Need a Job? Find Out Which Companies Are Hiring for the Holidays
By TORY JOHNSON
(http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/JobClub/job-companies-hire-holidays/story?id=11741056)
According to a new projection from Challenger, Gray & Christmas, retailers will hire between 500,000 and 600,000 workers for the holidays. (Last year, 501,400 were hired.) If you expect to nab one of those seasonal slots, now is the time to act.
Start now: Almost every employer I spoke with said they will begin interviewing in early to mid-October to make sure their seasonal staff is in place when they need them. Don't wait until Thanksgiving to pound the pavement. Now is your time.
Be flexible: You'll have more options on scheduling the earlier you apply, but flexibility on day, evening, overnight and weekend shifts will give you access to the most opportunity. Be clear on which days and times you're available.
Juggle Jobs, or Work from Home
Apply in person (where applicable): Apply in person where applicable. This may mean a paper application or a kiosk, depending on the company. Dress the part and chat up the manager, too, so you can put a face to your resume. If it's retail, visit the store and get to know the merchandise before applying. Ask if and when you can call on the status of your application so you're not in the dark.
Double up: Most seasonal jobs pay minimum wage to $12 an hour (again, just an average) and you'll likely have part-time, not fulltime, hours. This means if you're looking to work fulltime, you'll have to juggle more than one seasonal gig to make the most money.
For a comprehensive list of employers looking to fill more than 200,000 seasonal positions for the holidays.
Work at home: This category is one of the most popular among GMA viewers -- answering customer service calls from home. Calls to customer service explode during the holiday season, and five of the biggest home-based customer service providers will recruit more than 10,000 seasonal agents, many of whom will have the opportunity to stay on after the holidays based on individual performance. As a home-based agent, you'll handle customer questions, process online and catalog orders and other related duties.
So Who's Hiring?
Among the companies to explore: Alpine Access, Arise, Convergys, LiveOps, VIPDesk and Working Solutions.
Each company hires workers differently: employees, independent contractors and incorporated agents. Some offered paid training, while others do not. Ask questions and explore their websites in great detail before determining if there's an appropriate fit for you. (Also, if you've applied previously, but there was no suitable opening for you, you'll have to apply again to be considered for seasonal work.)
Retail: This is the most popular form of holiday work. I talked to a handful of the giants and this weekend I walked in to stores of all sizes to ask about holiday hiring plans. Every place told me they are planning to hire some kind of seasonal help -- sales, customer service and stock. And big box companies employ seasonal staffers 24 hours a day.
Shipping and Security Positions to Open Up
Some of the biggest national retailers are hiring big this season: JCPenney will add 30,000 jobs. Macy's says it will add 65,000 jobs. Toys R Us will hire 45,000 people, including 10,000 who'll work at their 600 new pop-up express locations. Walmart, the nation's largest retailer, doesn't release its specific numbers, but says its seasonal hiring is on par with last year.
Walk your neighborhood or mall. Even though you may not see a HELP WANTED sign in the window, walk in and ask. Security and Shipping: More customers mean more security is needed for stores. One national company, Allied Barton, provides guards for retailers and office buildings across the country. The company will add more than 1,000 seasonal hires this year.
Buying gifts often means sending gifts to family around the country. UPS says it expects to hire 50,000 people, the majority of whom will be drivers and package handlers who help drivers make deliveries and who sort, load and unload packages.
Those are just two of the biggest companies in their categories, but there are many companies hiring on the local level. SnagAJob.com lists hourly seasonal jobs in security, shipping and retail with local and national companies.
Sitters Wanted
Sitting Services: The two biggest spikes are pet sitters (while families travel) and babysitters. Care.com sees a spike starting in about a month for pet sitters and SeekingSitters.com sees a big jump in childcare requests from Thanksgiving through New Year's Eve, which is the only night of the year when families expect to pay a significant premium on services, typically as much as double the standard rates.
Thursday, October 21, 2010
Tuesday, October 12, 2010
Unemployed find old jobs now require more skills
Unemployed find old jobs now require more skills
By CHRISTOPHER S. RUGABER (AP) – 1 day ago
WASHINGTON — The jobs crisis has brought an unwelcome discovery for many unemployed Americans: Job openings in their old fields exist. Yet they no longer qualify for them.
They're running into a trend that took root during the recession. Companies became more productive by doing more with fewer workers. Some asked staffers to take on a broader array of duties — duties that used to be spread among multiple jobs. Now, someone who hopes to get those jobs must meet the new requirements.
As a result, some database administrators now have to manage network security.
Accountants must do financial analysis to find ways to cut costs.
Factory assembly workers need to program computers to run machinery.
The broader responsibilities mean it's harder to fill many of the jobs that are open these days. It helps explain why many companies complain they can't find qualified people for certain jobs, even with 4.6 unemployed Americans, on average, competing for each opening. By contrast, only 1.8 people, on average, were vying for each job opening before the recession.
The total number of job openings does remain historically low: 3.2 million, down from 4.4 million before the recession. But the number of openings has surged 37 percent in the past year. And yet the unemployment rate has actually risen during that time. Companies still aren't finding it easy to fill job vacancies.
Take Bayer MaterialScience, a unit of Bayer. When the company sought earlier this year to hire a new health, safety and environment director for one of its plants, it wanted candidates with a wider range of abilities than before. In particular, it needed someone skilled not just in managing health and safety but also in guiding employees to adapt to workplace changes.
