Searching for Your Next Best Job

Yesterday’s Typical Employer interview question: Can you tell me why there’s an empty space in your employment history?

Today’s Employee interview response: Yes I can. Can you tell me why there’s an opening in your business?

Topsy-turvy! That is how I describe today’s employment situation. Employees are leaving their employers left and right. Apparently, we have learned from the COVID-19 lockdown that employers are more flexible regarding where and how we work than we have been led to believe.

One striking outcome to this newfound flexibility is that seasoned workers, those 50 and older, are embracing their options and jumping ship for better pay. With the advent of work-from-home possibilities, a staggering 82% of retirees would consider returning to the workforce remotely, while nearly 25% have already applied for these jobs.

More workers are aggressively searching for their next best job. According to a recent CNBC report, 65% of the nation’s full- or part-time employees are scanning job listings, willing to jump from employer to employer for better wages, better benefits, or both. The article, written by Jennifer Liu,@JLJENNIFERLIU, was written on August 19th.

Fast forwarding a month, I read a Motley Fool article written by Kailey Hagen, @HagenKailey, and published here:

Quitting Your Job? Don’t Let It Damage Your Retirement | Nasdaq, which narrows job hunters down to about 50%. Her article was posted on September 24th and explains the pros and cons of job switching as it relates to your retirement benefits.

Adding all these factors together reveals that, while jobs are plentiful in many fields, competition for the openings has become more aggressive. Some workers have totally withdrawn from the labor market, opting to start their own businesses. Others are abandoning their knowledge of certain industries and seeking employment in a completely different field.

What the…??

Imagine yourself as an employer with a job opening. You post a “Help Wanted” ad and get an overwhelming response. Wonderful! What next? Let’s say you have ten applicants for this one job. You have to whittle that stack down to three or four, tops.

You then set interview appointments with the selected finalists, to see which would be the best fit for your company. Few of these applicants will have the required training needed to perform the job. That means less production from that position until they receive adequate training.

During the interview session with one particular applicant, he fit the position like a well-worn glove. After giving him a list of the job duties, along with the pay scale and benefits breakdown, he asks, “What else do I get?”

That, ladies and gentlemen, is the state of the workforce hiring environment in today’s world. Human Resource departments and employment agencies nationwide are scrambling to fill jobs with qualified applicants, knowing full well the qualified candidate is going to ask for more money, or better benefits even before they show up for an interview. Some applicants are even so bold as to never show up for work.

Job seekers today are simultaneously putting in applications to multiple employers to get the best available compensation package. If they are in the initial hiring phase of one job and get a better offer from another source, they will ghost the first position without giving notice and without giving a reason for the rejected offer.

Ghosting used to be conducted by employers not answering the calls of job applicants, opting instead to re-post the job listing in an effort to attract better candidates. The tables have suddenly turned. In today’s world, it is the candidates and employees doing the ghosting.

As an entrepreneur myself, I know of an occasion where a worker came to work for four hours, left for lunch, and never came back! The individual just left a two-word letter on her desk: “I Quit!” The employer was floored, baffled, and frustrated because they had not seen any indications of her dissatisfaction.

Cause and Effect of Converting Employees to Independent Contractors

Finding a solution to what is being called “the Big Resignation” dilemma is going to be next to impossible for the foreseeable future. Extraneous factors are joining with the current problems and will create a new kind of relationship between employers and employees.

An Indeed.com survey found that, since the pandemic began, 76 percent of employers have been ghosted by candidates, and 57 percent believe it’s a growing trend. As for job seekers, 28 percent have admitted to doing so, up 10 percentage points from a similar survey that Indeed conducted in 2019. How to Stop Perpetuating ‘Ghosting’ Culture (shrm.org)

A primary cause of ghosting goes back to the 1980s. It became popular for employers to convert their employees to independent contractor status. This saved companies billions of dollars from not having to offer health benefits, or pay a minimum hourly rate to their commissioned workforce.

It was presented as a positive to the employee: Freedom!

They were free to run their own professional operations, contract with many different families or businesses, negotiate mutually agreeable contract terms, are free to complete their work without control by their customers outside of those contracts, and are not integral to their customers’ business models.

There are many negatives to being an independent contractor, specifically when:

• They are not earning as much money as traditional employees would;

• They are denied crucial workplace rights such as 40-hour workweeks, the right to organize, protection from discrimination, and employer-provided health benefits;

• They are not actually independent and are not really able to determine where, how, and for whom they work.

How does this coalesce with “The Big Resignation” to form today’s hiring problem? Simple! It’s a workers’ Revolution!

These independent contractors, as a direct result of the effects of the COVID-19 shutdown, suddenly realized they are free to work where, how, and for whom they want. It dawned on them there are companies that will offer employment with a higher wage, benefits, and they still get to have autonomy over when, where, and how they work!

Advantage: Independent Contractors and Employees, for once.

Many organizations are rethinking their hiring practices nowadays. They have to be more creative in delivering incentives and/or benefits to tomorrow’s workers. They are rewriting their job descriptions to attract better workers. The jury is still deliberating on what that will look like.

We must move forward together

Somewhere down this long, winding road, employers will have to get input from their contractors to help stop the bleeding of talent to the competition. That isn’t going to happen very soon, so please don’t hold your breath.

We still have to absorb the fallout from jobs being replaced with robotics. With the glorified microchip the current ruler of the roost, who knows what kind of new industries and new jobs will be created?

The field of quantum physics is barely in its infancy. It holds great hope for all kinds of technological changes, advancements in health services, and perhaps new methods of commuting in the future.

As a nation, and as a world, we have to better prepare ourselves for a different description of tomorrow. There’s no better time to start than right now!

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