Old-school networking still key to landing a job, recruitment experts say

When Rose Asgharzadeh moved to Calgary in 2023, she wasn’t worried about finding a job. Her 14 years of experience teaching human resources at a university in Iran made her a literal expert on finding a job.  

But after 500 applications on LinkedIn and Indeed — mostly to corporate HR departments — Asgharzadeh had received virtually no response, apart from a little feedback that she lacked Canadian job experience, or was overqualified due to her PhD.

“It was very frustrating and very disappointing,” Asgharzadeh told Cost of Living. “So what should I do? Should I delete my PhD from my resume?”

Asgharzadeh took courses and workshops to boost her knowledge of the Canadian human resources landscape. She’d spend five or six hours daily scouring jobs posts, tailoring her resume and applying to around 10 positions each day.

But it wasn’t until she pivoted to in-person networking, going on a whopping 79 coffee meetups, that she landed a job.

Asgharzadeh stumbled upon an important and somewhat surprising truth about the labour market: Even in a world where online job applications appear to be the norm, it still takes in-person networking to reveal a significant portion of the opportunities.

While there’s no definitive data on the subject, some estimates and surveys have suggested the “hidden” job market” may account for anywhere between 50 and 70 per cent of all positions.

Employers try ‘lots of different methods’

Brendon Bernard, senior economist for job site Indeed Canada, says it’s hard to quantify exactly, but data from Statistics Canada’s job vacancy and wage survey provide some helpful insights.

For every vacancy reported from the survey’s representative sample of all industries, employers are asked to select all their methods used to fill that role. 

In the third quarter of 2024, the most recent for which data is available, online job boards were selected the most often, at 79.8 per cent. But just behind were personal contacts, referrals and informal networks, at 72.5 per cent. 

Company websites and social media were the third and fourth most popular.

“It’s clear that companies are trying lots of different methods,” said Bernard.

April Dyrda, a registered psychologist and career coach with Canada Career Counselling, says if you’re only applying for jobs online, you could be missing out.

“One of the tips that we always recommend is for every one job application you submit online, try to make two genuine curious connections outside of that,” said Dyrda, who lives in Calgary. That can mean letting your network know you’re looking for work in a particular field, she said, reaching out to individuals you know in that industry to ask if they know of opportunities, or approaching new people for coffee…