Joe Bozada, chief of staff for Bayer's CEO, said the company initially interviewed 30 candidates. Then it did final interviews with seven. But none had the additional experience the company now wanted. Ultimately, Bozada said, the company chose one of its own employees it had already trained.
That shift, across multiple industries, has caught the eye of David Altig, research director at the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta. Workers aren't just being asked to increase their output, Altig says. They're being asked to broaden it, too.
A company might have had three back-office jobs before the recession, Altig said. Only one of those jobs might have required computer skills. Now, he said, "one person is doing all three of those jobs — and every job you fill has to have computer skills."
The trend is magnifying the obstacles facing the unemployed. Economists have long worried that millions of people who have lost jobs in depressed areas like construction don't qualify for work in growing sectors like health care. But it turns out that some of the jobless no longer even qualify for their old positions.
Frustrated in their efforts to find qualified applicants among the jobless, employers are turning to those who are already employed.
"They're hiring a known quantity that already has this specific experience on their resume," said Cathy Farley, a managing director at Accenture. "It is slowing some of the re-hiring from the ranks of the unemployed."
Only 49 percent of people laid off from 2007 through 2009 were re-employed by January 2010, according to a Labor Department survey. It's the lowest such proportion since the survey began in 1984.
And more than 40 percent of the nearly 15 million unemployed Americans have been out of work for six months or longer. That's near the record high set during the recession.
Some of the unfortunate ones are information technology workers. One reason is that tech companies are increasingly combining business analyst and systems analyst positions.
Suppose a company wants a new software application. A business analyst would seek the least expensive approach and then propose the technical requirements. Separately, a systems analyst would build the technology.
But now, employers want "those two skill sets in one human being," said Harry Griendling, chief executive of DoubleStar Inc., a staffing firm outside Philadelphia.
The trend reflects the push that companies made during the recession to control costs, squeeze more output from their staffs and become more productive. Productivity measures output per hour worked. Economy-wide, it soared 3.5 percent last year. It was the best performance in six years.
And it means workers are bearing heavier burdens. In manufacturing, employees increasingly must be able to run the computerized machinery that dominates most assembly lines. They also have to carry out additional tasks, such as inspecting finished products, notes Mark Tomlinson, executive director of the Society of Manufacturing Engineers.
Manufacturers advertised nearly 200,000 jobs at the end of August, a jump of about 40 percent from a year ago, according to government data. Yet hiring by manufacturers has risen less than 6 percent over that time — evidence that they are having a hard time finding qualified workers.
"There are jobs available, but the worker just has to have more skills than before," Tomlinson said.
Bob Brown, 49, of Dayton, Ohio, has felt the demand for broader skills firsthand. After working for 30 years in manufacturing, including 20 as a plant supervisor, Brown was laid off in July 2009.
He spent a year looking for a new job. His efforts yielded only three calls from employers in the first four months.
But once things began to pick up, Brown noticed something else: The plant management jobs he used to have, and that he was aiming for again, all required certifications in productivity-boosting management practices.
So Brown paid for courses at a community college to learn a management strategy known as "six sigma." It's an approach to cutting waste and raising efficiency popularized by General Electric. The courses allowed him to obtain his certification. In August, he was hired by an electrical product assembly plant near Williamsport, Penn.
"That's the way the industry's going," Brown said. "Everybody wanted certifications."
Human resource specialists say employers who increasingly need multi-skilled employees aren't willing to settle for less. They'd rather wait and hold jobs vacant.
HR specialists even have a nickname for the highly sought but elusive job candidate whose skills and experiences precisely match an employer's needs: the "purple squirrel."
Posted by BestLogic Staffing – For more information, please go to our website
www.Bestlogicstaffing.com
By CHRISTOPHER S. RUGABER (AP) – 1 day ago
WASHINGTON — The jobs crisis has brought an unwelcome discovery for many unemployed Americans: Job openings in their old fields exist. Yet they no longer qualify for them.
They're running into a trend that took root during the recession. Companies became more productive by doing more with fewer workers. Some asked staffers to take on a broader array of duties — duties that used to be spread among multiple jobs. Now, someone who hopes to get those jobs must meet the new requirements.
As a result, some database administrators now have to manage network security.
Accountants must do financial analysis to find ways to cut costs.
Factory assembly workers need to program computers to run machinery.
The broader responsibilities mean it's harder to fill many of the jobs that are open these days. It helps explain why many companies complain they can't find qualified people for certain jobs, even with 4.6 unemployed Americans, on average, competing for each opening. By contrast, only 1.8 people, on average, were vying for each job opening before the recession.
The total number of job openings does remain historically low: 3.2 million, down from 4.4 million before the recession. But the number of openings has surged 37 percent in the past year. And yet the unemployment rate has actually risen during that time. Companies still aren't finding it easy to fill job vacancies.
Take Bayer MaterialScience, a unit of Bayer. When the company sought earlier this year to hire a new health, safety and environment director for one of its plants, it wanted candidates with a wider range of abilities than before. In particular, it needed someone skilled not just in managing health and safety but also in guiding employees to adapt to workplace changes.
Joe Bozada, chief of staff for Bayer's CEO, said the company initially interviewed 30 candidates. Then it did final interviews with seven. But none had the additional experience the company now wanted. Ultimately, Bozada said, the company chose one of its own employees it had already trained.
That shift, across multiple industries, has caught the eye of David Altig, research director at the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta. Workers aren't just being asked to increase their output, Altig says. They're being asked to broaden it, too.
A company might have had three back-office jobs before the recession, Altig said. Only one of those jobs might have required computer skills. Now, he said, "one person is doing all three of those jobs — and every job you fill has to have computer skills."
