Just hearing the word “long” used to grate on me, when I'd hear this question as a job seeker.

Vote now:

How long have you been job searching?

  • More than a year (35%, 68 Votes)
  • 6-12 months (22%, 43 Votes)
  • Just started this past month (16%, 30 Votes)
  • 1-3 months (15%, 28 Votes)
  • 3-6 months (12%, 23 Votes)
Started: March 14, 2010 @ 10:00 am

Total Voters: 194

What many job seekers don't realize

When I ask job seekers how long it's been since their job search began, a typical reply is “too long.”

Yeah, I know what you mean.

Sometimes people will say “well, I just started looking…” but almost NO ONE ever says “for the position I'm looking for, in today's market, in this city, it takes 4-6 months on the average to find a new job. I've been looking for 3 months, so it's still early…”

After I resigned from my job at Amazon in the summer of 2001, I thought it would take 1 month to find a new job. And that was just after I'd moved back to Jerusalem and had no idea how much (lack of) demand there was for my skillset there at the time. I was so clueless. I thought employers would be impressed by my Amazon achievements and I'd have my pick of offers.

Really.

Why did I think it would only take me just 1 month? Because my previous job had taken about that long to find. Having been my first full-time career job, I didn't know any better.

Now I know better… but that's a topic for an upcoming article.

How did you estimate how long your current job search should take?

If you liked this article, you'll enjoy [POLL RESULTS AND ANALYSIS] Which Social Media Network Are You Using MOST in Your Job Search?.

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Jacob Share

Job Search Expert, Professional Blogger, Creative Thinker, Community Builder with a sense of humor. I like to help people.

This Post Has 14 Comments

  1. Yehoshua Paul

    Believe it or not, but yes, I started looking for work this past month. I knew my contract was going to expire after Pesach so I started looking. I have been busy this year networking and making many contacts in my field so that when I started looking I had a good idea where to start. I have had two interviews in two days, and am scheduled for a third Sunday. Moral of the story: don’t wait until you are unemployed to build a network and start looking for a job. Always think two steps ahead.

  2. Pingback: Laura Vainio

  3. Shaikovski

    HB ! 🙂

    I enjoyed the tips linked to one of your articles to evaluate manager behavior (useful for your future manager BUT ALSO for the one you have today and yourself 🙂

  4. Shaikovski

    (sorry – my comment is on a wrong post 🙂

  5. Scott Seltzer

    When the company I was working for downsized, they sent us to a job seminar at one of the employment agencies. We were told that statistically, most people should find jobs in about 2 months. I was recently looking at the list of 20+ fired people and a majority did find work in the first few months since we were fired.

    So, if 50+% find work in lets say 3 months I wonder what percentage find work in 6 months, how many in 9 months, how many in a year, and how many in more than a year?

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