The Job Search Process

Pages14-21
Date01 March 1981
Published date01 March 1981
DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1108/eb054970
Subject MatterHR & organizational behaviour
14 | Employee Relations 3,3
The Job Search Process
Strategies
Seeking employment was the other major area of activity. In some cases, the delays already referred
to legal proceedings and continuing involvement in the previous job delayed the seeking of a
new job. Several men commented also on other uncontrollable factors that enforced a delay, par-
ticularly public holiday periods when employers were not interested and strikes, both in related in-
dustries and in one case in the printing industry where relevant journals were not published. Hence, it
was not always possible to start looking for a job straight away. However, excluding these delays, the
pattern of job hunting was as follows:
Strategy
No.
of men
Immediately becoming fully involved in seeking work 13
A delay in seeking work 7
Delay through fear of the consequences 3
Delay through adjusting to wife's death 1
Enjoying a planned sabbatical in early retirement 1
A two-week delay like a "holiday period" 1
A continuing "holiday period" 1
Previous studies have referred to a "holiday period" at the beginning of unemployment but for
this group the "holiday period", in the main, did not exist. Only one of the men who felt he should
be seeking work took a continuing "relax and enjoy it" approach. The delay due to a wife's death
was a 12-month delay and incorporated also disinterest and bitterness at the nature of his sacking.
For those who delayed through fear of the consequences, for one it was fear of rejection, having felt
rejected from his previous job, for one it was fear of adjusting to new ways and for one the fear was
related to his psychiatric illness and wish to withdraw. In these three cases there was an awareness of
doing other things as an excuse:
"As the weeks went on I found more and more excuses for doing work in the garden, work
around the house, rather than actually sitting down and looking at newspapers. I really don't
think that at any time in four months did I apply myself to looking for a
job.
I didn't know how
to . . . Subconsciously, I didn't want to."
For those who could and did apply themselves immediately, the pattern varied from "consistently
all day, every day", to "mornings seeking a job, afternoons working on the house", to "three days
on job seeking and two days on the house". However, the thoroughness, time and diligence seemed
remarkable:
"January, February and March I devoted myself entirely to job hunting as I was recommended
to do by everyone. After breakfast, I made the dining room into an office and worked from
8.30 to 6.30 contacting business colleagues, contractors. Scrutinising the papers, visiting the
library, visiting people about jobs. Trying to get leads. At the end of three months, I had to
review what had been happening with my wife. I had made no progress. I had lots of informa-
tion, but no job."
"If
I
didn't have a bunch of letters that size to post for the
4
o'clock post in the afternoon, then
I really hadn't done anything."
The main sources used were the local and national newspapers, specialised journals, ringing friends
and contacts, approaching old companies in a similar line of business, agencies including specialised
agencies as with the catering industry, following and investigating setting up a business. To give an
indication of the scale of activity involved, one man had registered with 170 agencies, systematically
building up a card index system by using all newspapers and journals, both using libraries and
reading from the shelves in bookshops. Another had registered with
40
agencies in the local area. One

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