How the Job Search Has Changed Over the Last 20 Years Part 2

In our last blog post, How the Job Search Has Changed Over the Last 20 Years Part 1, we discussed how the job search has become technology-driven and how that has affected how you find a job, how you build your resume, and how you research the company. 

In this blog post, we will discuss some other aspects of the job search that have changed drastically in the last 20 years. From selling your personal brand to company culture, if you want to be successful in your job search, it’s important to understand these concepts. 

If you are searching for new talent for your company, the recruiting specialists at American Recruiting & Consulting Group can help! We have been matching exceptional employees with extraordinary businesses since the 1980s and we understand how the job market has changed.

If you are currently looking for your dream job, contact American Recruiting & Consulting Group today to get started!

Company Culture

Twenty years ago, company culture existed, but it wasn’t something that was discussed, let alone celebrated. You weren’t going to hear questions in the interview like: what is your ideal company culture? How do you think you will fit into our company culture? What is the most important aspect of a company’s culture to you? Your interview was much more geared toward your hard skills and how your experience and education made you a good candidate. 

Today, most of the interviews you attend will include at least one or two questions about company culture. Employers understand that company culture drives attitude and ambition. If the culture encourages hard work and meeting and exceeding goals, employees will be more likely to follow that behavior. 

However, company culture can also be detrimental to the business if negativity is allowed. Negativity is contagious and spreads fast. So, employers want to make sure that they are hiring people who will contribute to a positive company culture. 

Increased Competition

In the past, if you were looking for a job in the newspaper, your competition usually stopped at the reach of the newspaper. Unless you lived in a big city, a few resumes would be submitted and you would have to prove you were the best choice out of five or six other candidates. 

There was also more company loyalty twenty years ago so people did not move around from company to company as much as they do now. 

Today, we are expected to always have our resume ready. We are taught to constantly be on the look-out for new job opportunities. Even if you are happy with your job, you probably still receive emails about recent job openings, just in case something better becomes available. 

When you apply for a job — so do another hundred or thousand people. You aren’t just competing with the people who read the same newspaper as you. You’re competing with every interested individual who has internet access. 

With increased competition, you have to find ways to stand out from the crowd. This is where personal branding comes in. 

Personal Branding 

Twenty years ago, personal branding was not a concept that many people understood. You simply made sure that your resume was in order, you wore formal work attire to the interview, and then answered the questions to the best of your ability. Employers were not incredibly interested in knowing who you were as a person. Instead, it was more about your hard skills and ability to conform to what their company needed.

Now, just about everyone knows what personal branding is. It is what sets you apart from other candidates and how you sell yourself. With the digital age of job searching comes increased competition, and you can’t rely on just your hard skills and education to make you stand out. You have to sell who you are, both hard and soft skills, and how your brand aligns with the mission of the company. 

Your brand makes you memorable — your enthusiasm, your dedication, the things that are immeasurable by words alone. That is your brand. You want to make sure that you are someone who the hiring manager can see not just contributing to their company, but someone who will be a driving force to the company’s future success. 

Social Media

Before the days of smartphones and laptops, before every home had access to the internet, and during the early days of dial-up, social media was not commonplace, although it would quickly become so. The internet presence of an individual twenty years ago consisted of an email account and the use of AIM (America Online Messenger) to keep in touch with friends. Employers were not searching for prospective employees online. In fact, even the idea of having a website for a business was still fairly new. 

Fast forward to today and everyone has an online presence — old and young alike. Every business has a website, and there isn’t much information that you can’t find online. And you can be assured that when you apply for a job your social media accounts will be considered. While most employers don’t care what you did over the weekend or that you’re just so excited about your new haircut, they do care about things like drug use and comments made about past or current employers. 

Social media shouldn’t be something that hurts your job search; it should be what accelerates and drives it. If you present yourself properly on social media, you can use it to help sell your brand and land that new job. Use social media to your advantage. Monitor your accounts and make sure that when a potential employer searches you that they only find good things.

Simplify the Job Search with American Recruiting & Consulting Group

If you are an individual looking for a new job — American Recruiting & Consulting can help! We can simplify the job search and find you the perfect match, whether you are in IT, healthcare, or human resources. Contact us today to get started and to find your dream job!

If you are a manager or owner and are looking for new talent — American Recruiting & Consulting Group can help you too! We will match your company with amazing candidates for your open positions, no matter where you’re located in the U.S. Contact American Recruiting & Consulting Group today!