The 24-hour Job Search

The Age

Friday November 24, 2000

THE easiest way to get a job is to have a job already. Catch 22! Will someone currently in work be a better bet than someone unemployed? Not necessarily. Anyone desperate to get a job is likely to work particularly hard in order to keep it and establish themselves. Finding where to enter the system is the hard part.

Lynne Kosky, Victorian Minister for Post-Compulsory Education, Training and Employment, is keen to put Australian companies back in touch with a wider pool of potential workers.

``In many cases, young people simply need to establish their own job-seeking networks," she says. ``Early school leavers, boys in particular, are often still connected to the Internet. It is a way of reaching them.

``That's why the Victorian Government has sponsored the construction of a website for Jobs Marathon 2000 (www.jobsmarathon.com.au). It will allow thousands more people unable to come in person to access the range of jobs on offer and discover valuable employment tips."

Internet sites are becoming more relevant every year. Most young people have learned how to search the web at school and more than one-third of homes with children under 18 now have Internet access. With more than a quarter of all homes being connected, and most employers using websites, the gap between employers searching for suitable workers and people searching for jobs, should be narrowing.

How about the long-term unemployed and people from disadvantaged backgrounds? Although they are less likely to have direct Internet access, Lynne Kosky believes people only need to become aware of the possibilities for jobseekers in order to start using facilities at the local library or employment agency.

``When you're unemployed, you can see no apparent end to this incredibly depressing period. Self-esteem plummets with every knockback - answering ads alongside dozens of more experienced people, `cold-calling' businesses that are not even interested in employing anyone. How can you home in on the hidden job markets?"

Jobs Marathon 2000 is a way of cutting out the bad experiences. The Victorian Government is strongly supporting this expo, where school leavers and people looking for career change can see a whole range of ways of reaching their goals.

``They need to find out how to plan for different pathways," explains the minister. ``They can think about where they're going, get a sense of the future, look at all sorts of alternatives they didn't know were possible. It is exciting to jump into new and unexpected areas. Jobs Marathon will help young people examine the many possibilities for staying connected to learning, the surest way of improving career prospects."

The new website has been up and running for employers since June. As part of the SEEK site, www.seek.com.au, it will come alive during the marathon, listing thousands of actual job positions.

Many other organisations present will feature website search opportunities as part of their displays. The Department of Employment will have representatives showing people how to find links to jobs through www.employment.vic.gov.au as well as providing contact points for services tailored to the young unemployed such as the Youth Employment Scheme and the Private Sector Skills Development Program.

The Federal Government will also be at the Jobs Marathon with its online recruitment site, www.jobsearch.gov.au. Here, employers can lodge job descriptions and employees can lodge resumes.

It's a new world for jobseekers.

The downside is that you don't see the workplace or fellow workers until you get an interview. The upside is the dignity and choice that comes from self-selection through Internet search.

And with email responses beating snail-mail by days, the search becomes both rapid and exciting.