亲爱的安妮：

    一位朋友给我看了你最近的一篇专栏，内容是辞职时机成熟的八个征兆，而我的情况完全符合。我现在最想的，就是离开目前任职的公司。我的绩效评估很出色，但是这是一家家族企业。我这几年才意识到，除了首席执行官自家的人，没有人能获得晋升（或加薪）。

    显然，现在是时候告别过去了。我重写了自己的简历，展示了自己大学毕业12年以来作为品牌经理的优秀业绩。但是，现在跳槽靠谱吗？我们不断听说，多达1,500万美国人正处于失业状态，就业形势很不乐观，没有一家公司在招聘，等等，等等。我是否应该不管不顾开始找工作，还是在经济好转前，尽力在现在这家公司做到最好？

    ——走到尽头的人

    亲爱的走到尽头的人：

    “就业市场低迷的新闻铺天盖地，让人们觉得找到一份新工作似乎是一个不可能实现的目标，”再就业咨询行业巨头Challenger, Gray & Christmas公司首席执行官约翰•恰林杰说。“但事实并非如此。”

    尤其是你这种情况，原因至少有两点。第一，你现在有一份工作。虽然雇主或许不愿承认，但是他们常常优先考虑已经有工作的应聘者，这已经不是什么秘密了。“不幸的是，失业确实是一个污点，”招聘公司DHR国际（DHR International）的首席运营官杰夫•霍夫曼称。“当然，可以找到办法来淡化失业造成的影响，但是，简历上的空窗期确实会让雇主产生忧虑。”既然你现在有工作，那么1,500万失业人群并非你的主要竞争对象。

    下面，再来看看你的第二个优势，你自己或许都没有意识到，这就是你的大学学历。美国整体失业率虽然比过去三年都要低，但是仍然达到了惊人的8.5%。但是，这一数据并不适用于所有类别的劳动群体。例如，拥有高中文凭但没有大学学位的人，失业率为8.8%。相比之下，像你这样拥有学士学位或更高学历的人，失业率仅为4.3%，不到整体失业率的一半。

    （再来看看这个4.3%。不久之前，经济学家认为，6%的失业率可等于“充分就业”。也就是考虑到参与工作人群的季节性和结构性变化，这已经是失业率所能达到的最低水平。显然，4.3%远低于“充分就业”点。）

    “报纸和广播电视报道掩盖了不同群体间失业率的巨大差异，”纽约大学（New York University）的职业管理高级指导罗伯特•赫尔曼指出。“对于拥有本科学位和几年扎实工作经验的人来说，就业市场远非人们想象的那么无望，所以，务必四处寻找机会。”他补充说，关键在于把重点放在发展势头强劲的行业。

    DHR国际公司的霍夫曼对此表示赞同：“金融服务、房地产和建筑业仍然疲弱。但是，在我们看来，好像几乎所有其他行业都在蓄势待发，谋求增长。我们发现，高级管理层中出现了许多扩张性的招聘，而不仅仅只是替换性的招聘。”霍夫曼补充说，只要“了解哪些行业属于热门，哪些行业需要人才”，现在就有希望找到新的工作。

    Dear Annie: A friend sent me your recent column about eight signs it's time to quit, and all eight of them apply to me. I would like nothing better than to leave the company where I work now. My performance reviews have been great, but this is a family-owned business, and I've come to realize over the past couple of years that nobody gets promoted (or gets a raise) unless they have the same last name as the CEO.

    So it's clearly time to move on, and I've rewritten my resume to reflect the terrific track record I've built up as a brand manager since I graduated from college 12 years ago. But is there any point in going out looking? We keep hearing that 15 million Americans are unemployed, the job market is terrible, nobody's hiring, etc., etc. Should I start job hunting anyway, or just try to make the best of things here until the economy improves? — Hitting a Brick Wall

    Dear HBW: "The constant barrage of lackluster employment news can make finding a new job seem like an impossible goal," says John Challenger, CEO of outplacement giant Challenger, Gray & Christmas. "It is not."

    That's especially true in your case, for at least two reasons. First, you already have a job. It's no secret that employers (loath as they may be to admit it) often give preference to the already employed. "Unfortunately, there is a stigma attached to being out of work," says Geoff Hoffmann, chief operating officer of global recruiters DHR International. "There are ways to mitigate it but, yes, a gap in a resume does create apprehension." Since you are working now, the 15 million unemployed are not your main competition.

    Which brings us to a second advantage you may not realize you have: your college degree. The overall U.S. unemployment rate, while lower than it's been for three years, is still dauntingly high at 8.5%. But that figure doesn't apply to every segment of the workforce. For people with a high school diploma but no college degree, for instance, the rate is 8.8%. By contrast, for folks like you with a bachelor's degree or higher, joblessness is at 4.3%, or less than half the aggregate rate.

    (To put that 4.3% in perspective, it wasn't long ago that economists considered 6% to equal "full employment" -- meaning that unemployment is at the lowest point it can go, given seasonal and structural variations in workforce participation -- and, obviously, 4.3% is well below that.)

    "Headlines and sound bites mask enormous discrepancies in unemployment among different groups," notes Robert Hellmann, an executive coach who teaches career management at New York University. "For those with bachelor's degrees and some years of solid work experience, the job market is nowhere near as hopeless as people think, so do look around." The key, he adds, is to focus your search on industries that are thriving.

    DHR's Hoffmann agrees: "Financial services, real estate, and construction are still weak. But from where we sit, it looks like almost everyone else is gearing up for growth. At the senior management level, we're seeing a lot of hiring that is expansionary, not just replacement hiring." You can get a new job now, Hoffmann adds, if you "understand which sectors are hot, and where the appetite for talent is."