Feb 15
2010
[POLL RESULTS AND ANALYSIS] How Much Time Do You Spend Job Searching Every Day?

Just like in our last poll, I find the 2nd place result to be surprising.

I originally thought to have a new poll for you every week, but since each poll gets an announcement post and a results post, weekly polls would result in half of JobMob articles being poll-related. So I’m going to stick with monthly polls for now and we’ll see how that goes.

The poll results and what they mean

Here are the official results of the poll:

26% More than 4 hours

The cliché so often repeated is that job search is a full-time job, and it looks like many people are taking that idea seriously. I just hope they include time in there for networking and improving their skills.

23% 0-30 minutes

It doesn’t look like most job seekers only spend 18 minutes job hunting after all.

Surprise, surprise.

Hopefully, these people already have a job and are doing the smart thing by spending a few minutes per day to keep their eyes open for something better than their current position.

If that’s not the case, then these people might really be lazy. Of course some people are, but what’s more likely is that they have job search depression and are so completely demotivated that 30 minutes is all they can manage before getting fed up. If that’s the case, the 30 minutes are probably not even very productive, and they’re better off seeking help for their depression.

22% 2-4 hours

I’d like to see more people here.

Ideally, on the average you would spend half your day (4 hours) on job search tasks and the other half on networking and investing in yourself, learning new skills or improving the ones you already have.

16% 1-2 hours

13% 30-60 minutes

Simply put, unless you’re already employed, these last two answers are just not enough time spent on your job search each day. Don’t be surprised if your search drags on for months longer than necessary.

Most importantly…

Update 27/06/10: This article does a great job of pointing out the most important insight that I didn’t mention here above: if you combine the results, 74% of job seekers are spending 4 hours or less job searching on a daily basis. That’s not enough!

Most job search experts agree with the cliché that job search is a full-time job. If you’re unemployed, that’s how you should treat your job search. There is disagreement over how to spend that time – I recommend half your day on “active” job search, half your day on improving your skills – but either way, keeping a job search as short as possible means putting in the right amount of effort to get that result.

To everyone who voted: please tell us in the comments how you spend the time on a typical job search day.

If you liked this article, you’ll enjoy [POLL RESULTS AND ANALYSIS] If You’re Looking For A Job, Did You…

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--Jacob Share

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  Tags: polls, productivity, saving-time     Filed under: Numbers & Statistics