Nailed a Job Interview? Prepare to Wait for an Offer
The improving job market may have more people looking for jobs, but the experience of doing so has gotten rougher.
Job seekers last year had to wait an average of 23 days after an initial interview to find out whether they gotten the job or not. That’s nearly twice the 13 days the interview process took in 2010, according to a new report from Glassdoor.com.
It’s also far longer than the global average of just under four days. Part of the reason for the extended process in the United States is an increase in the use of background checks, skills tests, and drug tests.
Related: The Top 10 Hiring Myths
Police officers faced the longest hiring process (128 days), followed by patent examiners (88 days), and assistant professors (58.7) days.
“Right now hiring delays can represent money left on the table both for workers and employers,” Glassdoor Chief Economist Andrew Chamberlain said in a statement.
When employers can’t find the right worker, vacancies stay open for an average of two months, according to a separate report last spring by CareerBuilder. A fifth of employers said those vacancies stay open for more than six months, on average.
Those employers said the extended vacancies led to lower morale, a reduction in productivity, and declines in customer service.
Lower-skilled jobs tended to get filled most quickly. Entry-level marketing jobs were filled most quickly (four days), followed by entry-level sales (five days), and servers and bartenders (six days), according to the GlassDoor report.
Budget ‘Chaos’ Threatens Army Reset: Retired General
One thing is standing in the way of a major ongoing effort to reset the U.S. Army, writes Carter Ham, a retired four-star general who’s now president and CEO of the Association of the U.S. Army, at Defense One. “The problem is the Washington, D.C., budget quagmire.”
The issue is more than just a matter of funding levels. “What hurts more is the erratic, unreliable and downright harmful federal budget process,” which has forced the Army to plan based on stopgap “continuing resolutions” instead of approved budgets for nine straight fiscal years. “A slowdown in combat-related training, production delays in new weapons, and a postponement of increases in Army troop levels are among the immediate impacts of operating under this ill-named continuing resolution. It’s not continuous and it certainly doesn’t display resolve.”
Pentagon Pushes for Faster F-35 Cost Cuts
The Pentagon has taken over cost-cutting efforts for the F-35 program, which has been plagued by years of cost overruns, production delays and technical problems. The Defense Department rejected a cost-saving plan proposed by contractors including principal manufacturer Lockheed Martin as being too slow to produce substantial savings. Instead, it gave Lockheed a $60 million contract “to pursue further efficiency measures, with more oversight of how the money was spent,” The Wall Street Journal’s Doug Cameron reports. F-35 program leaders “say they want more of the cost-saving effort directed at smaller suppliers that haven’t been pressured enough.” The Pentagon plans to cut the price of the F-35A model used by the Air Force from a recent $94.6 million each to around $80 million by 2020. Overall, the price of developing the F-35 has climbed above $400 billion, with the total program cost now projected at $1.53 trillion. (Wall Street Journal, CNBC)
Chart of the Day - October 6, 2017
Financial performance for insurers in the individual Obamacare markets is improving, driven by higher premiums and slower growth in claims. This suggests that the market is stabilizing. (Kaiser Family Foundation)
Quote of the Day - October 5, 2017
"The train's left the station, and if you're a budget hawk, you were left at the station." -- Rep. Mark Sanford, R-S.C.