The trend is magnifying the obstacles facing the unemployed. Economists have long worried that millions of people who have lost jobs in depressed areas like construction don't qualify for work in growing sectors like health care. But it turns out that some of the jobless no longer even qualify for their old positions.
Frustrated in their efforts to find qualified applicants among the jobless, employers are turning to those who are already employed.
"They're hiring a known quantity that already has this specific experience on their resume," said Cathy Farley, a managing director at Accenture. "It is slowing some of the re-hiring from the ranks of the unemployed."
Only 49 percent of people laid off from 2007 through 2009 were re-employed by January 2010, according to a Labor Department survey. It's the lowest such proportion since the survey began in 1984.
And more than 40 percent of the nearly 15 million unemployed Americans have been out of work for six months or longer. That's near the record high set during the recession.
Some of the unfortunate ones are information technology workers. One reason is that tech companies are increasingly combining business analyst and systems analyst positions.
Suppose a company wants a new software application. A business analyst would seek the least expensive approach and then propose the technical requirements. Separately, a systems analyst would build the technology.
But now, employers want "those two skill sets in one human being," said Harry Griendling, chief executive of DoubleStar Inc., a staffing firm outside Philadelphia.
The trend reflects the push that companies made during the recession to control costs, squeeze more output from their staffs and become more productive. Productivity measures output per hour worked. Economy-wide, it soared 3.5 percent last year. It was the best performance in six years.
And it means workers are bearing heavier burdens. In manufacturing, employees increasingly must be able to run the computerized machinery that dominates most assembly lines. They also have to carry out additional tasks, such as inspecting finished products, notes Mark Tomlinson, executive director of the Society of Manufacturing Engineers.
Manufacturers advertised nearly 200,000 jobs at the end of August, a jump of about 40 percent from a year ago, according to government data. Yet hiring by manufacturers has risen less than 6 percent over that time — evidence that they are having a hard time finding qualified workers.
"There are jobs available, but the worker just has to have more skills than before," Tomlinson said.
Bob Brown, 49, of Dayton, Ohio, has felt the demand for broader skills firsthand. After working for 30 years in manufacturing, including 20 as a plant supervisor, Brown was laid off in July 2009.
He spent a year looking for a new job. His efforts yielded only three calls from employers in the first four months.
But once things began to pick up, Brown noticed something else: The plant management jobs he used to have, and that he was aiming for again, all required certifications in productivity-boosting management practices.
So Brown paid for courses at a community college to learn a management strategy known as "six sigma." It's an approach to cutting waste and raising efficiency popularized by General Electric. The courses allowed him to obtain his certification. In August, he was hired by an electrical product assembly plant near Williamsport, Penn.
"That's the way the industry's going," Brown said. "Everybody wanted certifications."
Human resource specialists say employers who increasingly need multi-skilled employees aren't willing to settle for less. They'd rather wait and hold jobs vacant.
HR specialists even have a nickname for the highly sought but elusive job candidate whose skills and experiences precisely match an employer's needs: the "purple squirrel."
Posted by BestLogic Staffing – For more information, please go to our website
www.Bestlogicstaffing.com
Wednesday, September 29, 2010
18 Ways to Impress a New Employer
18 Ways to Impress a New Employer
It can take four to 14 months to find the right job... and fewer than 90 days to lose it. According to executive coach Linda Seale, most professional and managerial dismissals are due to failure to understand and fit into a company’s culture.
It is during these first weeks on the job that your boss and colleagues form the most lasting impressions about you. But remember, they don’t expect you to be perfect. As long as you show intelligence, versatility and a willingness to work and learn, people will be happy to have you aboard and rooting for you to succeed.
Here are 18 ways to make sure you get off on the right foot:
1. Take a break. Take a week’s break between jobs to clear your head. At the very least, get a good night’s sleep before your first day so you’ll be at your best.
2. Check your interview notes. Recall the names and titles of everyone you met and interviewed with so you will be able to greet them and pronounce their names correctly.
3. Study up. Collect back issues of the company’s newsletters, annual reports and press clippings. Check out your competitors’ literature, too, to get a better handle on the "big picture."
4. Work full days. Know where and when to report on day one. Get there 30 minutes early and leave when or after most of your co–workers do. Notice people’s schedules and work habits, so that you’ll know the optimal times and means to connect with others.
5. Project positive energy. Look and act as if you’re happy to be joining the team.
6. Look good. All eyes are on you, so pay attention to your grooming. Dress tastefully and slightly above dress code.
7. Keep a journal. Write down procedures, names of key people and contact numbers, so that you’ll look like a quick study.
8. Be flexible. Expect and embrace the inevitable challenges of your position. A flexible attitude will decrease stress for you and others.
9. Show appreciation. Be kind and appreciative to everyone who helps you learn the ropes.
10. Listen 80 percent; Talk 20 percent. Resist offering opinions or assessments –– that road is full of land mines. You’ll get more respect by listening and absorbing what your co–workers have to teach rather than by showing off how much you know.
11. Get to know your boss. Observe your boss’ personality and work style, and tailor your interactions to his or her preferences.
12. Clarify expectations. Make sure you and your boss are on the same page. Find out:
o What priorities and issues need to be immediately addressed.
o How often and in what format you should provide project updates.
o How your performance will be evaluated.
13. Connect with colleagues. Get to know as many people as you can especially your teammates and those with whom you will work regularly. Establish the foundation for a relationship, and trust and information will follow.
14. Identify key players. Find out who the decision–makers, influencers, stars and up–and–comers are. Notice the traits they have in common and try to emulate them.
