Just the other day, Statistics Canada released their quarterly job vacancy report. Although the numbers are down from last year, with 200,000 job vacancies in Canadian business for 2013, the numbers are grim.
For job seekers this is bad news, as there were 6.5 unemployed people for every job vacancy. This means that as a job seeker, you have only really beat 6.5 people to get a job, when in reality there are dozens, if not hundreds, of applicants for every job out there. For the “Job Hunter” the news is not so grim, as competing against thousands of other people is not what a job hunter does. A hunter is defined as “One who hunts game for sport or for food”
If you know a real hunter (my brother is an avid bow hunters and manages to feed his family quite well) you know hunters do more research, get up earlier and work harder than anyone else for the food they go after.
With 200,000 job openings, what a job seeker has to ask themselves is are they a hunter? Are you scouting out prospective employers, connecting with people, asking experts and current employees what it took to get the type of job you want, do you dress the part, are you training or taking the schooling that is needed? Are you going to be the 1 out of the 6.5 that not only shows up and applies for a job, but is better prepared and more enthusiastic then every other candidates out there?