What are hidden jobs?

Most people only search for work using job ads. Sometimes it seems that there are not many jobs on offer, but what you see is not always the reality – the number of opportunities is actually much higher! The methods of recruitment are constantly changing and new career paths can be found in unexpected places once you know where to look.

Studies have shown that only one in four job seekers find employment via open job listings. This number is quite low considering that responding to public job advertisements is how people have usually sought employment. Hidden jobs have been a hot button issue in conversations about job seeking for a long time. People are interested in them, people look for them and people are employed in them. Others are hesitant and might even have some doubts about looking for hidden jobs.

A hidden job means an open position that has not been made public. It is a job that becomes a reality when the employer and the employee meet in the right place at the right time. Employers often look for employees silently through their networks, social media or with the help of a head-hunter, for example. Sometimes the employer is not even actively looking for a new professional, even if they could use one. The employee can make the employer notice that they need certain skills by marketing their expertise directly to employers that interest them.

According to professional recruiters, only 20-30 % of available jobs are made public. This view is also supported by a working life study conducted by the Finnish Innovation Fund Sitra that reached the conclusion that three out of four job positions are filled outside of public job advertisements. This means that up to 70-80 % of all available jobs are found outside of public channels!

Why do jobs hide?

Economic trends always impact the job market. During an economic downturn, the employer may not wish to spend a lot of time processing a large number of applications so they dive below the surface to recruit new professionals. On the other hand, general uncertainty on the job market can make the desired professionals stay in their current jobs and public job advertisements fail to inspire them to apply. During an upturn companies are often so busy that they cannot properly focus on recruitment. This also means that acquiring skillful labour is challenging. Sometimes companies avoid publicly listing a position on purpose. One reason to do this is to keep the company's future plans that are behind the recruitment drive a secret from their competitors.

Open job listings also result in expenses for the organisation and they are often arduous to process for the recruiter. The company will often be contacted by staffing service companies as well as applicants themselves. Only a portion of the applicants are suited for the job on offer, but the position may still receive hundreds of applications. Separating the wheat from the chaff takes a lot of time and is therefore very expensive. In these situations the recruiter may find it easier and quicker to find a reliable and committed employee through their own networks.

Sudden changes at workplaces can also create surprising expertise needs for employers. As a result of company acquisitions, significant growth of operations or personnel changes, the company may experience an expertise shortage that the employer could not have predicted. The employer may recognise that there is work that needs doing, but there might not be enough knowledge or time to define the need to a degree that would result even in a silent recruitment drive. The situations also come and go quite quickly. If a suitable professional were to offer their expertise at the right point in time, the employer may snatch that person up without even having thought about recruitment before that. However, this kind of luck only strikes on occasion and usually the work that needs doing is either done in-house or left undone.

How do you use your time when seeking a job?

Despite what we call them, hidden jobs may actually be an easier way to employment than open listings because there is less competition for them. Usually, job seekers spend a lot of time browsing and responding to public job listings. Recruiters, on the other hand, often utilise other means besides traditional job ads when looking for professionals. This results in a kind of problem on the job market where a large mass of qualified professionals moves in a different channel than the recruiters and they therefore miss each other. This is something an applicant should pay attention to! If most jobs are filled without public job listings, then it might be wise for you to spend most of your job seeking time looking for vacancies that are not public.

It is best to adopt a systematic approach when looking for hidden jobs. Before embarking on your job search, you should first sit down for a moment and go through your expertise: what can I do, what are my strengths and how do I present my expertise? Think about what you are looking for and what you want out of your workplace. Once you have laid this foundation, you should explore the different channels of hidden job seeking and choose the ones that are most natural for you and your field. These channels include social media, networks, recent news, making direct contact or attending recruitment events and training sessions, for example. One channel might be more effective for positions in the private sector while another might work better with public positions or positions in the third sector. For one job seeker the most natural thing could be to kick off a wide-ranging public job seeking campaign on social media while to someone else the mere idea of such a thing could be terrifying. So use your time efficiently by focusing on the channels and methods of hidden job seeking that are right for you.