3 Reasons Why Good Job Search Advice Is Hard to Find

3 Reasons Why Good Job Search Advice Is Hard to Find 3 Reasons Why Good Job Search Advice Is Hard to Find If you took everything you read on LinkedIn and tried to apply it to your job search in real-life, some hiring managers and companies would think something is wrong with you. Yes, it seems the best job search advice is really hard to find. We explain 3 reasons why for job seekers who feel like they are going nowhere. 3. The best advice out there costs money to receive Social media is a wonderful thing for it connects everyone around the world. LinkedIn is easily the best social platform for connecting with those who may be hiring. You will also find plenty of people who offer loads of free advice. The problem with the free advice is that it often represents the advice of someone who desires: To change something they personally believe is unfair. To get a person to pay for services. So, here you have free advice that represents “what people want to see”, but then “the really helpful advice” is something you will pay for. Is that a bad thing? No, but if you are searching everywhere only for free advice, you will see lots of “ideals” more than “facts”. 2. Local job markets always differ in hiring practices and business cultures Hiring practices across the 50 United States of America have local, state, and federal laws that impact the hiring practices of a company. Federal laws obviously apply to all states (Ex: The EEOC). However, when it comes to state and local hiring practices, things can change. For example, in several cities and states around the USA, it is illegal to ask a job candidate about his or her salary history. This is not yet a federal law. Additionally, people in different job markets have different attitudes and beliefs for what makes a person a “perfect hire”. So, if you are trying to work in New York City or San Francisco, and choose to get job search advice from someone outside these major cities, you may not be as well-prepared as the local job candidate who gets advice from within the local market. Some cities are also synonymous with particular job industries, which makes it more important to find local advice from within the job market. For example, Silicon Valley, CA (Tech), NYC (Financial Services), Detroit (Automotive), or Los Angeles (Media). The job advice offered by people in these cities may sound foreign to those working around the US. 1. The demand for great advice greatly outweighs the supply of poor advice This is a problem. When it is advice that everyone needs a job in today’s economy, the easiest thing to do is start a website and claim to be an expert. When you Google the term “job search advice”, you see about 267,000,000 results. Advice is offered by websites looking to make money by charging to apply for jobs. Most of the advice is outdated and that includes results found on page 1. Saturation of bad advice may explain why finding good job advice is so difficult. But it is also difficult to find because statistics show that 88% of people only trust the online content of friends. Therefore, much of the hard work in finding good advice requires building a network of smart peers involved in helping people find jobs every day on LinkedIn. Knowing how to message them is a great help, too.