Market update:
Great to be back with you after a few weeks off from writing this newsletter.
Summer is typically a slower time for hiring, but this has been a particularly brutal summer for job seekers.
The latest job numbers came out this morning and the headlines are more of the same: the overall “unemployment” rate is 4.2% and 73,000 new jobs were created in July with the BLS noting that unemployment "has shown little change since April."
I’ve been watching what I’m calling the “real job market index,” which includes the number of people who are underemployed along with those who are counted in the base unemployment numbers. Here’s where the “real job market index” is coming out this month:
7.2 million people are unemployed (1.8 million of these for 27+ weeks)
4.7 million people are employed part-time for economic reasons
6.2 million people are not counted in the labor force but want a job
= 18.1 million people who are unemployed or underemployed (up from 17.8 million in June)
With a total US labor force of roughly 170 million workers, we’re looking at a 10.6% underemployment rate.
One of the biggest pieces of data to come out of the report was the downward revision for previous months' data: "Revisions for May and June were larger than normal. The change in total nonfarm payroll employment for May was revised down by 125,000, from +144,000 to +19,000, and the change for June was revised down by 133,000, from +147,000 to +14,000. With these revisions, employment in May and June combined is 258,000 lower than previously reported."
The only bright spot in the employment report was the increased volume of healthcare job openings (55,000 new roles in July).
September is typically a time for increased hiring, so I've been advising my clients to update their LinkedIn profiles and resumes now to get prepared. I'm not an economist and I don't know where this is all going, but it feels like we can only go up from here.
How my client landed a 64% raise
My Gen X client just landed a $600,000 VP role (that’s a $235,000 or 64% raise). Here’s how we changed his positioning to land several offers:
- Moved from 4 page resume to 2 pages: He had a lot of great experience with top companies, so we didn’t cut anything important, but we summarized his work in an easy-to-read way.
- Front-loaded his resume to demonstrate results: We shared key quantified results in his executive summary. Also, when you’ve worked for 20+ years, you may have a lot of impacts to share from both your current and early career. We made sure to share his key early career results in his executive summary to show the breadth of his work.
- Reviewed job description to understand skills/keywords: My client works in a specialized field with lots of terminology. I reviewed numerous job descriptions to understand the keywords/skills that were part of his goal roles and incorporate his expertise in these areas in his resume/LinkedIn.
The good news is that these are strategies that anyone can use to improve their resume and LinkedIn positioning.
Don’t underestimate the power of a strong resume as part of your overall job search strategy.
You may not see results like my client did, but standout positioning can make all of the difference in a competitive market like this one.
My Discussion with LinkedIn News:
In case you missed my discussion with LinkedIn News Editor Andrew Seaman
📄 A transcript of the episode is here: https://lnkd.in/dnM5_kvM
👂🏻 Listen to the conversation on your favorite podcast platform: https://lnkd.in/da8c7q9F
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Take care of yourself and have a wonderful weekend!
Colleen
