Flash! Fiction 3 by Peter McMillan - HTML preview

1

The Pitch

Robert makes the pitch. It’s a $3,000 6-month program using a patented methodology for résumé development, interview feedback and leveraging the hidden job market.

The hidden job market—that’s Robert’s theme, and it has been apparent from the moment I walked into the office suite. Bobby hadn’t said much, but a conspicuous part of her introduction was a recita-tion of the fact that 80 percent of all jobs are hidden. And during my brief tour of the office with Robert, I met Bob, who claimed, with re-hearsed precision, that 85 percent of the job market is in the hidden job market. I noted the discrepancy, but let it pass.

Now, Robert expands upon the hidden job market theme. It is the only way to go, he says, which is why it is the focus and the specialty of the firm. The approach has been so successful that patented material is guarded like a trade secret. Only clients who have signed non-disclosure agreements have access.

Robert clinches it when he concludes an already captivating presentation by insisting that fully 95 percent of all available jobs never show up in newspapers, trade magazines, corporate websites, online job banks, coin laundry bulletin boards, you name it. That figure, he says, is based on proprietary market research that is shared with clients. It includes a secondary hidden job market that has long remained untapped within the more familiar primary hidden job market. Again Robert emphasizes that once prospects become clients, they also become shareholders to whom the mysteries of the proprietary and confidential business model are unveiled.