With all the competition and crazy interview questions, job interviews can trip up even an experienced candidate.
Interviews are the No. 1 place candidates make mistakes during their search, cited by 32 percent of chief financial officers in a new Accountemps survey. (The resume was a close second, and one in 10 CFOs see the most mistakes in job seekers reference checks and interview follow ups.)
When you make a mistake in the interview, it doesn’t have to doom your chances. Bouncing back from a boggled answer can be impressive and may build rapport with the interviewer.
If you want to give a different response to a question a few minutes later, briefly reintroduce the idea with a phrase such as: “On further consideration, I’d like to give a truer / better / more complete answer to your question about working overtime. ” Or “I’d like to revise and expand on my answer about handling stressful situations.”
Don’t give a reason for amending what you said. And don’t apologize for circling back to the subject. Returning to a misstep shows you’re thoughtful and take questions seriously.
So give your new answer with clarity, conviction and confidence.
If the mistake involves something else, such as spilling coffee or use of an inappropriate or off-color word or joke, you must pull out your best manners and apologize gracefully. It’s most important to say ‘I’m sorry’ immediately and to look sincerely contrite, according to Lydia Ramsey, a business etiquette trainer.  (She also offers some smart advice on polishing your first impression including the careful choice of the first 12 words you say. )
Another strategy for comebacks: Pause and collect yourself for as Accountemps says “your ability to recover may just impress the employer.”   Take a deep breath and focus yourself on putting your professionalism, enthusiasm and experience in the spotlight.

Focus on what you have to offer. “Emphasize the skills and experience you have and how they add value to the open position and benefit the company,” Accountemps says.
You also may use the thank you note after the interview as another chance to send a stronger or better message. “Clarify your responses and make your case to be hired,” Accountemps recommends.
And remember: The mistake that looms large in your mind maybe only a blip in the interviewer’s overall perspective. So don’t spend much time or focus on the misstep; instead put that energy into the rest of the hiring process.

MORE INFORMATION:

Accountemps offers more ways to bounce back from a stain on your shirt to showing up late for the interview.

Lydia Ramsey, business etiquette consultant, has more advice on good manners.

CareerRocketeer’s Judi Perkins offers two parts on the defensive interview - and how to avoid it.

Make yourself comfortable, Mom. And grandma, you’ll like it here too.

Only two companies have 25 years tenure on the Working Mother list of best companies – enough to see their female staffers go from young mother to grandmother. Those two are Johnson & Johnson and IBM.

IBM also makes the top 10 best employers overall in 2010, a generation or at least 25 years after it debuted on the first list of 30 companies.

Working Mother’s October issue details changes for moms in those two and a half decades, including growth in paternity leave policies from 5 percent to three-quarters of top companies offering them.

IBM, which used to be known as I’ve Been Moved and a place where white shirts and ties were required, offers “real help to employees whose children have mental, physical or developmental issues,” the magazine said. Women represent one-fifth of IBM’s top earners and 29 percent of the management ranks – a number that just about equals their share of the total workforce.

Johnson & Johnson, maker of band aids and baby shampoo, operates seven on-site child care centers and offers a free college coach program to help staffers’ children pick the right university. It launched work-life webinars last year and  41 percent of its managers and executives are women, according to Working Mother. New Brunswick, NJ-based J&J, which also makes prescription drugs, and contact lenses, is donating medicine and money to the United Nations program to treat millions of mothers and children in developing countries.

Yet, even the best companies are not without critics. Even as profits increased, IBM, the Armonk-based company, laid off thousands of workers in the United States over the last 18 months, shifting jobs to lower-cost areas such as India and Russia. Johnson & Johnson has staged some highly publicized recalls of hip replacements, children’s and adult-strength Tylenol and other items.

The Working Mother list is dominated by financial services, consulting, hospitals and health care and some blue chip corporations such as General Electric, Intel, Marriott International and Verizon Communications.  Others in the top 10 include Bank of America, Deloitte, and General Mills.

To be sure, plenty of other employers have been good to moms on their payroll for a long time, including accounting giants Deloitte and Ernst & Young. But staying true to moms’ needs for 25 years is a standout achievement, and one that may allow some working moms at IBM or Johnson & Johnson still work there when they welcome their first grandchild into the world.

