Canadian Job Search Patterns that You Need to Know About

By Adrienne Tom.

There has been a lot of focus and discussion these past few months on Canadian employment issues, including the skills shortage / skills gap, new graduate job stress, and the temporary foreign workers program.  Suffice it to say, there are plenty of hurdles for job seekers in our country and each challenge influences job search patterns.

A report by Workopolis called ‘Time’ To Work has analyzed employment histories and employer resume-review patterns to compile a “chronology of Canadian career moves”.   Some of the most noteworthy facts include:

• Job hopping has increased and is considered to be the ‘new normal’.  The number of people who have stayed in the same job for over four years has been cut in half since 2002 and 32% of people who started a new job in 2013 have already moved on to new positions.

• Exploring completely different career paths during a lifetime is increasing.  Almost half of the people polled in the survey have changed careers at least three times.

• The average job search time takes about 4 months.  Workopolis’s survey showed an average unemployment period of 16 weeks, whereas Statistics Canada reported an average unemployment period of 20.6 weeks in January 2014.

•  Most employers spend just 11 seconds or less scanning a new resume before making a decision to keep it or move on, and over 80% of resumes don’t make the first cut.

• A measly 2% of job applicants are selected for interviews – on average, primarily because of the advances in resume screening software (ATS) which screens out resumes that don’t include the proper combination of key words.

• The average job interview lasts about 40 minutes, but most impressions are made in the first 30 seconds, with some critical decisions being decided in the first 4 seconds.

•  Only half of polled candidates negotiated job offers, with only 26% of those individuals employing expert advice to assist in the decision.