Competition for Jobs
The Ladders issued their 3rd Quarter Job Market Trends report this week. The report has some very interesting data. In particular, they provide a measure of the number of job seekers for each position.
The Ladders focuses on positions with salaries over $100k, so this isn’t a measure of the full job market, but the situation is probably very similar at other income levels.
Here’s what the Ladders reported:
REGIONAL JOB MARKET COMPETITION
Compares the number of active job seekers to number of $100k+ positions available in this location.
San Francisco
San Diego
Washington DC
Boston
Seattle
Houston
New York
Austin
Philadelphia
Baltimore
Chicago
Denver
Los Angeles
Phoenix
Miami
Minneapolis
Atlanta
Dallas
Tampa
Detroit2:1
3:1
3:1
4:1
4:1
4:1
4:1
5:1
5:1
5:1
6:1
6:1
6:1
7:1
7:1
7:1
8:1
8:1
8:1
20:1
In some parts of the country, the news isn’t bad. 2:1 and 3:1 are fair odds. For a position, you need to be in the top half or top third of candidates and you should have a good shot.
Other areas, Atlanta, Dallas, Tampa and Detroit are a different story. With so many more job seekers than jobs, you can expect that every job posting is going to be inundated with resumes. In Detroit, with 20 job seekers for every job, you need to be absolutely outstanding, exceptional in almost every way, to beat out your competition.
The primary question is this: If you were sitting in a room with 19 other people that have the same education and experience as you, why should you be hired over them?
There will be a few people that will have a great answer to this question. They are the ones that will make the final cut and one of them will get hired. The rest will never get this to this point.
You can see the rest of the report from the Ladders at: Update 9/17/11 – the link to the report is no working it the old link was www.theladders.com/static/boom/08_q3_index.html