MORE INFORMATION:

The Working Mother list, out in the October issue of the magazine, is mostly available online.

Forbes.com has a blog post on the new list – including some insights on two companies that recently settled gender discrimination suits.

To learn more about IBM, check its corporate website

Johnson & Johnson’s corporate information is available here.

Changing careers isn’t for the faint of heart or those who hurry through life.  Sometimes a change can take years or even decades to orchestrate, and U-turns and detours show up and slow us down.
Sometimes it’s difficult to see how to connect the dots and move from your current job to your next job.
The U.S. Department of Labor has debuted a new website and online tool to assist career changers with those dots. It’s called mySkills myFuture and it’s designed to help individuals build on their skills and strengths – and fill in gaps that are required in their intended occupation. The site is also said to provide links to local community colleges and other training resources.

I played around with mySkillsmyFuture a bit and discovered that I could move from my old career of editor into jobs as a librarian, claims adjuster or adult literacy instructor. A public relations person or market research analyst also showed up on my second-career possiblities list.  I plan to do some more reading and research on some of these, though I’m hoping not to have to switch from mostly writing for a long time.

There’s many other resources for those who are starting their career change- from books for the mature job changers to blogs to a business called Vocation Vacation that allows you to sample other careers for a few days at a time. After you’ve tried out the Labor Department’s new site, here’s three others that could be valuable for your career change:
1.  A group led by Civic Ventures and MetLife has put together Encore.org for people seeking encore careers with meaning.  It has some great advice on second careers that will grow in the years ahead and more resources.
2. The Transition Network, an organization for women who are in transition after age 50, has a growing number of chapters and good insights from members.  I find the Transition Network newsletter full of encouragement and advice – and wonder if there’s a similar group for men.
3. The public library.  Start with biographies and autobiographies and then make your way to the careers and inspiration sections.  I’m not going to recommend specific books; you will find some that speak to you if you give yourself a half hour to browse and engage.

My best advice though may be to develop a career journal and write about your career hopes and plans and ideas for a while.  Use the journal to shape your hopes into something specific and then to document what steps you need to take – what classes, what connections, how else you’ll make the dream career change a reality. And then take small steps each week in “in the direction of your dreams” as Thoreau said.

MORE INFORMATION:

What encourages and informs you? Please send me your favorite resources on career transitions – books, websites, articles and more for me to share.

Read my Washington Post piece on visualizing your career change several steps ahead.

My Kiplinger’s article gives the paths of three people who made big career changes – some of them very slowly.

I did recommend career and inspiration books on my WorkingKind posts on books for graduates. Some are worthwhile as you graduate to a new stage of life or a new career too.

Consider the blog of career coach and author Tama Kieves, author of “This Time I Dance.” In her blog about “inspired living,” she writes about career change and living a wonderful life.

My Labor Day Lament could sound like a blues song from Muddy Waters or Etta James.  It’s deep and rich and has some sweetness mixed in with all the sorrow.
The news for workers is bitter-sweet and for the unemployed and the under-employed it is as dreary as a February day in Detroit, where the unemployment rate was 15.2 percent in July
Consider these blue notes:

