Member-only story
I was retrenched early this year and have been looking for a job since. I am not young and being rather senior in my industry, I must say that it is near impossible for someone like me to find a job. Companies would rather promote from within. I am just thankful that my bosses had the decency to retrench me after the Chinese New Year.
Since my retrenchment, I literally sent out 5 resumes a day. That works out to more than 250 job applications in the past 10 months and I only succeeded in getting 3 interviews. After each interview, I was left with the impression that the employers already had somebody in mind and that meeting candidates was just a show to let people know that they have found their “ideal’ candidate.
Puzzled, and desperate, I spoke with friends in the HR industry and they told me about the “hidden job market”.
We are all very familiar with the formal job market. In this market, a company has a vacancy and so HR creates a job description, posts an ad on the Internet, and receives a pile of resumes to fill the position. Unbeknownst to many (including myself), there is a hidden/ informal job market that works in parallel to the formal job market.
In the informal market, jobs are filled even before they are advertised — just like what I experienced during my 3 job interviews. What usually…
