Who said being jobless is not a big deal anyway?
While being unemployed for 3 months can sometimes seem like an eternity, the research suggests that most job seekers won’t experience and disadvantage from that status. This is apparently especially true for jobs that don’t require a great deal of specialized skills.
The biggest surprise came from those low-skill job applications. Apparently, many employers viewed that brief stint of unemployment as a bonus, since those applicants were readily available for immediate work
Being unemployed for about six months also didn’t seem to impact the job search much. And again, this was more apparent in low-skill jobs. However, that six month period probably pushes the envelope when it comes to maintaining your chances for an interview.
The research results seemed to suggest diminishing odds of success after that first half-year of being unemployed.
Here’s where things get truly interesting. There is a downside to being unemployed for 9 months or more, and that downside encompasses both low and medium-skilled positions. According to the study’s results, once you’ve been unemployed for longer than 9 months, you can expect a significant drop-off in interview requests. The fake resumes sent out by the researchers suffered a 20 percent decline in responsiveness from employers.
However, high-skill jobs didn’t experience that same decline. Some believe that is due to the more complex hiring processes in place at those types of companies.
Unfortunately, there’s no way around this last fact: being unemployed for more than a year can really put a damper on your job prospects. In fact, the research indicated that resumes with a current lengthy period of joblessness experienced little success at landing interviews.
There is good news, though. Once you land that first job after being unemployed for a year or more, your future job search prospects improve dramatically the gap doesn’t continue to impact future hiring.