15. Uncover hidden agendas. Identify any political forces at work. While you want to avoid getting involved in politically charged situations, it’s helpful to be aware of undercurrents.
16. Take initiative. As you finish assignments and are ready to handle a bigger workload, ask for more. Pick projects that have support from upper management and buy–in from your staff.
17. Don’t make major changes. Even if your interviewer told you the company was looking for fresh ideas, proceed carefully. Show respect for those who have invested energy in a project or system before trying to change it. There may be obstacles you aren’t aware of. Ask why things are done the way they are and seek feedback from people whose support you need. Applaud what is being done right and frame changes as enhancements.
18. Be a team player. Don’t engage in gossip. Always make your boss look good. Share credit with your workmates.
It can take four to 14 months to find the right job... and fewer than 90 days to lose it. According to executive coach Linda Seale, most professional and managerial dismissals are due to failure to understand and fit into a company’s culture.
It is during these first weeks on the job that your boss and colleagues form the most lasting impressions about you. But remember, they don’t expect you to be perfect. As long as you show intelligence, versatility and a willingness to work and learn, people will be happy to have you aboard and rooting for you to succeed.
Here are 18 ways to make sure you get off on the right foot:
1. Take a break. Take a week’s break between jobs to clear your head. At the very least, get a good night’s sleep before your first day so you’ll be at your best.
2. Check your interview notes. Recall the names and titles of everyone you met and interviewed with so you will be able to greet them and pronounce their names correctly.
3. Study up. Collect back issues of the company’s newsletters, annual reports and press clippings. Check out your competitors’ literature, too, to get a better handle on the "big picture."
4. Work full days. Know where and when to report on day one. Get there 30 minutes early and leave when or after most of your co–workers do. Notice people’s schedules and work habits, so that you’ll know the optimal times and means to connect with others.
5. Project positive energy. Look and act as if you’re happy to be joining the team.
6. Look good. All eyes are on you, so pay attention to your grooming. Dress tastefully and slightly above dress code.
7. Keep a journal. Write down procedures, names of key people and contact numbers, so that you’ll look like a quick study.
8. Be flexible. Expect and embrace the inevitable challenges of your position. A flexible attitude will decrease stress for you and others.
9. Show appreciation. Be kind and appreciative to everyone who helps you learn the ropes.
10. Listen 80 percent; Talk 20 percent. Resist offering opinions or assessments –– that road is full of land mines. You’ll get more respect by listening and absorbing what your co–workers have to teach rather than by showing off how much you know.
11. Get to know your boss. Observe your boss’ personality and work style, and tailor your interactions to his or her preferences.
12. Clarify expectations. Make sure you and your boss are on the same page. Find out:
o What priorities and issues need to be immediately addressed.
o How often and in what format you should provide project updates.
o How your performance will be evaluated.
13. Connect with colleagues. Get to know as many people as you can especially your teammates and those with whom you will work regularly. Establish the foundation for a relationship, and trust and information will follow.
14. Identify key players. Find out who the decision–makers, influencers, stars and up–and–comers are. Notice the traits they have in common and try to emulate them.
15. Uncover hidden agendas. Identify any political forces at work. While you want to avoid getting involved in politically charged situations, it’s helpful to be aware of undercurrents.
16. Take initiative. As you finish assignments and are ready to handle a bigger workload, ask for more. Pick projects that have support from upper management and buy–in from your staff.
17. Don’t make major changes. Even if your interviewer told you the company was looking for fresh ideas, proceed carefully. Show respect for those who have invested energy in a project or system before trying to change it. There may be obstacles you aren’t aware of. Ask why things are done the way they are and seek feedback from people whose support you need. Applaud what is being done right and frame changes as enhancements.
18. Be a team player. Don’t engage in gossip. Always make your boss look good. Share credit with your workmates.
How to ask your boss to work flextime?
How to ask your boss to work flextime
By Anne Fisher www.cnnmoney.com
Dear Annie: I hope you and your readers have some suggestions for me, because I'm just about at the end of my rope. My 89-year-old mother, who has what her doctor calls "moderate" Alzheimer's disease, came to live with us a few months ago and needs constant supervision. We are lucky enough to have a licensed practical nurse who comes in on weekdays to be with her, but the nurse leaves at 3 p.m., which is right around the time my two teenaged kids get home from school. They've been great about pitching in, but I don't feel it's fair to ask them to give up extracurricular activities in order to keep an eye on my mom. The long and short of it is I really would like to be able to work from home in the late afternoons and early evenings.
The problem is my company expects everyone to be at his or her desk from 9 to 5 (or later), no exceptions. With the technology we have now, I could work more flexible hours without any problem, but my boss says there is no policy allowing this and that it would be "disruptive" to the office routine. How can I convince him otherwise? -Frazzled
Responds from Anne Fisher:
You surmise correctly that many other people share this dilemma, or a similar one. According to a raft of recent surveys, the so-called sandwich generation -- made up of people like you who are trying to care for children and parents at the same time -- is under more pressure than ever these days, partly due to ever-lengthening workdays brought on by the recession.
A whopping 89% of Americans say that balancing work and the rest of life is a problem, and more than a third (38%) say it has gotten worse because of the economic downturn, according to a new poll by research firm StrategyOne (www.strategyone.net).
More than 80% of Baby Boomers ages 45 to 54 are experiencing "high levels of stress" from juggling responsibilities at work and at home, says another survey, this one by the Hartford Financial Services Group and consulting firm ComPsych. Nearly half (46.6%) said that they were worried about how care giving is affecting their job performance.
