Are there 600,000 openings in California available on any given day? You couldn’t answer that by the volume of people who are looking for work, but the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics says that it’s true. If so many jobs are out there, and so many people are actively seeking work, why is it so difficult for employers and job seekers to find a match?
The thing about statistics is that they’re difficult to interpret unless you have all of the information. It only takes a suggestion in one direction or another to make a point. Maybe there really are 600,000 jobs just waiting for people to snap them up. And then again, maybe there’s more to the story.
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When a Job Isn’t Really a Job
Many of the jobs reported by the Department of Labor are surely valid. But many aren’t. Scroll through the listings on any number of job sites and you’ll find a scam artist or two. Unfortunately, those count toward the number of reported job vacancies.
Michael Bernick for Fox and Hounds Daily says not just some, but a lot of those jobs either aren’t real or they come with a catch. Maybe they’re phony baloney altogether, or maybe the jobs have already been filled, but the postings are published to meet a regulation. Or maybe they’re 100 percent commission jobs.
IT Jobs Look Fantastic in California
After the jobs that aren’t really jobs are skimmed off and tossed aside, California does look excellent for certain sectors. InfoWorld says there are about 1.15 million tech jobs, and it’s got the largest number of tech job postings – 152,700 in Q4 of last year.
For job seekers who look for work in manufacturing, telecom, IT services, engineering or software, California leaves other states in the proverbial dust. The next closest states are Texas, New York, Florida, and Massachusetts. IT job growth in CA is also hopping. They added nearly 60,000 new jobs in 2015. But as for IT job growth, Utah wins percentage-wise with an 8 percent increase.
Candidate Matching Can Solve Everything
Competition in California is fierce, says Bernick, and employers may receive hundreds of applications for one open position. Not only that, people who are employed tend to shift around looking for better work. The number of hires and separations are nearly identical. What better place for real-time candidate matching to help employers and job seekers find each other through the din of all that activity.
Job seekers face tremendous odds when looking for work, and employers have to wade through a mountain of applications. What candidate matching does is place a job ad where it will be seen by the people who are most qualified and the best cultural fit for the company. That helps both sides avoid the slew of scams, fake jobs, and positions that are already filled. It basically tidies up recruiting and job seeking so that both sides are a lot more efficient and effective.
In many parts of the country, job seekers have the upper hand. But in California, not so much. For employers, it’s difficult to reach a target when the job ad is surrounded by volumes of others. And for job seekers, it’s hard to make heads or tails out of what looks like ample opportunity, but in reality, is so much noise.
With real-time candidate matching, job seekers and job ads can find their way through the maze, no matter how confusing it is. The most qualified candidates are the ones who see an ad. Likewise, the most relevant job ads are what job seekers find. When it comes to seeing and being seen, candidate matching is what really works.