Tag Archives: Finding work

Some worthy numbers in today’s employment data

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By now, most Americans know the U.S. economy created only 96,000 jobs in August, and that the report indicates slower-than-desired job growth.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics monthly report on job creation and the unemployment rate (8.1 percent last month, down from 9.1 percent a year earlier) is filled with hundreds of numbers measuring various nooks and crannies of the job market. Yet most of them are overlooked, at least by bloggers and mainstream media which generally focus on new jobs created and the overall jobless rate.

Here’s five others that are important to consider:

  • People with a bachelor’s degree are much more likely to be in the workforce, and their jobless rate is much lower than others. In August it was 4.1 percent, versus 8.8 percent for those with high school degrees. (See Table A-4 in BLS report or use the find tool to locate “high school.”)
  • Long-term jobless, those out of work 27 weeks or longer, are at higher risk of financial duress and also employer discrimination based on their unemployed status. Their number has fallen fairly steadily, but they still represent 40.XX percent of all jobless, or 5.0 million people in August.  (Table A-12 or search for “long-term” in the report which is issued the first Friday of every month.)
  • I didn’t realize that the BLS tracked self-employed individuals, but the data’s there. Some 8.8 million people are self-employed at unincorporated enterprises, and that’s up almost 200,000 in the last year.
  • American’s average hourly wages are reported each month. For August, American workers earned on average $23.52 an hour, down a penny from July. (See Table B-3 for average wages by sector; the highest paid are utility workers at $31.35, the lowest are leisure and hospitality at $13.40.)
  • Find out how your sector stacks up compared to others, in both job creation and in jobless rate. This is helpful for job-changers, but also for those, such as accountants or IT professionals, whose skills could be used in many industries. (Table A-14 shows the jobless rates by sector and B-1 gives a detailled breakdown of sectors which you can scan for the ones with positive job momentum.)
Since I wrote this post rather quickly, I’m sure I missed some important data – or some that is relevant to your situation or your interests.  And to be sure, the BLS report has an array of other useful information in this report and others it makes – from metropolitan job growth and jobless rates to consumer price reports  – and its Occupational Outlook Handbook is first-rate for researching careers and their prospects.
Even if you feel allergic to numbers, a piece of this report may be as valuable as a 30-minute private talk or job interview with the CEO of your favorite company. And it could prepare you for that conversation very well too.
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Veteran sales staffers not so great at landing next job: BLS

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People who worked in sales jobs for years don’t do a great job of selling themselves into new positions, new research from the Bureau of Labor Statistics shows.

Among tenured people displaced from jobs in 2009 to 2011, sales people and office staff experienced the highest unemployment rates as of  January.  Almost one-third of them were unemployed, compared to 26.7 percent of all workers who were downsized after three or more years in the jobs, the BLS reported.

The finding that veteran sales people had trouble finding new jobs defies conventional wisdom that companies always are going to hire sales staffs – and that sales talent can be used to promote anything or anyone. The report does not explore what kind of sales experience those who lost their jobs had or why they remained jobless when others, say in professional fields, found new positions.

Retail and wholesale workers also had trouble finding new jobs, with only half of them landing jobs.  Maintenance and repair crew were most likely to restart work, with about two thirds of them collecting paychecks again, the BLS reported.

Nearly one in five of the long-tenured displaced workers came from the manufacturing field.

Managers and professional people also fared fairly well, with 60 percent back to work, more than most fields. (The data covers job losses in January 2009 through December 2011.)

Overall, 6.1 million workers were displaced from jobs they’d held for at least three years, down 12 percent from the total for the 2007-2008 period. (The veteran workers were among 12.9 people who lost their jobs to downsizings, plant closings and the like in 2009-2011.)

The number of three-year plus staffers who landed new jobs rose to 56 percent from 49 percent in the 2007-2008.

Another encouraging point: Among  full-time veteran workers who lost their jobs in 2009- 2011, 46 percent had landed jobs that paid the same or more than before – including about one in seven workers who earn 20 percent or more than before.

Now that’s fine salesmanship!

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Quick! Grab the White-out, edit out these overused LinkedIn words

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We all need to be more creative in choosing the words we use on LinkedIn to describe ourselves and our successes. Otherwise our innovative approaches and problem solving solutions will blend in – or feel trite and overused.