The good news here is that many employers are aware of the struggle: About one-third of employees that responded to a recent global workforce study by the human resources consulting firm Towers Watson said that they were permitted to work from home either full-time or part-time, and an additional 50% said that they have the green light to do so "occasionally."
Moreover, new research by a nonprofit called WorldatWork suggests that -- partly in hopes of keeping their best people from quitting when hiring finally picks up again -- employers are showing more interest in offering their workers help with work-life balance, including flextime.
Elder care programs in particular are on the rise. Jamie Ladge, a management and organizational development professor at Northeastern University in Boston, notes that about 33% of large employers in the U.S. now offer elder care assistance of some kind, up from about 15% just 10 years ago.
By Anne Fisher www.cnnmoney.com
Dear Annie: I hope you and your readers have some suggestions for me, because I'm just about at the end of my rope. My 89-year-old mother, who has what her doctor calls "moderate" Alzheimer's disease, came to live with us a few months ago and needs constant supervision. We are lucky enough to have a licensed practical nurse who comes in on weekdays to be with her, but the nurse leaves at 3 p.m., which is right around the time my two teenaged kids get home from school. They've been great about pitching in, but I don't feel it's fair to ask them to give up extracurricular activities in order to keep an eye on my mom. The long and short of it is I really would like to be able to work from home in the late afternoons and early evenings.
The problem is my company expects everyone to be at his or her desk from 9 to 5 (or later), no exceptions. With the technology we have now, I could work more flexible hours without any problem, but my boss says there is no policy allowing this and that it would be "disruptive" to the office routine. How can I convince him otherwise? -Frazzled
Responds from Anne Fisher:
You surmise correctly that many other people share this dilemma, or a similar one. According to a raft of recent surveys, the so-called sandwich generation -- made up of people like you who are trying to care for children and parents at the same time -- is under more pressure than ever these days, partly due to ever-lengthening workdays brought on by the recession.
A whopping 89% of Americans say that balancing work and the rest of life is a problem, and more than a third (38%) say it has gotten worse because of the economic downturn, according to a new poll by research firm StrategyOne (www.strategyone.net).
More than 80% of Baby Boomers ages 45 to 54 are experiencing "high levels of stress" from juggling responsibilities at work and at home, says another survey, this one by the Hartford Financial Services Group and consulting firm ComPsych. Nearly half (46.6%) said that they were worried about how care giving is affecting their job performance.
The good news here is that many employers are aware of the struggle: About one-third of employees that responded to a recent global workforce study by the human resources consulting firm Towers Watson said that they were permitted to work from home either full-time or part-time, and an additional 50% said that they have the green light to do so "occasionally."
Moreover, new research by a nonprofit called WorldatWork suggests that -- partly in hopes of keeping their best people from quitting when hiring finally picks up again -- employers are showing more interest in offering their workers help with work-life balance, including flextime.
Elder care programs in particular are on the rise. Jamie Ladge, a management and organizational development professor at Northeastern University in Boston, notes that about 33% of large employers in the U.S. now offer elder care assistance of some kind, up from about 15% just 10 years ago.
Tuesday, September 14, 2010
How Are We Going to Put Americans Back to Work?
How Are We Going to Put Americans Back to Work?
By James P. Pinkerton
Published September 13, 2010
OK, nearly one ten American workers is unemployed. The jobless rate, to be exact, is 9.6 percent; that’s the highest level in 27 years. Indeed, if unemployment stays above nine percent for another four months, that will mean the longest spell of nine-percent-plus unemployment since 1941. President Obama’s much touted “recovery summer,” in other words, seems destined to join “prosperity is just around the corner” in the forlorn annals of misplaced presidential optimism.
So how will we put America back to work? Where will the new jobs come from? Those are serious questions in America today. After all, whenever corporate outsourcers hear the words, “good jobs at good wages,” they ask themselves: Could those good jobs be done for “bad wages” overseas?
Let’s review three categories of jobs for the 21st century, and see how they stack up--because one day, we’re going to have a president who is serious about reducing unemployment.
The first category is “green jobs”-- you know, the jobs touted by Obama and his ex-aide, Van Jones. We don’t hear so much from Jones anymore, but as the president himself said in June 2010, “The transition to clean energy has the potential to grow our economy and create millions of jobs.” Well, sure it does--the potential is there, even if the reality is much trickier. After all, it was this administration that made it possible for 79 percent of “stimulus” money for wind-energy projects to end up overseas, employing foreigners. OK, that was 2009. Could we say that perhaps the Obama administration has learned anything since about funding domestic jobs--as opposed to foreign jobs?
Well, not really. As The Washington Post reports, some 200 workers at the GE lightbulb factory in Winchester, Va., are losing their jobs, thanks to Green legislation.
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How so? Back in 2007, one of the first actions of the newly elected Democratic Congress was to pass requirements effectively prohibiting the familiar incandescent light bulb by 2014, in favor of the new energy-saving compact fluorescent light (CFL) bulbs. But as The Post put it, the legislation had “unintended consequences, because the new bulbs could be made cheaper in China: “Rather than setting off a boom in the U.S. manufacture of replacement lights, the leading replacement lights are compact fluorescents, or CFLs, which are made almost entirely overseas, mostly in China.” Oops. And yet of course, it never seems to have occurred to the Obama administration, nor Congress, to change the 2007 law. “Green” by itself, it would seem, is much more important to top Democrats than “green jobs.”
