At a recent unemployed networking work shop I heard those attending use the term “Hidden jobs”. Now my first response was this is a concept I’m familiar with, and some people would have you believe that as much as 80% of jobs are hidden. But it was a term that I have not heard those looking for work use before; so I decided to explore what they meant by the term “Hidden Jobs”.

Do you know what a hidden job is? Have you heard the term before? By now it would seem that job seekers would readily know this concept. Reality, as I discovered, is that many job seekers don't.

Based on my findings from the networking group ‘Hidden Jobs” can be put into one of two categories:

1. Does the Job Actually Exist(?) Among job seekers there’s often the cry after having applied for a job, that it just so happens to have been filled already! The group commented “wondering if the job advertised ever existed”. Once they had multiple experiences of this cynicism set in and they begin to question the validity of the jobs they were finding. This is a common problem they commented “with online job sites”.

2. They don’t get Promoted Among many Job Seekers familiar with the dynamics of how companies recruit, the “suspicion” persists that many jobs/positions are created but never promoted or exposed to the world outside, and therefore are not easy to find in the usual places.

So how to go about finding these Hidden Jobs?

You will not find these jobs on Totaljobs, Monster, Jobsite or on the Industry/Job Specific sites. These jobs are in effect hidden from the active (non networking) or casual jobseeker. In fact you have to “hunt them down”, you have to network yourself into a position with either an organisation that might have exposure to such a position. In effect you become a detective or an actual “recruiter/headhunter” in reverse.

So “why do Hidden Jobs exist”? Essentially for a number of reasons:

- If you are making redundancies through one door and suddenly you place an advertisement for a $100k Business Development Director, whilst legitimate it can great a PR nightmare.

- Another reason is even in the good times you might not want to
alert a competitor that you are recruiting for a particular position (i.e. market intelligence).

- Alternatively you know the person you want is “out there”
and you do not want to spend money on a medium (Newspaper or Job Site) or pay a fee to a recruiter. You use your “own network” to identify potential candidates and approach them yourself.

- Finally, while there are specialist recruiters and HR, usually the “final decisions” are taken by the Line Manager, and they may have developed their own communities and networks and decide to “fish in their own pond”.

- Many companies now have their own career sites (not always easy
to find, as our professionals commented), and companies now will often put these jobs on their own sites for one or two weeks to assess response. So unless you are registered with them or know which companies you want to work for and look regularly you may well miss the right “Hidden Job” for you.

A common thread from all my conversations at the event is that “networking is KING”, you have to be on the inside to find these “hidden jobs” you have to have a relationship with as I call them “a gatekeeper”; someone who can open the door.

So if your not networking, or have yet to develop these skills now is the time to learn and enhance your own networking skills, and find another personal advantage.

At CareerSiteAdvisor.com we can help by providing a route to 1000’s of company career sites, we link directly to the careers page and as one delegate commented “no more getting lost on the home page or looking at the site map”. In addition Careers Advice and monthly live Careerscast provide information and actionable advice on how to research, find, prepare and secure your next job.

We plan to provide more information on how to plan and find the right Hidden Jobs, the “etiquette of networking” and preparing your knowledge based assault on a company”.