If you’re a Recruiter, a good piece was published the other day on CNN’s website regarding the worst states for job hunting that you should spend some time with.

One frequently overlooked, but critical factor in finding a new job is a state’s Unemployment Rate - - hardly a news flash to us in the Recruiting industry.

The Unemployment Rate is the percentage of job seekers in the work force who are still looking for work. The higher the percentage, the more difficult it is to find a job.

You can have all the experience and necessary skills to make you a Peak Performer, but they won’t do you any good if there aren’t enough jobs available.

Obviously, the lack of enough jobs that need to be filled will directly affect the workload and assignments for Recruiters who are trying to make a living.

Some of the key highlights from this article include…

* High unemployment rates can handicap job seekers (nothing new there).
* Michigan, Mississippi, and South Carolina are the worst states (interesting).

Surprisingly absent from the Top 10 is New York (29th). Being based in Western New York, I have experienced first-hand the effects of a lack of recruiting opportunities both locally and statewide.

In fact, that’s the primary reason why Paramount Recruiting Partners, LLC began as a National Sales Executive Search Firm from day one in the first place despite the fact that we’re headquartered here in Buffalo, NY.

The National Unemployment Rate is 5% based on the most recent data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). Yet, you might think that the BLS info is BS given all the contrasting information on this subject like this for example, which shows that jobs are down for the first time since 2003 (or 5 years ago). We’re definitely not in a “crisis” mode yet.

So what’s the solution for candidates and Recruiters alike?

Well, if you’re a candidate you to need stay committed to your job search. Rely on faith and keep hope alive because it’s always darkest just before the dawn.

As Recruiters, we need to be more creative in our approach to not only finding new recruiting opportunities, but in our ability to secure a partnership with employers.

We also need to sharpen our skills and become better at what we do because it stands to reason that if the opportunities for placements are less and less we’ll need to be very good at finding top talent and placing them so that we can continue to earn a paycheck.