Many people are looking for work but are unable to secure a job. 

As of July, the national unemployment rate was 4.3% and in Ohio, it was at 4.5%. According to The Bureau of Labor Statistics, there are more than 8 million open jobs, yet many people are struggling to find new opportunities. 

Tom Johnston, a longtime executive search recruiter and author of the new book “Where’s Your Buffalo: A Recruiter's Guide To Getting The Career You Want, Earning What You're Worth, And Doing What You Love” said a lot of it comes down to the fact that many people just don’t know how to find that they’re looking for.

“First of all, basically at that rate, we're at full employment,” Johnston said. “There's plenty of opportunities out there. But I think the biggest reason is people don't know how to look for a new job. It’s very, very difficult. A lot of the different methodologies that people are trying, it just doesn't work.”

The landscape for applying for jobs has changed drastically over the years with technology making it seemingly easier than ever for people to find jobs and apply for them. People often use job board sites like LinkedIn and Indeed, but Johnston said they’re not very effective. 

“From the very beginning, it's been a flawed and broken system,” Johnston said. “Early on, when these job boards came out, they made anybody can apply for anything that they wanted. So technology went in and started building different methodologies to eliminate candidates. So you apply for a job, they're not out there trying to be inclusive, they're trying to exclude you. It really doesn't work. In addition, job boards, LinkedIn, they're public sites. Nobody should be knowing you're looking for a new opportunity until you ultimately have that and want everyone to know. So the fact that it's a public site, and the fact that it really eliminates people, the whole system really doesn't work. And it's very, very frustrating. People apply for jobs typically they're not even getting a response.”

Johnston has been in the world of talent acquisition for more than 35 years. He said the vast majority of the roles that are filled today are not done on the job boards, they're not through hiring recruiters or by internal referrals.

He recommends people learn how to flip the model and become their own executive recruiter. In his book, he teaches people how to leverage the techniques he’s learned over the years to go from being a reactive seeker to a proactive hunter.

“Find the companies that will allow you to do the things you want to do, your dream job, not the ones that are posting open jobs,” Johnston said. “By the time it gets on the internet, it's too late. What you want to do is find those companies that really align with your goals. Build relationships with people in those organizations so that when the open role comes up, they're going to reach out to the internal referrals way before they post it on the internet, way before they call an expensive recruiter to come help them.”

For more information about his new book and other job search tools Johnston has, you can visit here.