Considered out of the market?

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Hi Guys,

A friend of mine from univeristy lost his IT job and he was made redundant. He's got just over 2 years experience doing 1st/2nd line support.

Somone told him, if he didnt find a job within 3 months, he would be considered out of the market?

I thought the guy was talking utter bollocks.

What you folks think?

FatP

 

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Bollocks, simple as. But, it only gets more difficult as time goes on. 3 months turns into 4, and so on. Eventually you have been out of work for 2 years and it starts being a real struggle.

 

pretty sure i went between jobs for 18 months once.. went to Aus, Thailand, saw the world ya know, spent my redundancy money, had a blast

I got a few 'were looking for people with more recent real world experience' type replies (really? windows 2000 is somehow shinier than it was 18 months ago? medoubtz') but ultimately i got another job pretty quickly, my skill set has always been pretty broad, which opens up avenues more often than not, even if your not quite a 'by the book' type of worker (9 - 5 office work, job - job with no downtime) <-- how awfully industrial revolutiony

 

The longer he is unemployed, the harder it will be for him to get employed. As his employment gap on his CV grows wider and wider, he'll look more and more unattractive to employers. However, that doesn't mean that he will be "out of the market" in 3 months... or in a year, or in two years! All it takes is for the right opportunity to come along where he looks better than his competition.

In any case, he should not delay. I hope he's out there looking for jobs today.

 

I was out of work for 4 months which is when I started doing my certs so could say that I've kept myself busy and studied rather than sitting on my arse collecting job seekers

 

No you're not out of the market, you have been struggling to find a job in the very same market that millions of other people have been doing. Don't people realise that there is\was a recession on?

To those people who view a gap like that (especially over the Xmas period and leading up to the new Fiscal year) really aren't the kind of people I would want to work with because obviously they have no concept of what's going on in the real world rather than the planet they obviously inhabit. F*ckwits.

Any period of time can be accounted for, explain what you have accomplished in that time and carry on looking for work.

 

It's all about relative risk. Someone who hasn't been snatched up by another employer in short order is often times (but, I stress, not always) damaged goods. The employer will often ask themselves, "Why is this candidate not employed yet? Are they wanting too much money? Are they not very knowledgeable? Do they not interview well? And why were they let go in the first place?".

To call an employer a "frackwit" because they realistically evaluate risk isn't very fair. Employers have a responsibility to evaluate candidates based on those risk factors, and if they DON'T, then they often end up with bad employees. And THAT is an employer I wouldn't care to work for. What else are they irresponsible about, particularly regarding IT?

Yes, I understand that there's a global recession happening... but that doesn't prevent most of us from keeping the IT jobs we've got. And yes, some people get laid off through no fault of their own. But good, motivated candidates tend to get scooped up sooner rather than later. Thus, the longer you're out of work, the longer you look like "damaged goods", whether it's true or not. It's all perception. They don't know you from Adam. No need to make yourself look worse, you know?

 

Yes Michael I know, I also know that I recently spent several months out of work through no fault of my own, I also know that not only is it the job of the company to evaluate candidates but it's also the right of the candidate to be evaluated based on their skills, not the amount of time they are out of work. There can be mitigating circumstances with regards to the amount of time that someone spends out of work (do we really have to go through this again?).

Base someone on their CV and Skills, not the amount of time that they have been out of work. Just because someone has been out of work for say 4 months doesn't mean that they aren't the right person for the job, to just dismiss them because they have been out of work is just remiss.

 

"Right of the candidate"? There are no "candidate rights" with regards to being out of work, mate. Employers have one job: to be profitable. They make whatever judgement call they decide they want to make. Certainly if they've interviewed (or hired) people with job gaps and had good results, they'll not care so much about job gaps. But if they've interviewed (or hired) people with job gaps and had bad results, they'll be more apt to not even waste time with an interview.

That doesn't make them "frackwits", even if you disagree with their decisions. That simply means they're averse to risk, which isn't a bad idea, particularly in an employer's market where you don't HAVE to take risks with employees - there are plenty of good ones available.

In an ideal world, I agree. But if there are 50 reasonably qualified people, and you realistically have time to interview 10, you're gonna interview the 10 that are most likely to do well. And usually, but not always, they'll be people who have jobs and are looking to switch or those who haven't been unemployed for long.

Again, for those who might have missed the bolding, underlining, and italicizing, there ARE some good people out there who have been unemployed for a long while. That's not the point. The point is how employers approach job gaps. Some will give you a chance; some won't.

 

However not everyone sits on their arse collecting job seekers, better to have some money coming in to live on than nothing at all.