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This paper tests the appropriateness of government employment policies in targeting specific groups of unemployed job seekers in the UK. A sample of 169 job seekers is divided into those who were successful and unsuccessful in finding employment and the attributes of each group is analysed. A factor analysis of these attributes is carried out in order to develop typical profiles of unsuccessful job seekers and these profiles are compared with current policy target groups. The findings show that high levels of accumulated human and financial capital, non‐metropolitan residence and accessibility to centres of employment have a positive impact on job search success. This casts doubt on the appropriateness of using socio‐demographic and local area characteristics to select job seekers for assistance, when other factors appear to have more bearing on job search success. The only current policy target group fully justified by this study is the long‐term unemployed, who had a significantly lower chance of finding unemployment.

The purpose of this paper is to consider the impact of the shift to a service‐based economy on the employability of unemployed job seekers, specifically focussing on skill acquisition and utilisation. The article considers the provision of training opportunities for unemployed people who are seeking to re‐enter the workplace, and whether such training is taking into account the skills demanded in interactive service work. The article also considers the views of unemployed people towards interactive service work.

The study employs a qualitative approach drawing on interview and focus group data gathered from policymakers, training providers and unemployed job seekers.

The data suggests there is little existing training provision for interactive service work for unemployed job seekers and that where it does exist it is not geared towards the skills demands of employers. It is also apparent from the research that unemployed job seekers hold a negative view of employment in the interactive service sector, due to both objective and subjective factors.

The research is limited to one geographical region and research in other regenerating cities could offer potentially different insights.

The article enjoins with policy debates which are focussing on skills training to enhance employability, considering the importance of apposite skills training. The article also examines the practical and attitudinal barriers to employment that prevent many unemployed jobseekers from gaining access to service sector employment.

The article offers a valuable contribution to ongoing debates surrounding access to employment in the service sector for unemployed job seekers.

The purpose of this paper is to test the gain and loss cycle ideas from the Conservation of Resources (COR) theory with regard to perceived employability and psychological functioning among employed workers and unemployed job seekers, respectively.

More specifically, the authors argue that perceived employability may trigger a gain cycle toward well-being among employed workers (H1), while ill-being may trigger a loss cycle toward reduced (perceived) employability among unemployed job seekers (H2). The authors test these ideas with cross-lagged analysis.

Results confirm the hypotheses: perceived employability at Time 1 positively affects well-being at Time 2 among employed workers and ill-being at Time 1 negatively impacts perceived employability at Time 2 among unemployed job seekers.

Future research should study the gain and loss cycles with more than two waves of data as this allows for a more adequate test of these ideas.

As for practitioners, the results suggest that investing in the worker’s perceived employability by offering training, career counseling, and networking opportunities, pays off as it promotes the employee’s psychological functioning. With regard to unemployed job seekers the authors advise investing in psychological counseling: the unemployed job seeker will be more able to invest in a job search, and hence perceive employability if helped in coping with job loss.

This study offers a new perspective on the relationship between perceived employability and psychological functioning by involving the principles of COR theory, in particular the gain and loss cycles.

Given the increasing diversity in the age of job seekers worldwide and evidence of perceptions of discrimination and stereotypes of job seekers at both ends of the age continuum, the purpose of this paper is to identify how perceptions of age-related bias are connected to age-related identity management strategies of unemployed job seekers.

Data were collected from 129 unemployed job-seeking adults who were participants in a career placement service. Participants completed paper-and-pencil surveys about their experiences of age-related bias and engagement in age-related identity management strategies during their job searches.

Older job seekers reported greater perceptions of age-related bias in employment settings, and perceptions of bias related to engaging in attempts to counteract stereotypes, mislead or miscue about one's age, and avoid age-related discussions in job searching. Individuals who were less anxious about their job search were less likely to mislead about age or avoid the topic of age, whereas individuals with higher job-search self-efficacy were more likely to acknowledge their age during their job search. Older job seekers higher in emotion control were more likely to acknowledge their age.

Little is known about how job seekers attempt to compensate for or avoid age-related bias. The study provides evidence that younger and older job seekers engage in age-related identity management and that job search competencies relate to engagement in particular strategies.

This paper reviews recent reforms to the UK’s main active labour market policy for the long‐term unemployed aged over 25: the so‐called New Deal 25 Plus. It discusses the appropriateness of the New Deal’s approach to the activation of these long‐term unemployed people, by drawing upon evidence from interviews with 115 job seekers in one urban labour market characterised by generally low unemployment rates. It is argued that these job seekers face a combination of personal and circumstantial barriers to work, best characterised as an “employability gap”. It is acknowledged that following recent reforms to the New Deal 25 Plus, the programme is better equipped to address some aspects of the employability gap faced by many long‐term unemployed people. However, it is argued that a stronger commitment to training within a “real work” environment and a more flexible approach to the administration of some social security benefits is required if the long‐term detachment from the labour market experienced by these job seekers is to be overcome.

