Executives who’ve been out of work for more than a year and are looking for jobs face two big challenges: They’re competing with employed professionals, as well as applicants who’ve been out of work for less time.
But a year is not an unusually long time to be out of work for execs. The average length of unemployment for them is nine to 12 months. It takes executives longer, on average, because they often have non-compete clauses in their severance agreements preventing them from working for a competitor for a year; there are fewer executive jobs than non-exec jobs and employers vet these candidates slowly because they’re costly.
Here are eight job search tips to speed up the landing time for long-term unemployed executives: