Categories
Background Checks Business Research Human Resources Miscellany preemployment screening Retaining Employees Staffing Uncategorized

Harris Poll Says Job Seekers Stressed Out

The Harris Poll has just declared that job seekers are stressed out.   Like, not kidding.   According to the poll, which surveyed some 2,300 hundred  employed and unemployed workers a third reported physical and emotional symptoms as a result of not being able to find work.   The survey was conducted for Glassdoor.com.

Those the most stressed out were between the ages of 35 to 44.   This makes sense as most in this group have experienced strong economic growth and career opportunities, probably since they first joined the workforce.  Older workers have had enough years before the mast to experience bad times.  A great deal of younger employees have often confronted job insecurity since they first got out of school.   The economic picture has been, for some years now, bleak for a fair share of our younger workers.

The stress of finding work has interfered with everything from family life to romance.  It’s tough to be romantic when you are worried where your next door is coming from.  Unfortunately, there have been legions of people who have experienced the same thing for many generations.   Not eating or being able to pay your mortgage can induce stress.

While on the macro level, there are reports that the economy is turning around.   But for the person out of work, who really knows?   If you aren’t working, then it’s a depression.   If you are working, then in many cases you are waiting for the axe fall.   It’s hard to say which is worse.   But either way it stinks.

Couple that with spare time on your hands.   You go on Facebook and the social networks a little too often.  You post things you maybe shouldn’t.  You grouse, or you carry on.   Beware.  Because in a buyer’s market employers are being very persnickety, and what you post out of either or frustration can come back to haunt you.   And employer runs background checks as part of its pre-employment screening program and one of the background searches is to monitor social media.   It has been on the increase, believe me.  If they don’t like what they read, or what is reported to them by a third party background checking party, and you are passed over for another employment candidate.

More stress.   So be cool and be careful what you post and where you allow your frustration to show.   And hang in there.  Things will turn around.

By Gordon Basichis

Gordon Basichis is the Co-Founder of Corra Group, specializing in pre-employment background checks and corporate research. He has been a marketing and media executive and has worked in the entertainment industry, the financial, health care and technology sectors. He is the author of the best selling Beautiful Bad Girl, The Vicki Morgan Story, a non-fiction novel that helped define exotic sexuality in the late twentieth century. He is the author of the Constant Travellers and has recently completed a new book, The Guys Who Spied for China, dealing with Chinese Espionage in the United States. He has been a journalist for several newspapers and is a screenwriter and producer.

One reply on “Harris Poll Says Job Seekers Stressed Out”