The average job seeker spends 18 minutes a day looking for a job.

And that datapoint has created an uproar online about the ignorant people who are dumb enough to think that 18 minutes a day is a sufficient and/or appropriate amount of time to find a job.

So, with visions of my hard-earned tax dollars helping some lazy bums take  paid vacations at my expense, I decided to look into it.

1. )  My first thought was to see how DOL defined “job hunting” in this study.

The people at the Department of Labor tend to be very open and very specific, in an economist/statistician kind of way, and they provide mountains of data on unemployment.

I was sure that they had studied the process, in great detail, and had defined specific tasks (or a task) that they were able to measure accurately in some statistically-meaningful group of appropriate people.

I pictured the 18 minutes maybe being a measurement of time spent writing cover letters or a similar, clearly job-hunt related task.

But after 15 minutes of research on the DOL site, and on the greater Web using Google, Google Scholar, Google Blog Search, and Bing, I couldn’t find ANY specific DOL study about the 18 minutes.

I found many references to the 18 minutes, but not a single link to a DOL Web page that actually showed the data. Interesting!  Perhaps if I’d spent more time researching or had more coffee, I’d have found it, but I’m surprised it didn’t show up in the first 15 minutes.

So, right now, I’m skeptical that a DOL report about 18 minutes a day actually exists.  It certainly could.  Harper’s Index seems to think that it does, but I can’t find it.

2.)  My second thought is that 18 minutes just might be correct.

Averaged out and including all the very discouraged people, many of whom seem to have given up and also many of whom seem not to know how to job hunt, 18 minutes may not be far off the mark.

3.)  My third thought is that, as usual, we don’t know what we don’t know.

In the mid- to late-1990’s, I taught online job hunting classes in adult education classes, outplacement organizations, even the Massachusetts Division of Employment and Training.

Starting around 2000, the adult ed classes didn’t fill.  People thought that they knew enough about it to do it without any help. SO NOT TRUE!  It’s only gotten more complicated since the late 1990’s.  But, there is also an exponentially greater amount of information about online job search available online, much of it very good, if people read it.

Referencing my earlier blog post this month about the woman who had wasted this whole year doing her job hunting all wrong.

So many people apparently watched all those Super Bowl ads in the 1990’s, and they still believe that all they need to do to find a job is post their resume on a big job board.  They just don’t know any differently.

Earlier this year, a guy was sending me weekly Tweets: I’ve sent out 1,100 resumes, with no response.  Then,  1,200 resumes with no response.  Then, 1,300 resumes with no response.  How to you define insanity – doing the same thing over and over with no success.  Eventually he stopped sending them, but I don’t know why.

4.)  Finally, spend that 18 minutes a day the most efficiently way you can (and, of course, increase it to several hours a day).

Read my Job-Search Short Cuts post for some ideas to get started. Read other Job-Hunt articles.  Read the blogs in the blog lists.  Use the Job-Hunt Directories of resources.

Bottom Line

If people are, on average, spending only 18 minutes a day on their job search, that’s a tragedy of monumental proprotions, because, unless they are extremely lucky, that just won’t cut it.  I believe that there are an enormous number (millions!) of extremely discouraged people who need to go to a job search support group where they can get help with their job search.

About the author …

Online job search expert Susan P. Joyce has been observing the online job search world and teaching online job search skills since 1995. Susan is a two-time layoff “graduate” who has worked in human resources at Harvard University and in a compensation consulting firm. In 1998, her company, NETability, Inc. purchased Job-Hunt.org, and Susan has been editor and publisher of Job-Hunt since then. Follow Susan on Twitter @JobHuntOrg.

The criteria:

1.)  The Twitter account was “findable” using either/both Twitter Search functions(People and search.twitter.com) or Google’s site search.

2.)  The account indicated, hopefully in the Name, that it represented a specific employer.

3.)  The account linked to the named employer’s Website.

4.)  Some indication in the Bio section that the account was for recruiting.

5.)  That jobs were being Tweeted more often than raining-here-today Tweets.

6.)  The account was reasonably active in Tweeting.

7.)  The Tweets were a relatively constant stream.

8.)  There was reasonably current activity in the Twitter account.

9.) The links to jobs in the Tweets, when clicked, went to either the employer’s Website or to a legitimate job site with verifiable employer contact information for the contact in the posting.

The 2 Twitter search functions, combined with Google site search of Twitter as back-up, were used to find these accounts. No other Websites were accessed.

A major concern behind the creation of these lists is the vast number of bogus sites out there, probably including bogus Twitter accounts, trying to reel in job seekers for fraud, identity theft, etc.  So, every attempt was made to ensure that these accounts are genuine.

Good luck with your job search!

(c) Copyright 2009.  Job-Hunt.org  All rights reserved.

About the author…

Online job search expert Susan P. Joyce has been observing the online job search world and teaching online job search skills since 1995. Susan is a two-time layoff “graduate” who has worked in human resources at Harvard University and in a compensation consulting firm. In 1998, her company, NETability, Inc. purchased Job-Hunt.org, and Susan has been editor and publisher of Job-Hunt since then. Follow Susan on Twitter @JobHuntOrg.

New “green” job sites are sprouting up everywhere.  Colleges are rushing to add these curricula to their offerings as soon as they can identify – and retain – qualified faculty members.

Businesses are rushing to fill the need caused by higher fuel prices with everything from new, more energy-efficient products to natural gas-powered taxi cabs, like the one I recently used to get from SEATAC to downtown Seattle.

The current cost of oil, gasoline, etc. may be hurting our pocket books right now, but science and industry are rushing to solve the problems for us – higher mileage cars, solar panels generating electricity,  alternate fuels for transportation, heating/air conditioning, and power.

This could be the biggest mistake made by the oil industry and the oil-producing countries -  these higher prices have finally made alternative energy sources more economically sound.  In the long run, assuming we survive, this could be a really good thing for the economy and the environment.

All this turmoil and change are going to generate real economic growth and new job opportunites for everyone from the solar panel installer to the biochemist developing new biofuels!  I’m not happy about the price I pay to put gas in my car or to heat my home this winter, but the “silver lining” is visible. 

If you are interested in finding a “green collar” job, check out EcoEmploy, a site which is focused on “environmental jobs and careers.”