Accessing the Hidden Job Market: How to Find an SME Job
Publié le 29 April 2013
If you’re tired of the long, tedious, competitive process of applying to large companies, why not try tapping the “hidden job market” of SMEs? While the opportunities are sometimes under the radar, the rewards can be great.
Many students are unaware of how many SMEs are out there—and similarly, SMEs face difficulties with recruiting. Because they have less brand recognition and fewer resources dedicated to hiring, SMEs reach students in different ways than larger organizations.
Most SMEs recruit students through university and college job boards, says Karen Fast, manager of the career centre at Humber College.
At campus recruitment events, the smaller companies don’t get as high a turnout as the large ones. “Sometimes it can be challenging for them to draw attendance out of an information session. It comes down to students just don’t know what they have to offer, and it can be a competitive marketplace for employers,” says Ian Ingles, manager of employer services at Ryerson University’s Career Development and Employment Centre. Thus it’s much easier and more cost-effective for SMEs to post through job boards.
But students can seek out SMEs themselves to ask about job opportunities as well—sometimes the positions aren’t advertised at all. “You may have to do a little more digging to find [SMEs],” Ingles says. One way to find them is through the business directories available in your campus career centre. “You can search for organizations based on industry codes and get a listing of companies, and even do those searches geographically as well,” he says. “That’s a good way to uncover a lot of small and medium-sized organizations that don’t have well-known brands out there.”
A more personal process
Once you’ve found a company that interests you, it’s time to apply. You’ll find the process of applying to SMEs is a lot more personal than applying to large companies. Instead of filling out lengthy online questionnaires and completing several interviews with various managers in the company, the application process is shorter and more direct.
“You get a personal email address to send it to, rather than ‘Info@’ or ‘Recruiting@.’ And there’s usually a phone number, so give them a call and chat with them,” Fast says. “Also, your chance of having your resumé actually seen by the employer is way higher, like 80 to 90 percent higher. So you want to make sure that your resumé is in amazing shape.”
It’s always important to tailor your resumé to the company you’re applying for, but even more so for SMEs. “One comment those employers have made to me is that a generic resumé won’t work. You have to customize and target your resumé to their company and industry,” Fast says. “They want not only technical skills, but also that personal fit.”
Other ways of hiring
Fast says that SMEs are less likely to use social media to recruit—they tend to stick with email or fax. However, if a small company is using social media, she says they are likely using LinkedIn.
Though campus recruitment events are a popular way to find out about jobs, they’re not an effective way to find SMEs, Fast and Ingles say. SMEs often only have a handful of positions to hire for, and don’t have the resources to send an employee to represent them at these events. However, they can be seen at other job fairs. Daniel Levesque, president of the National Job Fair & Training Expo, says there are always SMEs at his fair, and if you speak with them there you will get a much more personal experience.
“Often… the president is at the show recruiting. So if you talk to the president, you cannot talk to anyone higher than that to get a job,” Levesque says. He also says that you can actually get hired and start working at an SME much sooner than with large organizations. “You don’t have a lot of levels between the first step of the hiring process to the last step for hiring,” he says.
Less competition
“I would say 90 percent of students go for the large companies, the companies with a popular name,” Fast says. “Because 98 percent of all companies are SMEs, why would you continue to think about large companies, when if you go to the smaller companies your chance of employment is much higher?”
Ingles also says that the competition for SME jobs is less steep, and students will find lots of opportunities that aren’t attracting tons of applicants if they do a little digging. Plus, the benefits that come from working at an SME make the hunt worth it. “There are some unique advantages. In a lot of cases you get a more varied type of position in terms of a wider range of duties and responsibilities,” he says.
Fast agrees: “They get to build their skills and make themselves more marketable. As a new graduate, I think that is one of the best things that they can do.”
Jordan Adams is a Carleton University journalism graduate.
For more information, please visit: careers.humber.ca, ryerson.ca/career, thenationaljobfair.com, careeroptionsmagazine.com
By Jordan Adams
