The Portland region is in the midst of a hiring boom, but a majority of people don’t see that trend reflected in their own job satisfaction and job prospects.
That’s the big takeaway from a report released last week by the online job board Mac’s List, which serves the Portland area.
The report was based on a survey of more than 700 local professionals, including respondents from the Vancouver area. The survey was not scientific, but the results offer insight into the mindset of the region’s job seekers.
Mac’s List founder Mac Prichard says there are important takeaways for employers on both sides of the river.
“The good news for employers is people do want to change jobs,” he said.
The unemployment rate is at or near record lows, but 68 percent of respondents said they had little-to-no satisfaction with their job, and among respondents with a full-time job, 91 percent said they were looking for work.
However, many respondents said they were frustrated with the available jobs when they started looking. One of the biggest issues is unclear job postings, Prichard said — postings with vague descriptions of the job, or postings that leave out key information such as the salary.
“This is a big barrier for applicants,” Prichard said. “They want to know that information.”
The survey found respondents’ average minimum salary goal was $28.63 per hour, which is close to the Portland region’s average salary of $28.39 per hour. That means employers should be able to recruit the talent they need, Prichard said, provided that they list the salary information and avoid some of the other pitfalls that job seekers mentioned encountering on applications.
Another source of frustration: sometimes job seekers reply to job posts but then don’t receive any kind of acknowledgement or clear instructions about how to proceed, he said. Or they get through the interview step buts then never receive a call to let them know they’ve been passed over.
“But here’s the good news: these are all things employers can fix,” he said.
Salary is one of the most important factors for applicants, but it’s not the only key criteria.
One of the questions asked respondents to rank the factors that matter the most to them when deciding whether to accept a job offer, and the results showed that job seekers also place a strong value on issues like mission and workplace culture.
“Employers who are mission-focused have an advantage,” Prichard said.
“Relationship with the hiring manager and staff” and “work-life balance” both outranked compensation when respondents were asked about the most important factors they considered when accepting a job offer. Based on those results, the report recommended that employers work to make their hiring practices more “human-centered.”
The survey comes at a time when Mac’s List is expanding its focus beyond the Portland region — the website recently announced it would add content aimed at employers in the Seattle area. Prichard said the company plans to continue expanding in the Pacific Northwest.