As one Winchester plant worker told The Post, “Everybody's jumping on the green bandwagon. . . . We’ve been sold out.” Even more perversely, the CFL bulbs are dangerous. As Scientific American magazine--not in any way a right-wing publication--explains, the mercury inside the fragile bulbs is “highly toxic . . . especially harmful to the brains of both fetuses and children.” So we can also see that “green” is also more important than “health.”
So now we can see the full idiocy of the new policy: Uncle Sam passed a rule shutting down American factories, so that we can spend good money importing billions of little “hazmat” globes from China. And the Obamans see nothing wrong with this picture.
But if Democrats are kidding themselves--and us--about the reality of “green jobs,” others are also in denial about future sources of employment. Let’s take high-tech as a second possible source. We might consider this headline in The New York Times: “Once a Dynamo, the Tech Sector Is Slow to Hire.” Uh oh.
For years, both parties have put their emphasis on high-tech jobs in cool industries such as information technology (IT). Yes, it’s fun to think about Google and Apple, but in reality, they are small fish, employment-wise. Google might be a $150 billion company, but it has just 20,000 employees, while the vast bulk of Apple employees--in the form of contractors, held at arm’s length from America (and from the EPA, OSHA, unions, etc.)--are over in China.
As The Times notes, high tech profits have been “soaring,” and yet those same companies have been “slow to hire, a sign of just how difficult it will be to address persistently high joblessness.” Indeed, domestic employment in such IT fields as data processing and software publishing has actually fallen. As The Times explains, the issue is offshoring and outsourcing to countries that not only pay lower wages but also might have superior skills: “Emerging economies have been harvesting their long-term investments in math and science education and attracting high-tech firms...to their shores.” Obviously it’s important, as a matter of national strategy, not to give up on high-tech computing jobs, but since the U.S. workforce is expanding by 1.5 million or so every year, we have to consider all possible avenues for pumping up employment.
So if not green jobs, and if maybe not IT, what’s left, job-wise? A third promising area is health care. Health care jobs are labor-intensive, few of them can be outsourced, and their number will naturally expand as the population ages; senior citizens, now 12 percent of the population, will be 19 percent of the population in just two decades. So job growth in the health care sector is inevitable--unless, as we might add, the government does something drastic to crimp it.
As Fortune magazine notes, “The number of registered nurses is expected to swell to 3.2 million by 2018, accounting for approximately 581,500 new jobs. . . . That's up from 2.6 million today, and it represents the largest overall growth projection out of all occupations in the U.S. economy.” Sounds pretty good.
But wait--the Obamans do indeed want to do something drastic to crimp health care, and thus to crimp health care employment: They want to shrink that sector, too. As the president said back in July 2009, he had two goals for Obamacare: To cover everybody and to reduce costs: “My bottom lines will remain: Does this bill cover all Americans? Does it drive down costs both in the public sector and the private sector?”
But how can that be? How can the health care sector be shrunk, even as demand is expanding?
Answer: It can’t. It won’t happen. The Obamans might wish to apply their British National Health Service-admiring, ration-everything, small-is-beautiful approach to yours and my health and medicine, but after the November elections, they won’t have the power to do it.
Indeed, the reality of the upward march of health care costs is obvious: As the headline in last Thursday’s Wall Street Journal: “Health Outlays Still Seen Rising.” So much for all the those Obamacare promises about “bending the curve” downward on health care costs. Continued cost-escalation might be bad from a fiscal point of view, but it’s good from an employment point of view, to say nothing of a health care point of view.
Right now, Americans agree, creating jobs and restarting the economy is a higher priority than reducing the deficit and debt. And people always care about their health, and the health of their loved ones, which is why, say, Medicare rarely takes so much as a nick.
Of course, some might argue that the real goal should be to deliver cures, not just health care, so that we can save money and have a healthier population. But let’s not hope for too much, all at once. First we have to get the Obama administration to stop poisoning us in the name of green jobs, and then we have to stop kidding ourselves about the millions of new jobs to be found in IT. We’ve dug ourselves into a pretty deep hole, here, and it will take a while to dig ourselves out. And as we have seen, one place to start is health care.
By James P. Pinkerton
Published September 13, 2010
OK, nearly one ten American workers is unemployed. The jobless rate, to be exact, is 9.6 percent; that’s the highest level in 27 years. Indeed, if unemployment stays above nine percent for another four months, that will mean the longest spell of nine-percent-plus unemployment since 1941. President Obama’s much touted “recovery summer,” in other words, seems destined to join “prosperity is just around the corner” in the forlorn annals of misplaced presidential optimism.
So how will we put America back to work? Where will the new jobs come from? Those are serious questions in America today. After all, whenever corporate outsourcers hear the words, “good jobs at good wages,” they ask themselves: Could those good jobs be done for “bad wages” overseas?
Let’s review three categories of jobs for the 21st century, and see how they stack up--because one day, we’re going to have a president who is serious about reducing unemployment.
The first category is “green jobs”-- you know, the jobs touted by Obama and his ex-aide, Van Jones. We don’t hear so much from Jones anymore, but as the president himself said in June 2010, “The transition to clean energy has the potential to grow our economy and create millions of jobs.” Well, sure it does--the potential is there, even if the reality is much trickier. After all, it was this administration that made it possible for 79 percent of “stimulus” money for wind-energy projects to end up overseas, employing foreigners. OK, that was 2009. Could we say that perhaps the Obama administration has learned anything since about funding domestic jobs--as opposed to foreign jobs?
Well, not really. As The Washington Post reports, some 200 workers at the GE lightbulb factory in Winchester, Va., are losing their jobs, thanks to Green legislation.
