A question that arose at a recent networking event I attended as a speaker was this: What is a hidden job, anyway?
Do you know what a hidden job is? Have you heard the term before? By now, it would seem that job seekers would readily know this concept. Reality, as I discovered, is that some job seekers don't. Perhaps you're one of them.
Take the word hidden -- what does hidden mean? According to Dictionary.com, it is an adjective that means: concealed; obscure; covert. Continuing on with the word job, one definition of this noun, according to Dictionary.com is: a post of employment; full-time or part-time position. Combine the two words and you get this sort of definition for hidden job: a concealed, obscured, covert post of employment, either full-time or part-time.
Bottom line, hidden jobs aren't readily revealed to you. They exist, you just can't easily see them or discover them. They aren't going to come up to you and say "Hello, Tired, Frazzled, Exhausted One -- Here I Am, Hidden Job For You." And they're not going to be found on Builder and Monster -- they wouldn't be hidden if you found them there. Hidden jobs are unadvertised, unpublished and invisible to the casual observer. For certain, it takes some extra digging to find them.
The casual job seeker won't know about a hidden job until it's far too late and a hire is in the works or is already a done deal. A hidden job is just that -- hidden from you, the person who wants it and needs it. And what that means for you, the hunter of the hidden j-o-b is this: you have to be a very, very, very good and tenacious bird dog. A bird dog hunts. A bird dog tracks. A good bird dog has a good nose, a good range and good instincts. A bird dog is unphased by rejection and abruptness and rudeness and disinterest and thoughtlessness and frustration. A bird dog isn't hampered by the economy, or the elements, or excuses. A bird dog hunts -- here, there and everywhere in scouring the land for potential opportunity. A bird dog doesn't quit hunting until one of two things happen: 1. she/he finds something of interest and / or 2. the owner/handler signals that it's time to quit. In this case, you're your own handler, so it will behoove you to hunt long and hard, relentlessly, energetically and doggedly, until you find something of interest, whether it's working for yourself, or in conjunction with someone else in a more traditional employer/employee role.
Remember when you were a kid and played Hide-and-Seek? Maybe you didn't play that game or maybe you've never heard of such a game. Just as in the Hide-and-Seek game of years gone by, your next opportunity may be hiding from you, waiting to be found, waiting to be uncovered and discovered by you. And it is your mission, should you choose to accept it, to go and seek and find that hidden job -- the one that is concealed, obscure, covert. That, then, is one definition of hidden job.
