Most unemployed holding out for the right gig, survey says

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Job seekers speak with an employment recruiter in Brooklyn, NY

Friday's jobs numbers were below expectations, as the economy added just 169,000 positions, while reducing the overall unemployment rate to 7.3 percent from 7.4.

But a key number in the report showed that 312,000 people dropped out of the labor force because they don't have a job or have given up looking.

A new survey from online placement firm Beyond.com says that decline shouldn't surprise anyone, as most unemployed it questioned say they are "disappointed with the jobs available and are waiting for the right one to come along."

Job seekers weren't asked what conditions might make up the right job, but they said it was important to find it.

Beyond.com surveyed 2,000 individuals drawn from its database of 35 million registered job seekers.

"When we talk to job seekers, they fall into two categories," said Joe Weinlick, vice president of marketing for Beyond.com. "There are a lot of people out there who are looking for work, but they need to find the right job. Then there are people are out there saying I need to find any job. The survey is pointing out those who want the right one."

(Read more: Jobs growth misses high hopes)

Among Beyond.com's respondents, 60 percent reported feeling confident in their ability to sell themselves to employers but said that they can't get past human resource managers to achieve that.

"A lot of job seekers are having to go online, and they feel lost in the process," said Weinlick.

"Their biggest complaint is that they don't know where they stand, and that HR departments are not looking at them carefully and more or less weeding them out before they get a chance to prove themselves," he said.

Though the number of job openings on the site is up 50 percent from last year, businesses are taking a "go slow" approach to hiring.

(Read more:Part-time jobs: Dramatic shift in who is underemployed)

"Companies are cautious with Obamacare, the sequester, and there's pressure on them not to hire quickly, so they can really take their time," he said. "It's a buyer's market from their point of view."

Some 47 percent of respondents said they spend at least 10 hours a week looking for work, while 20 percent spend double that amount of time. And 45 percent of respondents said they spent this last past Labor Day looking for work.

The numbers include a small sample of employed workers, which signals some discontent among those who have jobs, according to the survey.

Weinlick's advice to job seekers is to make sure their résumé signals that their skills match an employer's needs.

(Read more: Labor outlook: 'It's just a very tough job market')

"You have to look like the person they want to hire," he said. "That means making sure a skill you might have used two jobs ago ... is listed at the top. Otherwise you can get eliminated early by key words that companies use to find the right person."

Asked if they would take a smaller salary if it meant more flexibility and time with family, only 16 percent of the jobless respondents answered in the affirmative, while 34 percent said they would take all the money they could get, regardless of time spent away from family.

—By CNBC's Mark Koba. Follow him on Twitter@MarkKobaCNBC