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How so? Back in 2007, one of the first actions of the newly elected Democratic Congress was to pass requirements effectively prohibiting the familiar incandescent light bulb by 2014, in favor of the new energy-saving compact fluorescent light (CFL) bulbs. But as The Post put it, the legislation had “unintended consequences, because the new bulbs could be made cheaper in China: “Rather than setting off a boom in the U.S. manufacture of replacement lights, the leading replacement lights are compact fluorescents, or CFLs, which are made almost entirely overseas, mostly in China.” Oops. And yet of course, it never seems to have occurred to the Obama administration, nor Congress, to change the 2007 law. “Green” by itself, it would seem, is much more important to top Democrats than “green jobs.”
As one Winchester plant worker told The Post, “Everybody's jumping on the green bandwagon. . . . We’ve been sold out.” Even more perversely, the CFL bulbs are dangerous. As Scientific American magazine--not in any way a right-wing publication--explains, the mercury inside the fragile bulbs is “highly toxic . . . especially harmful to the brains of both fetuses and children.” So we can also see that “green” is also more important than “health.”
So now we can see the full idiocy of the new policy: Uncle Sam passed a rule shutting down American factories, so that we can spend good money importing billions of little “hazmat” globes from China. And the Obamans see nothing wrong with this picture.
But if Democrats are kidding themselves--and us--about the reality of “green jobs,” others are also in denial about future sources of employment. Let’s take high-tech as a second possible source. We might consider this headline in The New York Times: “Once a Dynamo, the Tech Sector Is Slow to Hire.” Uh oh.
For years, both parties have put their emphasis on high-tech jobs in cool industries such as information technology (IT). Yes, it’s fun to think about Google and Apple, but in reality, they are small fish, employment-wise. Google might be a $150 billion company, but it has just 20,000 employees, while the vast bulk of Apple employees--in the form of contractors, held at arm’s length from America (and from the EPA, OSHA, unions, etc.)--are over in China.
As The Times notes, high tech profits have been “soaring,” and yet those same companies have been “slow to hire, a sign of just how difficult it will be to address persistently high joblessness.” Indeed, domestic employment in such IT fields as data processing and software publishing has actually fallen. As The Times explains, the issue is offshoring and outsourcing to countries that not only pay lower wages but also might have superior skills: “Emerging economies have been harvesting their long-term investments in math and science education and attracting high-tech firms...to their shores.” Obviously it’s important, as a matter of national strategy, not to give up on high-tech computing jobs, but since the U.S. workforce is expanding by 1.5 million or so every year, we have to consider all possible avenues for pumping up employment.
So if not green jobs, and if maybe not IT, what’s left, job-wise? A third promising area is health care. Health care jobs are labor-intensive, few of them can be outsourced, and their number will naturally expand as the population ages; senior citizens, now 12 percent of the population, will be 19 percent of the population in just two decades. So job growth in the health care sector is inevitable--unless, as we might add, the government does something drastic to crimp it.
As Fortune magazine notes, “The number of registered nurses is expected to swell to 3.2 million by 2018, accounting for approximately 581,500 new jobs. . . . That's up from 2.6 million today, and it represents the largest overall growth projection out of all occupations in the U.S. economy.” Sounds pretty good.
But wait--the Obamans do indeed want to do something drastic to crimp health care, and thus to crimp health care employment: They want to shrink that sector, too. As the president said back in July 2009, he had two goals for Obamacare: To cover everybody and to reduce costs: “My bottom lines will remain: Does this bill cover all Americans? Does it drive down costs both in the public sector and the private sector?”
But how can that be? How can the health care sector be shrunk, even as demand is expanding?
Answer: It can’t. It won’t happen. The Obamans might wish to apply their British National Health Service-admiring, ration-everything, small-is-beautiful approach to yours and my health and medicine, but after the November elections, they won’t have the power to do it.
Indeed, the reality of the upward march of health care costs is obvious: As the headline in last Thursday’s Wall Street Journal: “Health Outlays Still Seen Rising.” So much for all the those Obamacare promises about “bending the curve” downward on health care costs. Continued cost-escalation might be bad from a fiscal point of view, but it’s good from an employment point of view, to say nothing of a health care point of view.
Right now, Americans agree, creating jobs and restarting the economy is a higher priority than reducing the deficit and debt. And people always care about their health, and the health of their loved ones, which is why, say, Medicare rarely takes so much as a nick.
Of course, some might argue that the real goal should be to deliver cures, not just health care, so that we can save money and have a healthier population. But let’s not hope for too much, all at once. First we have to get the Obama administration to stop poisoning us in the name of green jobs, and then we have to stop kidding ourselves about the millions of new jobs to be found in IT. We’ve dug ourselves into a pretty deep hole, here, and it will take a while to dig ourselves out. And as we have seen, one place to start is health care.
Wednesday, May 26, 2010
Responding to Job Postings
Responding to Job Postings
(Source www.rileyguide.com)
The fastest way to respond to Internet job listing is to e-mail your cover letter and resume to the person or organization indicated.
However, there are some simple rules to follow before hitting the "send" key. Look at it this way. You have 15 or 20 seconds to get someone's attention using email. In that time, you must convince the recipient to
open your email
read your message
not delete your email
Do it wrong, get into the wrong mail box, or make someone's job harder, and the best resume in the world from the most qualified person in the world will be trashed.
Getting your email opened, read, and actually considered really comes down to some simple rules.