Drat. Strike that. I shouldn’t use the terms “creative” or “innovative” or “problem solving” since they show up on LinkedIn’s new list of most overused words on millions of its U.S. profiles. In fact, creative is the most overused catchword in the United States and around the globe, where 135 million people and organizations have  LinkedIn profiles. (Full disclosure: It’s also one of my favorites approaches and descriptors and it shows up five times on my LinkedIn profile.)

Since I’m a news hound, let’s provide the 2011 list of  top buzzword on U.S. profiles:

  1. creative
  2. organizational
  3.  effective
  4.  extensive experience
  5.  track record
  6.  motivated
  7. innovative
  8.  problem solving
  9. communication skills
  10. dynamic

The earlier list from 2010, which you can see on the LinkedIn blog, includes many of the same words – especially innovative, motivated and proven track record.

“Buzzwords are words we’re lazy with. They’re filler words… the wah-wah words; people just skim over them,” said Nichole Williams, LinkedIn’s connection director and author of three career books. Her profile is not immune – she uses dynamic, though only once in her profile. ”In this kind of competitive marketplace, you have so many people applying for a job. You need to differentiate yourself….You’ve got to stand out from the crowd.”

If you’re really creative (and I think I am), we have results that scream or tap dance or whisper seductively ‘this is so spectacular.’ So hyperlink to samples of your work. Or give specific examples of it. Show the results, don’t say the word.

Think about the word you’re using “in reverse,” she suggested. “You’d never write unmotivated” on your resume or profile. Every person is expected to be motivated. Come up with something more definitive, more action oriented. A journalist (like me) could say “I beat deadlines.”  Williams and I came up with other great substitutions, some of which will show up in my profile before yearend.

So Set aside 90 minutes on two or three different days to revise and reinvent your LinkedIn profile.  When you pull up your profile or your resume, unleash your inner editor and get ah inventive. Think of a short descriptive phrase that captures you and your essence.Pull out the thesaurus. Try creating a six-word autobiography – or see the most compelling career summaries collected in a book called 6 Words About Work by Mercer and Smith magazine.

Kick out those overused words and invite in something fresh, enthralling, delectable.

“Instead of using adjectives to describe yourself, you want to illustrate it,” said Donna Schilder, a career and leadership coach who offers a LinkedIn video seminar series and blog. If you want to show you’re a team player, talk about the times you’ve led the team or supported the team. Use the word “we” which indicates your collaborative nature. Schilder also suggests adding numbers to show the scale and measure the impact. If you don’t have specifics, estimate the change you helped to produce.

Consider the impact too you’re going to have when your descriptions and detail grab a future employer by the heartstrings or the lapels. You’re memorable and remarkable – and you’re hired.

When Williams. was looking for an office assistant, she chose someone whose resume highlighted her “enormous capacity for work.” “That’s why I hired her,” said Williams. “Don’t be afraid to describe yourself in terms that will catch someone’s attention.”

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Volunteer work may get you hired, new LinkedIn survey shows

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People who volunteer find it brings them a real payoff in all kinds of ways. Now new research from LinkedIn shows it could pay off in a job offer too.
One in five hiring managers surveyed by LinkedIn say they’ve chosen someone based on the candidate’s volunteer experiences, and 41 percent say they consider volunteer work equally valuable as paid experience.
“In this hyper-competitive world of work, where we all need to differentiate ourselves, volunteering not only provides you the opportunity to showcase your talents and experiences, but it also allows you to demonstrate compassion and commitment,” LinkedIn’s connections director Nicole Williams writes in a blog post announcing a new field for volunteer activities on individuals’ profiles.

I’m a big believer in the value of volunteering – to build your self-confidence, your connections, skills and to improve your world.  Here’s three tips for making the most of volunteering:

  • Play to your passions.  Volunteer work can bring back a spark. It can give you a sense of adventure, engagement, meaning. And yes, it can give you a place for your passions and your causes to run free, which can keep your creativity flowing, especially if your day job seems rather drab or mundane.
  • Identify the right opportunities. Especially when you’re filling in gaps in your resume or trying to develop a new path, choose your volunteer work with care.  Depending on your goals and career plans, serving on an advisory board or helping to organize a major fundraising event may make more sense than serving up soup. For more, read my Washington Post piece from a couple of years ago.
  •  Place it on your resume.  Yes, you can and should add it right in alongside your paid work. Or you may highlight it in its own section. LinkedIn just introduced a new category on its profiles for causes and volunteer work.  Fill it in with your volunteer activities and give recruiters another reason to consider you.

