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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 study aims to investigate the extent to which Generation Y job seekers use social media to enhance their job search experience.

The chapter draws on an in-depth analysis of qualitative data gathered from 29 interviews with recent university graduates in Human Resource Management (HRM).

The findings of this study challenge popular stereotypes and anecdotes which seem to suggest that the power of technology come naturally and easily to Generation Y users (The Economist, 2010). It also suggests that young people, particularly graduates are unprepared for the job market. Many of them are stuck in the traditional ways of looking for a job despite the information that is available for them to exploit modern technologies to enhance their job search experience.

Colleges and universities should include modern job search techniques such as social media into their curricula. In addition, career centers and employers need to play their part in disseminating information about how social media can be used by graduates to search for jobs.

The study emphasizes the need for individual users to exploit technology such as social media to enhance their professional and career success.

Purpose – This study develops a theoretical argument that social networks are embedded in the macro-level institutional environment. From the perspective of institutional embeddedness, I investigate the changing patterns and implications of social networks in job search and job earnings after China's overhaul of its employment system in the mid-1990s.Methodology/approach – The empirical evidence is drawn from 2003 Chinese General Social Survey data. I conduct statistical analyses to examine the roles of networks in job search and earning disparity by comparing two groups who obtained the job before and after the emerging labor market in urban China, respectively.Findings –Social networks have become much more popular in job search in the emerging labor market. Use of social networks in job search has also become more differentiated across job positions and employment organizations. While managerial status of the key helper and direct ties yield greater returns to employee earnings, strong indirect ties make less contribution to job earnings in the emerging labor market than that under the state-dominated employment system.Research implications – The findings suggest that we should analyze the concrete institutional environment to appreciate the roles of social networks in job search and social inequality.Originality/value – This study highlights that institutions are the key factor to shape the patterns and significance of social networks. As institutions evolve, network patterns and their significance can change accordingly.

Introduction – The most basic rule of job search is job search behaviour. Job search behaviour is defined as the effort of the individual, time spent on various activities in order to find a job. In the current competitive labour market – the modern employment environment, where many employees who may have a temporary employment status, where the use of outsourcing is common practice, or where there are those who are under-employed, there is great importance in adopting a robust job search behaviour for job seekers. However, employees may have other factors that affect their job search behaviour. In Trusty, Allen, and Fabian (2019), various motivational categories were put forward. These seven different categories range from wanting to avoid undesirable situations in the workplace to finding better job search methods.

Purpose – This article seeks to explain the data related to this research; it will focus on combining positive psychological capital with seven different sources of motivation, as categorised in Trusty et al. (2019).

Methodology – The method that will be used for this article will consist of a semi-structured interviews, which were used as a vehicle to gather qualitative research and for data collection. The interview questions were prepared using the seven different categories of motivation as detailed by Trusty et al. (2019) and related literature to determine the job search behaviour of the employees.

Findings – The findings will also include input from managers of human resources department employees, where job search behaviour was found to be high, indications suggest problems caused within the working environment, includes poor working relationships with colleagues and supervisors. Also the inability to optimise the skills of individuals and limited career progression opportunities are examples that effect job search behaviour and attitudes to work.

Economic stressors such as job insecurity, job loss, unemployment, and underemployment cause severe difficulties for the workers affected, their families, organizations, and societies overall. Consequently, most past research has taken a thoroughly negative perspective on economic stress, addressing its diverse negative consequences and the ways that people try to cope with them. And even when following the advice provided by the scientific literature, people affected by economic stress will usually end up being off worse than they were before the onset of the stressor.

The current chapter pays credit to this perspective yet also tries to counterbalance it with an alternative one. While acknowledging the vast amount of literature outlining the negative consequences of economic stress on peoples’ well-being and careers, some literature also points at opportunities for a more positive perspective. More specifically, we argue that affected people can use a wide repertoire of behaviors for handling their current situation. Of particular promise in this regard is the concept of career adaptability, generally defined as the ability to change to fit into new career-related circumstances. Indeed, studies show that under certain conditions, career adaptability can facilitate people's search for not just any job but for a qualitatively better job, thus breaking through the spiral of losses usually associated with economic stress.

For the purpose of this argument, we link career adaptability to the concept of proactive coping, analyzing how and under which conditions career adaptability may present a contextualized form of proactive coping. We then address known personal and situational antecedents of career adaptability and show how career adaptability may be fostered and trained among different types of job seekers. We end this chapter with a discussion of open questions as well as directions for future research.

Information and influence are distinct network resources that are embedded in and mobilized from networks of personal contacts. A five-city survey shows that Chinese job changers obtain both kinds of network resources from social ties of varying strengths. During the first 20 years of China's market reforms, job changes were increasingly network facilitated; despite the growth of labor markets network allocation of labor had reached dominance by 1992. Job changers using information and influence networks to search for new employment were more likely to increase both job search time and job–worker matching; however, those using influence networks, not information networks, were likely to move into jobs of higher earning opportunity. These results are interpreted in a dynamic context of increasing market competition and growing allocative efficiency.