It is no surprise that Yahoo has been struggling for several years in the search business. On the other hand laying off 2000 workers is another thing. Few if any of the 2000 job cuts will be recalled following a "restructuring" effort. Calling the cuts layoffs is just a fancy word for job eliminations. It really is a sad day for both Yahoo and the soon to be former employees. What's the big deal about Yahoo falling? Well for starters, Yahoo pioneered web based email for everyone, global web search and find whatever, one stop shop information portal and let us not forget about Yahoo Hotjobs. Hotjobs was once the premier place for finding a job online. Hotjobs has since been absorbed by Monster, which was pretty much a death sentence for online job seekers. Job search and any search for that matter just isn't the same anymore. The irony here is that Google was once a second league back up bench player to Yahoo and actually provided search results for Yahoo. Now look at Yahoo. Indeed, it was a bad decision to walk about from the Microsoft buyout offer a while back but now what? What will laying off (eliminating) 2000 jobs achieve? What does a Yahoo restructuring plan look like? or is this the beginning of the last days of Yahoo?

Some say the job market is healing, while others think the job market is struggling. One thing is true -- the current job market trend is good for some and bad for others. If you're in one of the industries like Information Technology (IT), you could very well be one of the winners. Why? The lack of hiring from the unemployment pool is signaling that IT employers are having a hard time finding good help within the huge pool of unemployed -- well over 12 million plus unemployed. You know what that means. Supply and demand kicks in buddy. A low supply of experienced labor in the IT job market in conjunction with rising demand for IT services means wages in the IT job market will continue to rise. Good news for the geeks huh. What about the rest of us?...well i guess there is always "door #2" or "door #3" -- keep hope alive.

Apparently job seekers are still having a hard time with find a job; needless to say since the unemployment rate is still above 8%. In those difficult times "who you know" can be a big time help. If you don't have a lot of friends and resort to finding a job online, you might want to at least keep up with the challenges of doing so today. Just because job postings are up doesn't mean you should shoot off your resume to every Tom, DIck and Harry.

As far as job search is concerned, social media and "who you know" are still amongst the most effective ways to get your name out there. "Who you know" needs no introduction since the GOB (Good ole' boy) network thrives on "who you know." Social media on the other hand, is little different not much but a little if used correctly. Basically, that means Facebook isn't all about pictures and Twitter isn't all about hashtags. Job seekers that leverage the sheer social base of just Facebook and Twitter alone means way more job opportunities via realtime job search. By tapping into the power of realtime job search, it quickly becomes apparent that the problem isn't so much jobs...or the lack thereof. There has always been a hidden job market. Unfortunately, for job seekers the hidden job market becomes even less transparent during challenging economic times. Thus, the real problem is discovering how to get plugged into the hidden job market. Some things never change such as "who you know," while others such as realtime job search and social media have changed the job search game. Chances are a great many job seekers are going to get left behind waiting for a huge surge in job postings via job boards. As the old saying goes, "Adapt to survive."