The industries that are hiring in New Hampshire

Conventional wisdom would seem to dictate that this is no time to expect to get a new job in New Hampshire. This recession is deep and has caused a rise in unemployment rates to levels not seen since the early 1990s, currently at 6.9 percent. That’s not good news if you’re unemployed and hoping to get hired, or if you’re feeling stuck in an unsatisfying job and would like something better.

But as bad as it is out there, this is not the Great Depression with a 25 percent unemployment rate. The truth is, there are thousands of positions waiting to be filled in the state in various industries. Finding one of them becomes much easier with the right outlook and information.

So, how does the New Hampshire job-seeker find optimism and maybe a decent job today? Who is hiring? Here are some hopeful ways to frame the situation.

One is to realize that most jobs, as many as 80 percent of open positions, are filled via networking. These are the openings that never make the newspaper classifieds or Monster.com. Many hiring managers in a variety of industries prefer the “passive candidate,” one who comes referred from a trusted source. These candidates can be found both from within and exclusive of organizations with jobs to offer.

If you’re seeking work and are not systematically networking, then you are placing yourself at a great disadvantage. There is a range of techniques to this tactic, but suffice it to say that you should know the industry with which you have history and experience and develop the skills necessary to leverage the contacts you have within it to discover employment opportunities.

Meta job tools

Another way to measure the hiring demand in the state is to take long-term and short-term views. By long-term, I mean knowing the state’s Economic and Labor Market Information Bureau’s employment projections for 2006-2016. These economists know that there are going to be employment and economic fluctuations over that long of a period of time, but they have nevertheless drawn a favorable outlook for nearly all industries. And some sectors come out very favorably.

Occupations in health care practice and support, education and training, community, social and personal care services, and computer and technical support are all expected to show high growth over the next several years. Clearly, these are industries to pay attention to.

Long-term projections are fine, but how do they relate to now? If you are currently in need of work you may not have the patience to wait for a trend to materialize.

One way to get a macro view of what kind of jobs are getting posted in a specific location such as New Hampshire is to use one of the meta job search engines, such as indeed.com or simplyhired.com. These scan all of the many job-posting Web sites, online classifieds and recruiters’ postings and come up with a good aggregate range of what job openings are being advertised online.

When using these meta tools for New Hampshire industries, you can find thousands of posted openings, particularly in education and training, management across many sectors (everyone is always on the look out for good leadership talent), sales, technical installation and support, design, architecture and engineering, community, social and personal care. I know we hear a lot about an increase in construction jobs due to the federal stimulus money, but compared to the industries mentioned those jobs are few.

Sure, this is one of those tough times to get work. The best way to deal with the situation is to arm yourself with useful industry information and refined job search skills to market yourself adequately for the competitive job scene. Doing both well may actually improve yourself professionally and personally for years to come. nhbr

Bill Ryan, founder of Ryan Career Services LLC, Concord, can be reached at 603-724-2289 or bill@ryancareerservices.com.