The rapid growth of online social networking sites (“SNS”) such as LinkedIn and Facebook has created new forms of online labor market intermediation that are reconfiguring the hiring process in profound ways; yet, little is understood about the implications of these new technologies for job seekers navigating the labor market, or more broadly, for the careers and lives of workers. The existing literature has focused on digital inequality – workers’ unequal access to or skilled use of digital technologies – but has left unanswered critical questions about the emerging and broad effects of SNS as a labor market intermediary. Drawing on in-depth interviews with unemployed workers this paper describes job seekers’ experiences using SNS to look for work. The findings suggest that SNS intermediation of the labor market has two kinds of effects. First, as an intermediary for hiring, SNS produces labor market winners and losers involving filtering processes that often have little to do with evaluations of merit. Second, SNS filtering processes exert new pressures on all workers, whether winners or losers as perceived though this new filter, to manage their careers, and to some extent their private lives, in particular ways that fit the logic of the SNS-mediated labor market.

The purpose of this paper is to enhance the understanding of self-regulation during job search by integrating goal-orientation theory with a resource allocation framework.

The author surveyed job searching new labor market entrants at two time points and hypothesized that the effects of job seekers’ state goal orientations on indicators of self-regulation during the job search process (procrastination, anxiety, and guidance-seeking behaviors) depended on levels of employment goal commitment (EGC).

Results indicate that for job seekers with higher levels of EGC, a state learning-approach goal orientation (LGO) was beneficial for the job search process and a state performance-approach goal orientation (PGO) was detrimental. For job seekers with lower levels of EGC, a state LGO was detrimental to the search process, while a state PGO was beneficial.

This research extends the understanding of state goal orientation in the context of job search. Future research may replicate these findings with different samples of employed and unemployed job seekers and extend this research with additional conceptualizations of resource limitations.

The present research suggests that the effectiveness of learning-approach goal-orientation training methods in the context of job search must be considered in light of individual differences in resource availability. In particular, individuals with lower resources available for job searching may benefit from interventions focusing on increasing state PGO.

The present results suggest that EGC is an important moderator of the impact of job search goal orientation on indicators of self-regulation during job search, and therefore present important boundary conditions regarding the role of state goal orientation in the job search process.

Searching for a job is an important process that influences short- and long-term career outcomes as well as well-being and psychological health. As such, job search research has grown tremendously over the last two decades. In this chapter, the authors provide an overview of prior research, discuss important trends in current research, and suggest areas for future research. The authors conceptualize the job search as an unfolding process (i.e., a process through which job seekers navigate through stages to achieve their goal of finding and accepting a job) in which job seekers engage in self-regulation behaviors. The authors contrast research that has taken a between-person, static approach with research that has taken a within-person, dynamic approach and highlight the importance of combining between- and within-person designs in order to have a more holistic understanding of the job search process. Finally, authors provide some recommendations for future research. Much remains to be learned about what influences job search self-regulation, and how job self-regulation influences job search and employment outcomes depending on individual, contextual, and environmental factors.

This paper aims to estimate the impact of job search on the internet on the probability of re‐employment and the duration of unemployment spells.

The study uses national panel datasets from Germany (SOEP 2003‐2007) and South Korea (KLIPS 1996‐2006) to estimate probit and Hausman‐Taylor IV models of the impact of job search on the internet on the probability of re‐employment. The study also explores duration analysis with the aim of estimating the impact of internet job search on the duration of unemployment.

In Germany and South Korea job seekers who used the internet had a 7.1 and 12.7 percentage point higher probability, respectively, of being re‐employed in the next 12 months. Furthermore, job seekers who used the internet had a shorter duration of unemployment in both Germany and South Korea.

Over the past decade, internet penetration rates and use of the internet in job search have risen sharply across the world. The internet has significantly changed the job application process and improved the channels of communication between employers and job seekers. The findings of the research indicate that the internet is beneficial and should be a part of job search efforts.

The contribution of this study is twofold. It is the first study to use panel datasets to analyze the link between internet use and job search outcomes. Therefore, the results are robust to unobserved heterogeneity problems. The study also addresses the issue of endogeneity of job search on the internet by using the Hausman‐Taylor IV model.

The purpose of this study is to examine the (1) psychometric properties of Crossley and Highhouse's job search strategy scale and (2) the predictive utility of the scale on fit perceptions.

Data were collected from unemployed job seekers in Ghana (n_T1 = 720; n_T2 = 418). Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses were conducted to examine the data.

Exploratory factor analysis on the first random sub-sample (n = 362) supported a three-factor model. Confirmatory factor analysis on the second random sub-sample (n = 358) confirmed the three-factor structure and was invariant across job search contexts and genders. Moreover, structural path results showed that the use of focussed and exploratory job search strategies facilitated positive fit perceptions and the use of haphazard job search resulted in poor job fit perceptions.

This study is the first to examine the dimensionality of job search strategies based on different job search context by linking it to fit perceptions. Moreover, the authors provide evidence that the job search strategy scale has a valid psychometric property and a promising instrument to assess job search behaviour across job search contexts and genders in an understudied population.