http://www.shredyourresume.com.

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Chris Pires

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