You really can open doors as you open your heart to volunteer work. So if you haven’t taken a pro bono project yet, start one today.

 

More information:

Read my previous Workingkind post on volunteering your way to a new career.

Read my Glassdoor post on inching your way toward your dream job; and another on how kindness can be worthwhile to career advancement.

Check volunteer opportunities on VolunteerMatch.org, Idealist.org or a local or regional volunteer opportunities site. Individual charities also sometimes post needs on their websites.

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Summer jobs spill over into fall – a second chance to land one

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As the first leaves show a little color, and school gets into swing, some of us may feel sad that summer is ending. Especially if we never landed a summer job this year.
If you feel disappointed you didn’t end up running roller coasters at Cedar Point or selling ice cream at your hometown shop, you could still land a job there this year.
Many summertime businesses grew their schedule, whether to maximize their investments, to serve customers or to make enough to stay in business.  Ice cream shops are selling soup and summer camps are running fall weekend retreats. The Grand Hotel on Mackinac Island plans murder mystery and “Somewhere in Time” weekends.  From the Jersey Shore to the  Grand Canyon, organizations are planning events this fall to lure visitors – and they usher in your second chance to be selected.
Even my small social enterprise, Mity Nice, has hired three people this fall, partly for the early University of Michigan home football games. We’re hoping for beautiful Indian summer days so we can sell through October.
As I add each person, I am clear that I likely will want them on my team next year. They make a little money now – and if they do a good job, next summer they have a job. Plus my time spent recruiting and training them will pay off for us both.
This holds true at many other “summertime employers” with extended seasons. Exhibit A: Cedar Point. Once a summer theme park and beach resort, the Sandusky, Ohio amusement park will stay now open Friday nights, Saturdays and Sundays through Halloween. Cedar Point hires a second crew – 800 to 1,000 strong – for fall weekends.
“We hire all the way through, almost to the last weekend,” said Leslie Bradshaw, Cedar Point’s director of general services. Grill cooks, rides people, hotel staff and others earn $7.40 to as much as $11 an hour, and in the fall, the company provides free housing to those who live more than 30 miles away. Some 500 “screamsters” are hired to work in haunted houses, scare mazes or other Halloween attractions. “We’ve hired 34 makeup artists just to dress them up,” said Bradshaw.
If you want a second chance at a summer job, here’s some advice from Bradshaw and me:
1. Show your flexibility and adaptability if you’re coming in as others are departing.  Some seasonal businesses will operate for fewer hours during the fall months. So make sure you are available to work weekends and the other key times they need help.
2. Show your smiling face. “They need to be friendly,” said Bradshaw. Customer service jobs require a clean, upbeat and helpful mindset.
3. Use volunteer work to fill in your application.  Babysitting or caring for grandma are fine. So is being team captain, committee chair or regular volunteer assignments, said Bradshaw. Highlight “contact with the public” and responsibility.
4. Help with growth. Some employers are looking for ways to expand their product line so they can thrive in cooler temperatures. If you make a great vegetable stew, maybe your boss would want it on the menu at the farm stand.
5.  Know the employer.  If you’ve visited the Jersey Shore every other weekend for 10 years, you’re qualified to answer fall tourist questions. If you know all the rides and trails at Cedar Point, maybe you could qualify as a VIP tour guide, a job that may yield some “pretty generous tips,” said Bradshaw. If not, read up on the company on their website and social media pages, and find someone who’s worked there this summer to clue you in on new initiatives and plans.
At Cedar Point, about 40 percent of the workers return the next year, and when they return “we generally tend to put those ahead of everybody else” for summer jobs, said Bradshaw.

Plus many have served as “screamsters” and ridden the roller coasters when the wind was cold and the lines less long. That’s not something you’ll find in most summer jobs.

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5 ways to find job opportunities when hiring is scarce

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The hiring outlook for fall is looking cool and stormy, but that doesn’t mean you can’t locate work.

With the U.S. debt’s downgrade and worries about another recession taking root, hurricane damage and consumer skittishness, companies are not likely to hire in huge numbers. Job postings may be scarce in parts of the country, and service employers especially cut their hiring in August, according to the Society of Human Resource Executives Leading Indicators of National Employment. The monthly stats from the Bureau of Labor Statistics also have shown anemic job growth.