Use the right Subject. "Seeking employment" is not an acceptable subject. If you are responding to an advertisement, use the job title or job code cited in the advertisement to make it easy for your e-mail to be recognized and routed to the appropriate person. If you are "cold calling" an employer, put a few words stating your objective or in the Subject line.
Include a cover letter in your email and address it to the recipient. "Here's my resume, please tell me if you have any jobs I might fill" is not a cover letter and does not encourage anyone to look at your resume. Whether or not you are responding to an advertised opening, the cover letter will introduce you, specify how you meet the needs of the employer, and will encourage the recipient to read your full resume.
Always send your resume in the body of the e-mail message, not as an attachment. Force someone to open an attachment just to get to know you and your 20 seconds are over before they even start. Put that resume right in the message so the recipient will see it as soon as he or she opens the message. This technique also helps you get through e-mail systems that reject all attachments in this day of rampant computer viruses.
Make sure your resume is properly formatted for e-mail. Plain text resumes not formatted for email can be unreadable, and unreadable resumes will most likely be deleted. Take the time to make sure it will look as good on all computers and in all email systems as it does on your screen. This means shorter text lines, spacing between sections, and text-based highlights.
If responding to an advertisement, read the application instructions and follow them. Failing to follow application instructions not only delays your resume, it labels you as someone who doesn't take direction well. It's the Trash bin for you. They might specify an email address and job code to use. They might even actually ask you to send your resume as a Word attachment. Whatever they want, you do.
Always remember: It only takes a second for someone to delete an e-mail message. Don't give them a reason to trash you! Think before you respond!
Check out our websites:
BestLogic Staffing www.BestLogicStaffing.com
AssembleMyResume.com www.AssembleMyResume.com
(Source www.rileyguide.com)
The fastest way to respond to Internet job listing is to e-mail your cover letter and resume to the person or organization indicated.
However, there are some simple rules to follow before hitting the "send" key. Look at it this way. You have 15 or 20 seconds to get someone's attention using email. In that time, you must convince the recipient to
open your email
read your message
not delete your email
Do it wrong, get into the wrong mail box, or make someone's job harder, and the best resume in the world from the most qualified person in the world will be trashed.
Getting your email opened, read, and actually considered really comes down to some simple rules.
Use the right Subject. "Seeking employment" is not an acceptable subject. If you are responding to an advertisement, use the job title or job code cited in the advertisement to make it easy for your e-mail to be recognized and routed to the appropriate person. If you are "cold calling" an employer, put a few words stating your objective or in the Subject line.
Include a cover letter in your email and address it to the recipient. "Here's my resume, please tell me if you have any jobs I might fill" is not a cover letter and does not encourage anyone to look at your resume. Whether or not you are responding to an advertised opening, the cover letter will introduce you, specify how you meet the needs of the employer, and will encourage the recipient to read your full resume.
Always send your resume in the body of the e-mail message, not as an attachment. Force someone to open an attachment just to get to know you and your 20 seconds are over before they even start. Put that resume right in the message so the recipient will see it as soon as he or she opens the message. This technique also helps you get through e-mail systems that reject all attachments in this day of rampant computer viruses.
Make sure your resume is properly formatted for e-mail. Plain text resumes not formatted for email can be unreadable, and unreadable resumes will most likely be deleted. Take the time to make sure it will look as good on all computers and in all email systems as it does on your screen. This means shorter text lines, spacing between sections, and text-based highlights.
If responding to an advertisement, read the application instructions and follow them. Failing to follow application instructions not only delays your resume, it labels you as someone who doesn't take direction well. It's the Trash bin for you. They might specify an email address and job code to use. They might even actually ask you to send your resume as a Word attachment. Whatever they want, you do.
Always remember: It only takes a second for someone to delete an e-mail message. Don't give them a reason to trash you! Think before you respond!
Check out our websites:
BestLogic Staffing www.BestLogicStaffing.com
AssembleMyResume.com www.AssembleMyResume.com
Monday, May 3, 2010
Always move from industry to a specific job search
Always Move From Industry to a Specific Job search
While searching for employers and opportunities, looking for job listings at several levels, and thinking about moving from industry and resources to specific sites and positions.
While searching for employers and opportunities, looking for job listings at several levels, and thinking about moving from industry and resources to specific sites and positions.
Tips
- Start with www.indeed.com and www.simplyhired. The following websites allow job seekers to find jobs posted on thousands of company career sites and job boards.
- Make sure to check out the employer’s website, even if you find that they’ve listed jobs in other locations. Job Boards are expensive and companies tend to list more job requirements on their own website.
- Target the online industry journals and newspapers for your profession.
- Scan through the appropriate professional web sites and journals to find job listings marketed to specific jobs, industries, and locations.
- See if you know anyone at the company where you are applying to. If you do, try networking with that individual.
- Even if you don’t know anyone there, maybe you are connected to someone through www.linkedin.com . Another great networking website. If you have a connection on linkedin.com, ask the person to introduce you to the hiring manager.
- Once you have applied to a position, make sure to follow up in a week or two. We always recommend that all our candidates keep track of all the places they have applied to and follow up with the person in charge.
- FYI… (Source www.CareerXRoads.com )
Referrals make up 27.3% of all external hires!
The Company Website represents 1 in 5 of all external hires (approx 20%).
Hires attributed to specific Job Boards (Monster.com, CareerBuilder and HotJobs) and generic Niche Boards represent only 12.3% of external hires.
Check out our websites: BestLogic Staffing – www.bestlogicstaffing.com
AssembleMyResume.com – www.assemblemyresume.com
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