• -The recession and job cuts have cut a wide swath through America. More than half of workers have a family member who’s lost a job, including one in eight who say someone in their immediate family has been unemployed. That data comes from a new Rutgers University survey of 802 workers.
• For what really qualifies as a double-dip recession, one-third of current job seekers say an immediate family member has also been unemployed in the last three years, the Rutgers poll shows.
• The “99ers” are not such an elite group of Americans unemployed for 99 weeks or longer. That’s 1.3/1.4 CK million people who have spent two solid years of life without a regular paycheck or work friends. The New York Times wrote a poignant piece about 99ers (and I hope to find a link to it and add it soon).
• The U.S. jobless rate is not coming down and companies are hiring sparsely if at all. One third of U.S. metropolitan areas are stuck with jobless rates of 10 percent or higher, and 17 are really bad with rates at or above 15 percent, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported. California, once the golden state, now has 12 cities with very high unemployment.  Three cities in Michigan are at or near 15 percent. Even Ann Arbor, the city where I live and one viewed as thriving and adding jobs, has  ahas a jobless rate of 10.0 percent in July.
• When the poverty statistics come out later this month, they are likely to show more Americans at or on the brink of desperation. More than half of workers surveyed for Rutgers rate their finances as “only fair” or poor and it’s 90 percent for unemployed.
• Workers are seeing decelerating wage growth in the last two years, which is hurting family incomes and the economic recovery, according to report from the Economic Policy Institute, a liberal think tank. The EPI also found that four of the five fastest growing jobs between 2006 and 2009 paid between $8 and $14 an hour – well below the median U.S. worker’s wage of $15.95.
• Almost two-thirds of workers in a Spherion Staffing survey say they feel less secure about their job, and more than one-third feel more negative about their situation since the recession began. Perhaps that negativity comes from a bigger workload: Half say they’ve added responsibilities thanks to a coworker’s layoff, and of course they aren’t paid any more for it.

The blues could go on and on, with job loss leading to health problems or lack of medical care and families split up. The anguish of being jobless for months, especially without close family to help you through, could be plotlines for many books and movies.

And what gives this Labor Day weekend some sweetness for workers? Much of it is far less quantifiable than the blues I was just singing. Many more people seem attuned to the plight of others and willing to help them with a lead on work or a few dollars for a meal. And Friday’s unemployment report does provide some glimmers of hope, as well as many worrisome signs. Factory overtime is rising and the average workweek for “nonsupervisory employees” in companies inched up too.
Hiring will continue slowly in September, with fewer layoffs, the Society for Human Resource Management reports. SHRM also reports more openings for both salaried and hourly jobs than a year ago, when things were really really blue.

Another encouraging sign: The Labor Department’s revised the job losses for June and July. Both numbers are still negative, but the declines shrunk considerably (by 50,000 or more each month).
EPI economist Heidi Shierholz called the BLS report “positive but underperforming” and suggested the government needs to step in with “bold action to create jobs and put America back to work.” I’m no politician, nor a blues singer either but I know that we’ve got a world of hurt out there, with 6.2 million workers who’ve been jobless for half a year or more.
And so we need to encourage and help the jobless – and if we have the means, take action. Many of us could hire people to rake our leaves or renovate a bathroom; tutor our children or staff up our small businesses. We also could press politicans for more help for the worst cities and more aid for long-term jobless. Then perhaps we could turn America’s  Labor Day Lament into a more upbeat song.

More information:
Bureau of Labor Statistics U.S. joblesss report and metropolitan area reports  http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.nr0.htm   http://www.bls.gov/news.release/metro.nr0.htm
The Economic Policy Institute’s report called Recession Hits Workers’ Paychecks: Wage growth has collapsed, is available online http://bit.ly/c3WI24

This piece was updated Thursday, Sept. 2 with comments from JBS Swift. Watch for an article in the Washington Post this weekend based partly on this reporting.