Yet you, like millions of unemployed individuals, are eager to start back to work. So don’t look just on Monster or at your local university career center – though don’t skip those either. Instead take “the road less traveled” as Robert Frost famously wrote, and find jobs before they’re posted. Here’s five ideas to get you going on the hidden job market:

1. Look for a new CEO or other senior leader.  This goes way beyond Steve Jobs at Apple Computer. More than 100 CEOs a month have left their jobs recently, Challenger Gray Christmas reports, with CEO turnover especially high in the health care and technology sectors. Each new CEO  brings in new people, new projects and new priorities. They may want their own team -  fresh faces around headquarters. Or they may need some independent contractors to help change the culture or inject some engagement and innovative thinking.

2. Search for earnings stars. Companies that are exceeding Wall Street’s expectations and growing in the United States, not just internationally, could be better bets for hiring, now or in coming months. This means companies such as Cisco, Dollar Tree and Nordstrom, which reported stronger than expected quarterly results. I watch for these at MarketWatch and in the New York Times; choose your own sites – including some local and regional ones. Watch for healthy private companies, those adding offices or new equipment or advertising in the founder’s alma mater football stadium. They may not reveal their financial fortunes directly, but you can see clues on their success in business weeklies, magazines or on some economic development blogs and sites.

3. Develop an opportunities antennae. Or find someone else who has one, and follow their tweets, their blog and their suggestions. These antennae are out there in front, sensing, locating new prospects and possibilities. Some of them work as journalists and some work in business development or sales. Cultivate this by looking three or four steps beyond today’s headlines and seeing the future changes, shortages and opportunities.

4. Walk around. Head to a business park or office building. Spend an hour or two going in and asking questions about expansion plans, potential job openings and more. Bring along a small notebook to jot down notes and some business cards or your pocket resume. Sometimes one business owner will send you to another that has recently said they want to add to her staff. Sometimes you will arrive just as they’re discussing the need for new crew. This approach, recommended by Richard Bolles in What Color Is Your Parachute, works – and it may develop your opportunities antennae too.

5.Befriend the connectors. You know the ones – the people who know everyone in the organization or whose Facebook friends number in the thousands. Some o them work as recruiters or in sales, others just used to be their sorority’s president or their hometown’s football star. Choose those who are gracious and generous with their contacts and by all means, start by identifying projects and problems where you could help them.

When your search includes face time and a variety of methods, not just one or two, your chances of success improve considerably.  So go where there’s possibilities and don’t slow down even if the economy does. Good luck!

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Matchmaker, matchmaker, find a job

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Whether you’re searching for true love or locating work you love, you’ll use similar skills and perspectives. So when I interviewed some matchmakers for a Washington Post Capital Business article, we talked about their careers and business – and the connection between the job search and the partner prowl.
Use these half dozen ideas  to find a new lover or a new boss; they were suggested by matchmaker Ann Wood and Crystal Sylvester, a soul mate coach:

  • Know what you want. Be clear whether you want a lifetime commitment or children, an active partner who kayaks and hikes or one who prefers museums and the latest theater. Same for the job and employer – know what cultural and other traits are important to you and whether you’ll thrive in a highly structured workplace or one with some flexibility and variety.
  • Trust yourself. Be authentic, said Sylvester. Acknowledge that you know what works for you. Create boundaries and then stick with them.
  • Be curious. Ask a lot of questions, and do it pleasantly, said Wood. Don’t make assumptions about men or about future managers.
  • Be nice. So much depends on personality and charm, the chemistry. This holds true in a job interview or a date, said Wood.
  • Expect contradictions and surprises. “Even if their politics are liberal, their personal lives are conservative,” said Wood, who works from Georgetown. Some couples and some bosses can come off well, even if they aren’t an obvious match. Or as Sylvester said: “The most wonderful things sometimes look different.”
  • Understand the details. Some people work together well and yet you wouldn’t want to take them home. Some people don’t consider the commute time on jobs or relationships. Dig into the details and don’t make assumptions, said Wood.
  • Try again. Sometimes the second date, or the second pitch, goes better and people are less nervous, said Leora Hoffman, who runs a Bethesda, Md., personal introduction service.

The bottom line for anyone who’s searching for a mate, a date or a job moving  freight  is to be hopeful and clear on your  a great outcome – and then work at it with energy and focus almost every day.

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