By Vickie Elmer

Muslim workers in two meat packing plants had more than offensive terms hurtled at them. Supervisors and coworkers allegedly threw blood and bones at them – as well as denying them time to pray and observe their holy month, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission charged this week.
When the immigrant workers from Somalia complained, many were fired in retaliation, according to EEOC lawsuits. Their employer, JBS Swift & Co.,, the one of the nation’s largest meat processing companies, engaged in a pattern of religious discrimination at two plants and violated hundreds of workers’ civil rights since at least  December 2007, the EEOC alleged.  Swift now faces two EEOC lawsuits charging religious and national origin discrimination and creating a hostile work environment at plants in Greeley, Colo., and Grand Island, Neb.
“It’s fairly egregious when you have your coworkers throwing bloody animal parts at you. It is not something we see every day,” said Justine Lisser, the EEOC’s acting communications director in Washington. Supervisors and managers regularly threw blood, meat and bones at Somali and Muslim staff, according to the Colorado lawsuit.
They also were called vile names including “b- – - – ” and “f- – - – - ” and “bimbo” and subjected to offensive anti-Musim and anti-black grafitti in the bathrooms, according to the suit. The harassment was “sufficiently severe or pervasive as to alter the terms and conditions of employment,” the EEOC charged, noting that managers both participated in and failed to step in to end such illegal behaviors.
“This is a case that even after 31 years of practicing law, gives me the goosebumps and that chilling feeling. We need to take it to vindicate worker civil rights,” said Mary Jo O’Neill, a veteran EEOC regional attorney in Phoenix who is representing the Colorado workers.     Some workers were denied bathroom breaks. And many more Muslim workers were denied accommodation of their religious observance of Ramadan in 2008, the EEOC suit charged.
During Ramadan, Muslims are expected to fast all day until sunset and then break their food and water fast. They also need to pray as the sun sets. Close to 100 Muslim employees in Colorado went to the superintendents office on Sept. 2, 2008, to ask that their dinner break be moved from 9:15 to 7:30 p.m. for their religious observances.
After two days of cooperation with the Ramadan dinner break, Swift management changed their break back to 8:30 p.m. and also either shut off the water fountains or marked them with red tags used within the plant to signify rotten meat, according to the lawsuit. This prevented Muslim employees from getting a drink of water after a 12 hour fast and also from washing their hands before prayers.
When some workers left the plant for their break one night, they were told they could not return to work. Because of what the company termed an “unauthorized work stoppage” workers were suspended or fired, the suit alleges.

The actions were done with malice or “reckless indifference” to federal laws that protect worker rights. O’Neill noted that the discriminatory and illegal actions are continuing.

But JBS spokesman Chandler Keys told me the company collaborated with Muslim and non-Muslim employees and community groups to improve things and had had no incidents or problems during Ramadan 2009 or this year’s holy month, which continues through Sept. 10.

JBS Swift is a “legitimate company” and “we defend ourselves vigorously.”Rich Vesta, president of JBS Beef North America, added: “We’ve made accommodations for their prayers within the limits of our production scenario. We certainly honor and respect their religion.”

The Greeley, Colo.,-based company markets its meat under such brands as Swift 1855 Brand, Swift Premium Black Angus and Swift Premium ribs and pork. With revenues of about $8 billion, it  operates in Argentina, Australia, Brazil and Italy and sells beef in Asia and South American. In 2009, it recalled 400,000 pounds of beef suspected of E. coli contamination.
The EEOC filed another suit against Swift based on complaints from workers at its Grand Island, Neb., meat plant alleging workers there had not been given time to pray or eat at sunset during Ramadan 2008. Muslim employees from Somalia also were subjected to a hostile work environment with comments like “lazy Somali” and “go back to your country,” according to the suit.
Some of the Somali Muslim workers were hired after six Swift plants were raided by immigration authorities in December 2006, when federal officials removed and detained about 1,300 employees. By May 2007, Swift said its plants were back to normal staffing levels, but estimated the raids cost the company $50 million in lost earnings and increased recruiting and training costs.
Muslim workers now represent one-fourth of all religious discrimination complaints filed with the EEOC, more than by any other religious group, though Muslims account for an estimated 0.5 percent of the U.S. population. Partly as a result of their charges, religious discrimination charges are up 75 percent this decade to 3,386 last fiscal year, the EEOC reported.
Merrill Lynch, Alamo Car Rental, Electrolux and The Plaza Hotel in Manhattan are among the employers that have settled EEOC suits involving Muslim worker complaints since the 2001 terrorist attacks; several involved Somalian Muslims including one which requires a Minnesota chicken processing company to provide a second break for prayer each shift.
Some 11,130 workers filed a complaint with the EEOC alleging they faced national origin discrimination at work in fiscal 2009, a 42 percent increase since the terror attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, unleashed a backlash against Arab-Americans and others.  National origin discrimination complaints now represent more than one in nine ((11.9 percent)) of all EEOC charges.

To read the EEOC’s press release regarding Swift, go to the EEOC website.

To find out more about Swift and its 150 year history, its website has a downloadable PDF and information. Funding Universe has a history of Swift & Co. available online too.

Copyright c 2010, Vickie Elmer